Read it here. Pienya has come back to the fore in this arc. She’s been a persistent factor in the story but hasn’t always been the narrative focus. With the action back in the valley, it was inevitable that we’d start seeing things more from her point of view. The […]
We’re having some work done on our house at the moment. I mention this only because it’s created an environment least conducive to focused writing. It’s why I’m glad that I have a consistent but realistic writing goal each week, as it flexes quite nicely with this kind of upheaval. […]
You can read this chapter here. It’s always fun having to quickly sketch out minor supporting characters who are only going to appear in one or two chapter. They need to feel real and have purpose, but they’re ultimately there to aid the lead characters and the plot – in […]
I’ve slightly changed the way I’m writing the book, after two years of having a super-strict schedule. Up until this and the previous chapter, I would sit down on a Tuesday evening and write the entire chapter, then post it on Wattpad. Every week, without fail, unless I was significantly […]
Double-bill of chapter notes here, starting with ‘The Rules of Magic’. This chapter does what it says in the title, more-or-less. Practically speaking it is about clarifying some of the new systems that are in play (well, they’ve always been in play – the reader just didn’t know about them […]
Bit of a bumper session of The Mechanical Crown chapter notes today, as I’ve got a bit behind. Here goes: Waiting for Gods ‘Waiting for gods’. See what I did there? Anyway, this chapter is one of those pregnant pauses that TMC’s narrative design enables me to do now and […]
This chapter is called ‘Traversing neurons’, or: How to disguise an infodump. It was an especially challenging chapter (I feel like I’m saying that a lot these days) because not only did it have to do a lot of heavy-lifting of the plot and backstory, it also had to depict […]
Read it here! The very first chapter of The Mechanical Crown is called ‘Survival’, and introduced Tranton Seldon. That this chapter is called ‘Survivors’ and also is told from his perspective is not coincidental. Above all else, surviving is what Tranton Seldon does – whether he actually wants to or […]
I’m obsessed with finding the right tool for the job: my main source of stress is witnessing other people determinedly using inappropriate tools or processes, usually because they (incorrectly) think they don’t have time to fix it. When it comes to writing, my go-to tool for years has been Scrivener. […]
Read it here. Starting a new arc of the story is always a challenge. While The Mechanical Crown is a single, on-going, novelistic story, it’s also structured somewhat like a television show: therefore chapter 1 of arc 6 is like the first episode of a new season, and that’s often […]