I’ve previously posted writing notes for The Mechanical Crown over on Patreon. I’ve now moved away from Patreon, hence shifting notes over to my own blog. I’ll aim to transfer over notes on previous chapters over the coming weeks. Read this chapter here. The tensions continue to build. There’s an odd thing […]
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/598383314-the-mechanical-crown-tangled-echoes If the previous Arc 5 chapters were grim, ‘Tangled echoes’ descends into full-on despair. The aim here was to write something unrelenting, with a sense of rot and impending disaster permeating the whole thing. It’s punctuated somewhat by Fenris’ brief moments of optimism and hope, as […]
Titles are massively important and often irritatingly elusive. If you publish in a serialised, weekly format like me you need to figure out titles right up front, before you’ve written the whole story. You get more breathing space if you’re publishing traditionally, or self-publishing a completed, edited ebook, but at some point you still need to commit. (more…)
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/595011556-the-mechanical-crown-the-ruptured-world It’s been a good 10 chapters since we last got inside Kirya’s head and a lot has happened since then. She’s in the unenviable position of being someone who has always considered herself enlightneed and progressive, only to discover that she was deeply entrenched in the […]
I wake.
I glance at my notifications: there’s a bunch of responses already to the previous night’s chapter of The Mechanical Crown. (more…)
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/591638049-the-mechanical-crown-leading-the-lost Arc 5 is about pulling our characters down into the mire. In ‘Leading the lost’ we get to see a background character come to the fore, as Galisai takes over from the unfortunate Hachim. Galisai is someone who on the surface looks entirely capable and confident […]
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/588389929-the-mechanical-crown-late-warning-signs Arc 5 starts grim. It’s grim in the mountains, it’s grim back home. In ‘Late Warning Signs’ we find out just how far King Guijus has fallen. He’s a man with no clear motivation. He doesn’t know WHY he does what he does: he was born […]
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/585110656-the-mechanical-crown-tainted-promises Like I said, Arc 5 is about answering some of the questions that have been buzzing around this story from the very start. ‘Tainted promises’ isn’t explicit but it does have some pretty strong clues and indicators. For most of the time I’ve been writing TMC, […]
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/582167340-the-mechanical-crown-the-past-and-future-threat This may well be the longest chapter of the book so far, clocking in at 2,772 words. Given that my weekly target is 1,200, that’s quite a bumper edition. Not uncoincidentally, this chapter arrived a day later than usual. I wrote this while on a fmaily […]
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/578450305-the-mechanical-crown-crowjun The village of Crowjun has been in the plan from the very start. It featured briefly in the first draft of the story over a decade ago and always served as a creepy entry point to the mountains. Originally Crowjun was a deserted village at the […]