I finally hit the flow state on the first draft of What Lies Between (The Divine Heretic Book 2). I’m happy to report that I’ve got about 25% of what’s looking like a very good book. 

I’ve written a little bit about the challenge posed by this series’ format. Unlike Tales of Ciel, which is organized into cohesive trilogies, I wanted The Divine Heretic to be more episodic, in keeping with the traditions of the sword and sorcery genre. Devoted readers who approach the series in publication order will definitely reap some narrative benefit, but each story is designed to stand on its own two covers. I think it’s a welcoming format that should broaden the tent of the series’ readership, but it also means writing each book is a little bit like starting from scratch.

After I got the first draft of Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies down, Ophiuchus Flinched and The Mark of Cain flowed out of me with relative ease. It wasn’t quite as breezy moving from Seven Days of Mercy to What Lies Between. The principal cast is the same from one book to the next, but the setting and most of the plot elements are entirely new. That novelty resulted in a few months of dithering over the initial outline and some underdeveloped themes that didn’t quite match the sequence of events. I scrapped two initial outlines before finding my way to the right inciting incident and a mix of worldbuilding that enriches the setting of Hebdomar without overwhelming the action of the plot. 

I’ve worked as a book editor and spent more hours in fiction workshops than is strictly healthy. I’ve seen some shit, and I can tell you that exposition is the biggest trap of epic fantasy. I’ve seen many manuscripts in their embryonic stage that get bogged down in the details of the setting. I get it. It’s easy to become enamored of your own worldbuilding, and the urge to share every detail of the universe you’ve constructed with your readers is strong. 

Writers must learn to resist this urge. Epic fantasy readers will tolerate a fair amount of exposition and travelogue, but no reader cares about the world as much as the writer does. In fact, readers only care about the world to the extent it impacts the characters. A first draft bloated with exposition can become part of a healthy process–as long as the writer returns and revises this content down with impunity. 

I made this mistake enough times in my own writing that I now appreciate why it’s so problematic. When I’m feeling masochistic, I return to some of my earliest manuscripts–books that will never see the light of day. These efforts served an important developmental function, but the cringe is strong. Twenty years into my writing, I’m better equipped to sidestep the Bog of Fantasy Exposition and launch right into a leaner, more effective draft. It’s something I’ll always have in the back of my mind, however, and I’m constantly stress testing each chapter to ensure the right balance between character, action, and exposition prevails.