Integration

Having completed the first chapter of After The Flood at last which featured Carole Cantor, the first main protagonist, I was struggling to make headway on introducing my second protagonist and his timeline in the next chapter - a certain Kofi Albus. Anyone who's read The Stream will recognise that name, but things are not what they seem. I'll do a separate article in a few months explaining the link between The Stream and this novel, but that's for another time.

While driving down to visit my son at the weekend, my mind obviously started free-wheeling and I realised what the issue was. There was a key part of Kofi's story that didn't really fit thematically, and it was overly complicating the story I was trying to tell without adding anything. So that's now gone and replaced by something much more satisfying and in keeping with the rest of the novel. It's had the knock-on effect of simplifying Carole's story, which is what I was hoping as I can concentrate on the impact of events on her at a personal level in more detail.

The other realisation was that the removed thread of story from Kofi's timeline is actually worthy of expanding into a full novel itself - but with different characters, set later. It forms a perfect bridge between After The Flood and Long Division - which brings me to the primary reason for this posting.

I'd always intended After The Flood to be set in the same world as Long Division, as well as having thematic links. In fact, I've already dropped a hint to a physical link in its first chapter. With a third novel coming along set in the same universe, again with causal connections, that rounds things off nicely with a trilogy of connected novels. Each can be read perfectly well independently, without needing knowledge of the others, but there should be rich resonances spreading out when they come together.

A spin-off of this is that I've decided to rename After The Flood. Yes, yet again. Henceforth it will now be known as...cue fanfare...

Integration

OK, it wasn't that exciting, but like Long Division it's a title that works nicely on more than one level.

As I'm making announcements, the third novel in the trilogy will be known as...

Differentiation

What else could I call it? What's even better is that the name fits rather well to the outline story that's nagging to be told.

That just needs a snappy name to call this thematic collection of novels. Another working title to keep you all going, that again works fairly well thematically is...

The Irrational Trilogy

You'd never guess that my degree was in mathematics, would you?

Right, that's enough for today. I guess I ought to crack on and actually write them, rather than just changing the working title every month. That looks like 2019 nicely planned out for me.