Fractal Legacy Redraft Complete

I predicted the redraft of Fractal Legacy would take one to two months, and I just completed it in less than two months. Phew. I really went all in on that.

This was one edit that took me a while to get into. The opening stretch dragged, not helped by rewriting about half the first chapters from scratch. There was nothing wrong with them, but textually, they didn't set things up as well as I wanted. Once they were complete, things got a lot easier.

I also introduced a new minor character, Shalk Perlo, a close friend of Laz Turka from his research collective. He was intended to help ground Laz and provide some context for things that happen in the finale, but he proved to be so much more. He helped me fix several other issues.

On my re-read, I noticed an annoying tendency I slipped into when starting some chapters from a character's POV that hadn't been featured for a while. I often summarised recent events from their perspective in an internal monologue. It was often unnecessary, so easily excised, but sometimes provided helpful context for what was to come. The best way of doing that was to add a small intro scene with fresh dialogue – for which Shalk was invaluable.

The middle section flew past once I'd set everything up in a way that made me happy, letting me simplify and clarify the stakes I'd previously managed to muddy along the way. That brought me to the big finale. That took a bit more effort, cutting out a layer of technology that came out of nowhere and replacing it with something I'd organically introduced along the way. Much better.

And then it was done. To my surprise, I'd significantly added to the word count. That's mainly due to the few new scenes and the replacement of terse infodump introductions with more satisfying – but longer – dialogue. It's now 133,600 words, my longest novel by a long way.

Perhaps it's the length the story needed to be to conclude the trilogy properly. Each novel has been longer than the last. It's undoubtedly significantly better for the changes.

So what's next? Well, I need a short break from it so I can come back with a fresh perspective. Luckily, I'm about to receive my son's next book for feedback, so I'll attack that next. Then I'll give Fractal Legacy one final re-read.

I'll be resisting making changes. All I'll do is fix typos, clumsy wording, and any inconsistencies I may have introduced during the edit. If there's anything I can chop, I will, but I'm not adding anything more!

Then, after getting a proof copy of the paperback to check, I'll be ready to publish the whole trilogy. Phew. It's been quite a ride.

If I get a spare few minutes, I'll look forward to my next novel, previously introduced as Confluent Fealty, although it now has a much better working title of The Pantheon Triptych. Watch this space...