The Prior's War update

The Prior Swore. I mean, The Prior's War.

My short-term plans for my next novel (working title, The Prior's War) have changed a little, so I thought I'd provide an update.

I first explored this world in the short story telling of Chandra's part in the emergence of a new deity, called Prior Enragement. That will be reworked to form part of the novel itself, with Chandra being one of my two point-of-view characters.

That story allowed me to get a feel for life inside the Priory, even if the characters need a little more work. However, the other main character in the novel lives outside the Priory in the town that surrounds it. She's called Anuja, and just happens to be Chandra's sister, not that they've seen each other since he joined the Priory.

While knee-deep in planning and world building, I realised that the best way to explore Priory town would be to write another short story. This will largely run in parallel to Chandra's and help explore the hardships of those who live outside the Priory.

It will follow a grieving Anuja after the loss of her mother. Not only grieving; she's angry. In lieu of anyone else to blame, she wants revenge on the Priory, and specifically, her privileged brother.

Things get interesting when she encounters others who feel the same way about the Priory. Even the god of poetry (as name-dropped in the first story) isn't happy. There's an unexpected appearance of another god too.

In some ways, unlike Prior Enragement, this is less of a standalone short story, more a setup for the main ongoing tale. However, it dovetails nicely with the first story, and will reveal that there was more going on there than you might have imagined. I bet you didn't notice the secret society :-)

It's got a working title of Down Around Priory Town. I'll share it here on my website as before, so you can see how things are shaping up. Again, a significantly reworked version will form part of the novel itself, likely the first three even-numbered chapters, with Prior Enragement forming the three opening odd-numbered ones.

That'll keep me busy for a bit, especially now I've finally put up my shelves.