Fractal Peace: Second half replan

I said the redraft of the first part of Fractal Peace wouldn't take long, and I was right. At this stage, it was mainly to settle my nerves that everything was coherent and tweak a couple of things to lead in the correct direction for my new plans for the novel's second half. I only added around 100 words overall.

I may be biased, but it feels pretty good.

Even better, the second half of the novel fell neatly into place along the way. I ended up splitting the rest of the book into three distinct parts, as there proved to be three phases of the story left to tell.

Part two, Cooperation, is the shortest, comprising only three chapters, as follows:

• Knowing the Unknown

• Uncovering the Aevoir

• Sharing the Vision

Beyond that, details will likely change, but I have split the remainder into chapters to be confident it's heading in the right direction. Part three, Separation, will be slightly longer with four chapters:

• Splitting the Team

• Accepting the Past

• Understanding the Aevoir

• Defending the Enemy

The final part, Coalition, ramps things up nicely across seven chapters:

• Restoring the Peace

• Subverting the Clan

• Infiltrating the Spies

• Taming the Hawk

• Surveilling the Snake

• Ending the War

• Expanding the Family

There's a good chance that the grand finale Ending the War might be rather long, in which case I'll split it into two or three chapters, maybe even moving it into a new part five. We'll see. That's a long way away.

From part two onwards, the novel will be told as a third-person narrative from five different perspectives. Typically there will be only one perspective per chapter, although sometimes there may be a couple in separate scenes – particularly in part two.

Polk will, of course, be one of these. Three members of the reconciliation session will also be featured, plus another character you only meet towards the end of part one. That feels right.

The cover's coming along. You may think I've been using the same image for the last several blog posts, but there have been subtle tweaks in each, like the warmth of the hue, the sharpness of the details, and the contrast of the ship. Nearly there. The text position needs tweaking next.

RIght. Time to crack on with part two, Well, after I've regrouted the bath in the morning. Life's full of fun and frivolity these days...