Fractal Peace: Part Four Complete

And that's the first draft of part four of Fractal Peace complete too! What's that? The first draft of the novel must be finished? Nope! There are five parts now!

This story is continuing to surprise me. The characters keep having more to say than I expected, and there are a lot of moving pieces to get in the right place for the big finale. That's what part four ended up being about: getting the plan finalised and everything organised for the denouement. It's now called Coordination and comprises four chapters:

• Shuffling the Deck

• Playing for Time

• Preparing the Ground

• Positioning the Pieces

That was 17,200 words, but that's not the only thing added to the word count. During part four, I introduced a relatively important secondary character I'd mentioned before, but he needed to be seen in person earlier. It took me a while to work out how.

It was coupled with the realisation that I'd got the end of part one slightly wrong. There are two revelations there that drive the story in the second half of the novel. I made a big deal about one but left the other as an unsatisfactory "oh, by the way." As the latter has turned out to be more significant, I needed to do better. I knew how.

In the second half, the story is told from five separate points of view – one of whom didn't get their own "story" in the first half. They needed one, and it was the perfect place to introduce the other character and bring out the other revelation more satisfactorily. So, what was the last chapter in part one has been split into two, with another story slotted in the middle:

• Covert Control

• Alana Curst's Tale

• Combining Forces

That makes part one 69,200 words, and a total of 127,200 for the first four parts. It's going to be over 140,000 overall. That's a problem. But I might have a solution.

I may be writing two novels, not one. With the new ending, part one works perfectly as part one of a duology. It has its own narrative arc, which is concluded and perfectly sets up the issues to be resolved in the second book, comprising the current parts two to five. Each (in the first draft) would be around 70,000 words.

I'm not going to decide yet. Currently, it's too long for one novel, too short for two, but once I get feedback on my second draft, I'll know what to do. If the story comes across as too slow, I'll cut it down. If aspects need expansion, I'll turn it into two novels. I can already see where I'm tempted to add more, but I want to be sure it's needed first.

If I split it, the books may be called Fractal Peace and Fractal War, or maybe something like Fractal Peace: Reconciliation and Fractal Peace: Resolution. We'll see. It'll need another cover too, so I've started playing with ideas. It could be as simple as a colour change, like above.

First, I need to finish the first draft. Part five is called Revelation and will have four chapters (what's the odds it'll be five?):

• Deploying the Weapons

• Launching the Attack

• Revealing the Truth

• Keeping the Peace

Onwards.