I was eating dinner when the idea just popped into my head for Azaya’s book 3. I have not thought at all about it since I’m still finishing book 2, but it happened, and I thought I’d share the very early stages of how I write a book.
Being five books into the Charles Mandrake book series (that includes the Azaya series), I have a lot of material. Characters and world are well established, and I’ve settled into a style for the series, but starting a new book is the same in many ways whether you’re just starting out, or have a well established story. It all has to start from somewhere.
One of the biggest topics for the entire series is how the tribes were separated. There’s the side where Charles, Anna, Todd and the usual suspects have spent most of the pages dwelling. This includes Skelderheim and all six tribal lands you know of in the books. Then there are “The Hunters.” We only just learn about them in Azaya’s book 2, and they’re not the people everyone thought they were.
But how did the two factions get split in the first place?
That’s the thing that popped into my mind. How did this all start? Where did the misunderstandings happen? How is it only now that the Union between those separated happen?
And I knew immediately I would have to go back to Book 1 and review canon.
When you are this far into a series, and you really care about continuity and consistency, preparing for a book is doing the research as much as writing. I have the details of the separation all written out in Charles Mandrake and the Resonance Array, Chapter 14, “What Fear Remembers.”
That chapter, incidentally, started with this paragraph, then the rest of the chapter was written around it:
“If you mean to know,” he said, “then know. Only the Inventor and the Historians are permitted to tell our history. I am not one, but I keep their rooms with their scrolls and their books. I am answerable for what is said in here. I would ask you for your silence when you leave. I do see you need answers and help, so keep the silence asked, and you shall know.” — The Skelderheim Head Librarian
So I decided that book 3 will open while the festival on the steppe is still happening. A new stage has been constructed, and the Librarian and Eldrannar, the story-keeper of the Nannanta tribe share the two versions of the split of the tribes.
I am sorry to disappoint you if you were hoping for an excerpt or chapter here. I haven’t gone that far yet. I am writing this as the idea comes to me, and when I do write it, I won’t be staring at a blank page with writer’s block.
And there’s the other lesson.
I write books very quickly. Full books in half a month. Done in less than 30 days. The trick is that you never start with nothing, even when starting a new book. I have learned to always start with some phrase, paragraph, or scene that speaks to me, and then just write from there.