I’m going to stop fiddling with details in Book II. At this point, I’m tweaking things I’ve already tweaked.

I think I’ve addressed the lessons learned by Mage and Red Knight. There’s a trail of bodies. There’s a necromancer.

It’s time to revisit the outline for Book III and see what needs to be adjusted.

As a software engineer, design notes and the associated code and tests are all more-or-less kept together. The back-story and design considerations are as deliverable as the working application software.

As a non-fiction writer, there are three separate things: (1) the book’s text; (2) a body of code that supports the book, and includes its own internal tests to be sure it works; and — separately — (3) a few notes that are interesting side-bars or examples that didn’t make the cut.

For fiction… Wow. The volume of stuff I have that’s not properly part of the deliverable 300,000 words is amazing. Histories and vignettes and profiles. The maps. Three separate stories.

Scrivener provides a place for this. Currently, I have two — separate — scrivener projects for each book. I’m wondering if I should reconsider and have a single — massive — Scrivener project for the whole series.

What would you do?

  • Combine both books into a single, massive project, and use this to start the third book?

  • Start the third book as a fresh, new project, borrowing notes from the other two?

Until I finish gathering data and finally make up my mind, I’ve got a 34-chapter outline to elaborate into 136 scenes. I’ve got to thrash through the details leading Red Knight to renounce a vow. There are bigger issues, of course, necromancy and kingdoms are at stake. But. The Red Knight has to face an important question: What price are you willing to pay for victory? The Mage has already had a number of losses, they don’t end, of course.


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