Laura D Durham

Like, scary hard.

I have this series- No, let’s be more specific. It’s an anthology, really. Same set of characters with different short stories and novellas about them. A good friend and great editor has told me to package it into a novel. So, trying to figure out the lay of the book, I put each story on its own index card, then tried getting them into some sort of novel form.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

No.

The issue is that each short story grew the characters in some way, which is great, obviously. I’d have been falling down on the job if they hadn’t. But how do I cut and splice these into a coherent whole? I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to make them into two or three novels. Now I have the task of getting each book it’s own solid plot as well as the over-arching plot of the multiple books. The first book will be nearly all new material, never before seen. That’s exciting. And the major climatic point of the whole “series” will also be never-before-seen stuff. I have to admit it is really nice to be able to use all the ideas and partially written bits that had never had the chance to make it into the original. It’s more than nice. It’s exciting and fun and I’ll be happy that my unfinished story will get to be finished for real this time. Back in the before times, I burned out and we closed the site pretty quickly, so I could only give as soft a landing as I could for readers. This is going to be good. Really, really daunting. But, yeah, good.

And I’ve got a name for the island, so double-good!