Triptych First Draft: Steffan's Story Complete

That's the final facet of my triptych complete. Steffan's interlinking narrative that pulls Tomlin's and Katsu's stories into a (hopefully) coherent whole came together rather nicely, if quite differently to how I envisioned at the outset.

It was always the plan to reveal Steffan's backstory through a series of non-linear reminiscenses, interspersed with current day events, so it was no surprise that I shuffled them around. Some aspects fitted more naturally between specific Tomlin and Katsu chapters, and there were a few too many things that I ws leaving to the fnale. I also needed a couple of extra scenes. It was all rather fun.

I renamed a couple of characters along the way. Steffanovich and Malikov became Steffanov and Malikovich. The reason? Well, Steffanov's role in the story grew beyond my original plans, and, well, I was fed up with typing his longer name. Anyway, Malikovich is a better name for a baddie.

I particularly enjoyed revealing Ona Kentova/Magritte's backstory from Steffan's perspective, splitting it across several chapters. She became the beating heart of the story.

While I was writing Steffan's chapters, I re-edited the surrounding Katsu and Tomlin chapters to keep everything coherent. That took a bit longer, but should help greatly when I complete the second draft. They're already pretty close to where they should be. There's only a few wrinkles left to iron out.

Overall, I'm now at 95,800 words, which means I've added 33,000 words since completing Tomlin's story. Feels about right. Steffan has more chapters, but they're typically much snappier. I ended up with these chapter names, the first half of which were as planned, then everything went off the rails:

• The Bonds of Fealty

• The Bounds of Friendship

• The Root of Relationships

• The Oath of Fealty

• The Value of Breeding

• The Growth of Respect

• The Bonds of Sharing

• The Revelations of Youth

• The Avoidance of Duty

• The Cruelty of Conviction

• The Home of Strangers

• The Continuity of Governance

• The Balance of Powers

• The Meeting of Minds

So what's left? Now my three heroes are all in one place, they can solve all of Pantheon's problems in one fell swoop. That's likely to take four more chapters. Well, two chapters, a postscript, and an epilogue. What's the point of the postscript? Well, that would be a spoiler. Suffice it to say that it's not me writing the book, it's Steffan. Sort of. So that gives:

• The Pantheon Triptych

• Plan to Succeed

• Postscript – Becoming Rurik

• Epilogue – Acceptance

That's all for now. I've got a head of steam going, so I'm going to push ahead and get this first draft finished. If you're expecting an email from me, it'll arrive once I've finished! :-)