September Reflections: Writing Update

Fatal Turn of the Tide has been out for a few days now, and there's a calm that settles in once a launch has happened rather than being something you're still bracing for. The pre-orders have gone out, and Brightcombe's third murder is finally somebody else's problem to solve. Mine has already moved on to the fourth.

Starting Before I'd Finished

I'll admit the timing looks tidier than it felt. Book 4 isn't a new idea I picked up once Book 3 was off my desk. The closing chapter of Fatal Turn of the Tide teased something I'd been sitting on since the developmental edit reshaped the ending, and I started outlining almost as soon as that chapter was locked. By the time the book went out into the world, the outline for its follow-up was already finished, and I'd written the opening chapters of the first draft.

A few chapters in is an odd place to talk about a book. There's not much to report yet in the way of drama, no cut darlings to confess to, no phone call scene I've been avoiding fixing. Mostly there's just the outline, a fairly detailed one this time, and the daily business of turning it into actual sentences.

Why the Outline Isn't the Whole Story

I've learned not to treat an outline as a contract. It tells me where the book is supposed to end up and roughly how it gets there, but it doesn't know what a scene will feel like once it's written, and neither do I until I've written it. If something reads flatter on the page than it did in my head, or a character says something in dialogue that suggests they'd never actually behave the way I'd planned for them to in chapter twelve, the outline is the thing that bends. I'd rather find that out now, three chapters in, than defend a plan I've stopped believing in for the sake of having stuck to it.

This is very much a first draft in the loosest sense of the term. Whatever I'm writing this month may not survive to the version that eventually reaches an editor, let alone a reader. That's the deal with early drafting. You write toward the shape you planned, and you stay honest enough to notice when the shape needs adjusting.

What I Can Actually Tell You

Spoilers are off the table this early, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What I can say is that this book takes Paula somewhere she hasn't had to manage without before. Brightcombe has always given her a kind of safety net, a place where she knows the streets and the people and, crucially, has her occupation to fall back on when things get uncomfortable. Book 4 removes that. She's away from home and away from the job that's usually given her both cover and confidence, and I'm curious to see how she holds up without either.

That's genuinely as much as I know how to say without giving something away I haven't earned the right to reveal yet.

Where This Leaves Things

There's a full first draft to write, then the editing process that Book 3 readers of this blog will know I don't take lightly. It'll be a while before there's more to share beyond progress. But the adventures continue, and for now, that's the update: three chapters in, an outline I trust but won't be precious about, and a character about to find out what she's like without her usual advantages.

I'll check back in as the draft takes shape.