The Book is Done!

At the Queen’s Command is finished! The current draft comes in around175,000 words. In editing it probably won’t gain or lose from that total. Words that get clipped at the start will be put back in through the middle and end to clarify things. It’s amazing how much can be conveyed with an adjective here, a phrase there. Once you set the framework and get the readers moving with you, there’s momentum to the story. From that point a nudge here and there will keep things going on the right course.

To recap, for those who are new to the blog, At the Queen’s Command is the first novel in the Crown Colonies series. I’ve got a contract for three books, and each will come in at roughly this length. The series is a fantasy, set in a world similar to our own, but removed from it. I’ve been describing the setting as “Lord of the Mohicans.” Take Colonial America, add magick and dragons and other stuff, and you’re there. The names of the nations have been changed to protect the innocent, but the analogs are pretty easy to figure out.

Why do a close parallel instead of a pseudo-historical novel where magick is subtle? Well, dragons are not subtle. And it’s not that I don’t like doing the research. I do. I was trained as a historian and love doing research. I get to learn lots of cool stuff. What I want to avoid, however, is being bound up by historical events which aren’t going to contribute to the story I want to tell. Will there be a George Washington? A Benedict Arnold? Sure, if the story requires them. I really like creating the world, winding it up, and seeing how the characters deal with it. It becomes hard to do that if I am concerned that someone is going to blast me for having Gregor Washington do something that George would never do.

Regardless, I am really happy with this book—even though I have a bunch of work to do on it. It could have easily been twice this size. I didn’t cut things out, as much as just chose not to explore certain things in exquisite detail. That’s always a problem with books. One could easily follow a character for every waking second of his life and find something interesting in even the most boring parts of it. I just choose to leave boring out.

And for other stuff, I can do shorter work that I can serialize here to the website or sell in my store. I do plan to do both of those things. I deliberately made a big world with lots of characters so I could explore and play. I think that will be fun and it makes the world more realistic. While a lot of fiction boils down to one or two people saving the world, in reality there are lots more who contribute to that sort of endeavor. A quarter of a million men fought in the American Revolution on the side of the Colonies; so it was a lot more than George Washington and Alexander Hamilton kicking the British and Hessians around. (Not that either of them did all that much kicking around, truth be told.)

In any event, I am pleased with the book, and will be launching into revisions quickly. With any luck, the book can be your holiday reading next year!