Fractal Peace: Second Draft Complete!

Much faster than expected, the second draft of Fractal Peace (and Fractal War) is complete. The changes I needed to make in the first half slipped in more easily than expected, requiring little more than extending a few scenes or tweaking the tone of a few conversations. The second half was more coherent than I feared and needed only minor adjustments.

There are a few other outstanding concerns, but I've no intention of addressing them until I get feedback on the current draft. I may be worrying about nothing, but even if I'm not, the feedback might need other changes that can be combined. I'm exceptionally happy with how things have ended up.

Other changes I made were slightly adjusting the end of part one, leading to a more detailed opening in part two. With those changes, I'm now convinced that this story works better as a duology. So, the first task at the beginning of the third draft will be to split it into two novels, Fractal Peace and Fractal War.

Currently, both novels sit at just over 78,000 words. They'll need to expand a little, but that will come with the changes after feedback in the third draft. I've never done a third draft without expanding the story by at least 5,000 words.

As you can see, I'm continuing to work on the cover for the second novel. As well as a colour change, I intend to add an overlay to hint at the ongoing conflict. It's not quite there yet, but it's close.

I've now sent the second draft off to my son for comment. That'll likely take a few weeks, as he's finishing off a draft too, but I won't be idle in the meantime.

I'll be carrying out a significant rework of my website, partly to prepare it for the Fractal novels and revamp how I handle my short stories. I will retire my Mutterings of Consequences collection, free to subscribers, and replace it with the more complete collection, Substrate Constraints. I'll keep it available as a paperback, but subscribers can get a free ebook edition.

I'm also going to create a dedicated short story page for each novel, and you'll be able to read them on all my website, along with an introduction. Basically, I'm trying to make everything more accessible. I may even write some more short stories, nothing to do with a novel, and add them. Somewhere.

I'll also be planning what comes next. To my surprise, the plot for two more novels in the Fractal Space world popped into my mind over the last few days. Fractal Peace and Fractal War tell a complete story, but a couple of crucial background details set up two sequels perfectly. Everson Polk's and Valerity Novak's stories are complete, giving a couple of my other characters a chance to take the lead role. Polk may make a passing appearance, but probably not.

The first of these sequels is Fractal Legacy. The story for this is clear in my mind, if not how I tell it yet. It'll be a challenge and stretch me again, which is why I'm keen to do it next when I had no intention of doing so a week ago. It'll be a self-contained novel, not a duology, but it won't wrap everything up. The fourth book, Fractal Heritage, will do that.

Well, that's 2024 planned. I better finish off 2023 first...