Five Minus Two Makes Three

If you've been reading the blog for a while, or if you read back far enough, you'll see that Tales of the Blue Jade was originally supposed to be 5 books. That was my intention right from the time I wrote the first sentence of Ghost of Ping-Ling, and it stayed with me ever since. My initial reasoning was simple - every fantasy author writes a trilogy, so why not try and do something different? So when book 1 was accepted for publication I dutifully sat down and wrote out a 1 page synopsis for 4 more books. And, even if I say so myself, I thought the overall story looked pretty good.

Now it seems the plans must change. In my eagerness to be different I never for a moment considered things from the publisher's point of view - that agreeing to publish 5 books by a completely unknown and untried author was not exactly sound business sense. This would appear to be even more true given the current sad state of the world economy and the book business in general.

So, this last week the crunch came. I was asked by my publisher if I could see any way of cutting the series from 5 to 3. My initial thought was "no way." I was half way through book 3 and had never considered it as the final book, how could I change it without a complete rewrite? How could I suddenly turn around and end a series when the whole story hadn't even reached the main conflict?

What followed was a fairly stressful and dare I say depressing couple of days. Then I had one of those rare and wonderful "ah-ha" moments. I realised that by altering a plot point in one of the last chapters, or rather changing which character has something nasty happen to them (as well as who causes it), I could close off several sub-plots in a reasonably satisfying way. That didn't immediately turn book 3 into the conclusion, but it gave me confidence that the idea might be feasible, with a little more thought. And, I'm happy to say, idea followed idea, as small plot tweaks led to other plot tweaks, all of which gradually transformed the book from cliffhanger-ending-installment to (hopefully) satisfying-series-conclusion.

I think it's going to work out.

So, the long and the short is, Tales of the Blue Jade will now be a trilogy, with the final instalment due for publication in May 2013. I hope, though, to be able to dive back in to the world of Pangaea fairly soon after that, and maybe even find a way to incorporate the original ending into a new adventure. Pangaea is a very big world, and so far we've only scratched the surface.

Mapmaker's Apprentice Cover

This was sent to me today. I absolutely love it!

Anyone who remotely knows the story should have no problem guessing who's on the cover of book 3...

So Close Now I Can Smell It.

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post, and how much has happened in that time!

I've finished the submission draft of Mapmaker's Apprentice and sent it off to the publisher. After nearly a year and a half of pain and 10 drafts (one of them handwritten) I have to say I felt really happy with the final result (thank the stars). So now I'm in that nervous wait time while the editor and publisher read it.

I also finished the edits for Ghost of Ping-Ling and sent them back. Currently I have a beautiful white wad of what they call "pages" sitting on my desk. It's basically the book in its near to final layout form -- like the finished thing but minus a cover, so myself and the editor can pick out any final (hopefully minor) changes.

Speaking of the cover, a few days ago I saw the latest version. It's probably enough to say it's the cover I was dreaming of. I am utterly desperate to show it, but that probably doesn't make much sense until the final version, which hopefully won't be too far away. Watch this space!

Oh, and as a final update. The series now has a title: "Tales of the Blue Jade."