Making Maps

I have always loved maps. Even as a small child, I was fascinated by those picture books with town or city scenes where you could discover all those little details and where you could see the complete town or city and imagine walking around in it. That is probably why I became so fascinated with them in the first place. At some point, then, I also became fascinated with the process of map-making and began to try it out for myself.

Whenever I come across a map in a book, even today, I can’t help but be fascinated and study it for longer than I probably should. It also doesn’t matter whether it’s a world map, an area map, a city map, or a blueprint (so, essentially, a house map). I love imagining what it would be like to be there and see it all.
Because of my fascination with maps, I’ve not only tried to draw them myself — although I have —, I’ve also looked into programs to do that with over time. Early programs I used for that were the Arcane Mapper and the Dungeon Painter Studio. Both are pretty easy to use and I have enjoyed working with them, but especially the Arcane Mapper relies heavily (or did the last time I used it) on the user finding more assets elsewhere.
I did get my hands on CC3+ as part of a Humble Bundle as well and now, with a stronger computer than I had then, I have also been looking into it, but it’s a hard one to get a grip on. Very powerful, but also very complicated.
Finally, unfortunately too late to back it on Kickstarter, I came across Dungeon Alchemist, which now is my go-to for digital map-making (although I as a writer am not the actual target audience). Dungeon Alchemist not only comes with a lot of assets (and the team is still adding more, as the game is still officially in Early Access), but also with an AI that can populate rooms according to their function without you having to put down all of the assets (furniture, decorations, lights, etc.) by hand. You can still change things later (or re-populate the room or delete all assets) with a few clicks, which is great.
So, yes, at the moment, Dungeon Alchemist is my main go-to when I quickly want to do an area map or a blueprint — mostly a blueprint.

Yet, recently I’ve also started to watch videos on YouTube from a guy who does ‘easy’ maps for fantasy games and suchlike. He’s doing it all — world maps, area maps, city maps, and dungeon maps (so something extremely similar to a blueprint) — and he’s doing it all with easy steps that make it look simple.
I’ve been trying it out already and I find that he’s right about it being simple and good-looking at the same time. That is good for the future, as I plan on doing some maps once I get to projects like “Sword and Dagger” which are set in a fantasy world and might profit from having at least a map of the city they’re set in. Being able to do them myself is a must, as I’m still self-publishing with little money to spare for help.
While I’m not yet prepared to produce something I would put into a book (and this year I won’t really have to, as the books I’m publishing are set in varieties of the real world and don’t need specific maps), I have begun to make my own maps and I enjoy it, so there’s a few things I’ve learned already.

The first thing I’ve learned, from Dungeon Alchemist as well as my own maps, is that planning is important. It’s best to start a map with a list of rooms, buildings, or landmarks you want and need to include.
For one thing, that will give you a hint on the size, as if you have a list of fifteen rooms your mansion must absolutely have, you will definitely need a larger map than for a peasant’s hovel with two rooms and a little outside area.
In addition, it will also help to spread those around the map early and then see to how they can be connected or what can be put around them. With a city map, for instance, you will want to put down all the buildings the city needs to function for you (all buildings in your story, for instance, or building that are needed for your RPG campaign) first and then fill up the space between the different streets with other buildings to reach ‘city’ status for the map.
Knowing beforehand what you’ll have on a map (or blueprint) means finding it easier to place everything in a logical way, too. If I have a dining room in my mansion, it should be close to the kitchen. A morning room should have windows facing east (as that was the point of a morning room — using the sunlight as early as possible). Bedrooms are usually on the first floor and not on the ground floor of a building (first and second floor respectively for Americans … or people from northern Germany). Taverns in a fantasy city should usually be close to big streets with a lot of traffic and to areas where a lot of people live or work. Inns might be close by the city walls, either inside or outside, to provide easy lodgings for travellers upon arrival in the city.

The second thing I’ve learned is that simple decorations can make a map look far more lively. A few simple trees made of triangles or circles with one or two lines underneath for a trunk, for instance, make the map look much better and are easy enough to do. A few short lines for grass, either straight or at an angle, can show open grassland or swamps. A triangle that’s open on the bottom is a mountain. A thicker line is a river — map-making is not only something for excellent artists. When I’m thinking back on the maps I’ve found fascinating in the past, many of them were no more complicated than that, either. Certainly, the map of Middle-Earth that held my attention longer than the Lord of the Rings novels wasn’t made with anything more complex than simple drawings to show important landmarks, cities, or other places.
Even a simple map can enhance the pleasure of reading about a strange world by quite a bit. It’s also easier to reproduce for a book or even an e-book. I will incorporate some kind of map at some point in the future, I just need to work on my skills with drawing them for a little longer, either by hand or in CC3+.

Map-making can be an interesting addition to a writer’s skill, especially if you’re writing fantasy and there are places you can’t just look up. It will be very helpful to keep distances similar and have a good idea of what is where in your world. Whether you’re just sketching out a map on a piece of paper or go all out with specific software is down to your interests, needs, and means. Look into it and see if it is helpful for you.

The Danger of Misusing Franchises

Especially Disney, a huge company on the entertainment market, has proven in recent years that while they can buy successful franchises (or the movie rights to successful IPs), they often can’t use them in a way that pleases the fans. I wrote a whole blog post about Disney and Star Wars recently, so I’m not going to go back into that now. Instead, we’ll be talking about the disaster that was Disney’s “Artemis Fowl” movie as an example. We’re also going to talk about why it is so dangerous for companies to misuse or mishandle a franchise they’ve bought the rights to.

First, I’d like to start with a short description of the Artemis Fowl series, as written by Eoin Colfer, just so we’re all on the same page. The series started in 2001 with the publishing of the first novel, simply titled “Artemis Fowl”.
From the very start, the novelty aspect of the series was presented: the character it was named for and who was definitely the protagonist, too, was both a preteen (he’s eleven in the first novel) and a full-fledged, competent criminal mastermind. Artemis is the villain in the first book (and slowly becomes a hero over time). That was interesting enough to draw people into the story and it made coming back to later books (although I think that book six and seven are a bit redundant — you can jump from five to eight, the last book, without really missing out) more likely for them as well.
There are quite some other well-realised characters in the books (and some less well-realised ones, too). For a book aimed at preteens and teens, it’s very good. Even as an adult, I’ve found reading the books entertaining and Artemis especially held up to scrutiny for me.
So, for short: Artemis is a criminal mastermind who has found out that fairies are real and is now making use of that to fill his own pockets. There’s a lot more to the first book and you might want to read it, but that’s what you essentially need to know to understand the story’s novelty.

Now for the Disney movie. When the casting decisions went public, quite some fans were already negatively surprised because two characters especially, Butler and Holly Short, were clearly cast well against their description in the book. When the first trailer was released, the fans were completely annoyed because it was all-too-obvious that this had little, if anything, to do with their beloved characters.
What about the casting, then?
Well, in the novels, Holly Short, an elf with the Lower Elements Police who meets with Artemis more than once, is several times clearly described as having nut-brown skin, brown hair, and hazel eyes. Now, fairies probably don’t have the same take on ethnicity as humans do and there’s no suggestion that Holly is considered a fairy of colour with all that includes, but the fact remains that an actress playing her should be a woman of colour. Instead, her actress is a fair-skinned, fair-haired Irish girl.
With Butler, the opposite is true. At several points in the series, Butler pretends to be a close relative of his charge (as he’s Artemis’ butler and bodyguard) — a father or an uncle. That wouldn’t work (especially with father/son) if they didn’t at least share a general colouring. Butler is described as shaving his head, but his brows are still dark and his eyes are blue — a similar blue to Artemis’ who is also described as black-haired in addition to being very pale (as he’s rarely out and about). There are suggestions (such as his given name Domovoi) that Butler might be Slavic in looks and his younger sister Juliet is described as blond-haired and blue-eyed as well. The Butler clan doesn’t seem to have African roots. In addition, they’ve been serving the Fowl clan since the fifteenth century, which would leave a bad taste if they were of African descent. Yet, both Butler and Juliet have been cast as black.
Then there’s the gender-switch for Commander Root. In the novels, Julius Root is the stereotypical rough superior who pushes his team to be the best they can be. He’s called ‘Beetroot’ by the officers under his command for his tendency to get angry quickly, too. Casting Root as a woman invalidates Holly Short’s arc in the first book, which is that she is the first female member of the recon unit — a ‘test case’ who will decide whether other female officers will be able to join later. With the commander of the recon unit being a woman, Holly clearly is no longer the first. In addition, the gender-switched casting doesn’t add to the story at all.

Yet, the more problematic change made for the movie was to make Artemis not a criminal mastermind any longer. Artemis is a nice guy in this one who is in no way, shape, or form different from other ‘preteen fantasy movie leads’ out there.
He’s also quite sporty and physical, which is the complete opposite of Book Artemis — several times throughout the series, Artemis is in considerable danger because he’s not a physical person and Butler is elsewhere and can’t help him. If Book Artemis tried to surf, he’d drown — but he wouldn’t go surfing in the first place, so it’s fine.
The big novelty of the Artemis Fowl series, as mentioned, was that Artemis was a competent criminal mastermind as early as eleven years old. That he could take over the crime empire of the family when his father went missing even earlier. That he is, without a speck of doubt, the villain in the first novel, yet he gets away with it. The first book establishes how criminal and villainous he is so the following books can slowly lead him towards a more heroic approach. Imagine how shocked the fans were to find him a nice, normal boy who will first have to learn to be a villain.
Then there’s the fact that Artemis’ mother Angeline is dead in the movie (she’s a major influence on his morals in the books) and his father is still around (to get kidnapped, something which doesn’t happen in the first novel) and knows that fairies exist. What is it with Disney and dead mothers, really?

With all of those changes made, the first and the second book squeezed together into one movie which did no services to either of the books, and with other strange choices (like casting children as most background fairies in the movie to save on computer effects), the movie wasn’t popular with the fans. For everyone else, it came down to being a pretty average urban fantasy movie aimed at preteens and teens, which also didn’t make it something everyone wanted to see.
That is the biggest danger for everyone who tries to adapt someone else’s intellectual property — if you do not understand what you are working with, you’re likely to do something which completely goes again established characteristics, traits, or canon in general. Disney fell into that trap with the Star Wars franchise and, clearly, also with Artemis Fowl. It seems as if they don’t even go far enough as to have someone read and summarise the books or watch all of the movies at least. Not to mention that they don’t seem to have anyone on the board which makes the decisions who is an outright fan…

The lesson to be learned from this, I imagine, is that you should take the time to understand a franchise before you work with it. What comes natural to writers of fan-fiction should also be common sense to people who want to profit from the fans of a franchise. If you want to pull in the fans, you have to deliver on what they love. It’s also not just the old fans — fans of your version of the franchise will be annoyed as soon as they go into older parts of it and see how different it used to be.

Internal Story Arcs

If you look into writing advice, whether in a video or in a book or on a website, you will find a lot of mentions of the ‘internal arc’ for your main character (it’s also often referred to as ‘character arc’). It’s a necessity, don’t you know? Yet, what is that elusive ‘internal arc?’ And is it really so necessary?

Let’s look at the second question first. Is an internal arc always necessary?
Well, no. Some types of stories don’t really need such an arc. In pulp stories, superhero comics, or comedic series, there usually isn’t a lasting change to the recurring characters and especially not to the main character or characters.
While in some stories characters might gain new skills, they usually are not asked to overcome a flaw (which is what an internal arc is usually all about). They are good at what they do already, they don’t really need to improve. This goes both for pulp heroes and for comic book heroes.
Similarly, many series, especially those of a more comedic bent, rely heavily on resetting the situation again between episodes, which means that no development of a character will be lasting. There might be changes in relationships (such as marriages or breakups) which last, but the characters usually don’t grow out of flaws — especially as flaws are usually chosen to allow for comedy to happen.
All of these stories need an external arc — something must be happening and the main character or characters must be involved in it. Stories without an external arc are highly experimental and usually don’t find a lot of fans. Stories without an internal arc might be looked down upon by the ‘high literature’ crowd, but they can still be very successful. So, no, depending on what you write, you might not need an internal arc at all.

If you want or need an internal arc, though, what is it about?
Internal or character arcs are almost always about a main character (rarely a supporting one) overcoming a ‘character flaw.’ ‘Flaws’ in this context are normally negative personality traits, more rarely negative habits. Characters are flawed for being shy, aggressive, arrogant, selfish, etc. They need to overcome that trait not only for their own betterment, but also in order to gain something they will need in the climax of the story — often reinforcements, sometimes information or a specific object.
It’s important not to overdo the flaw in the first place. A character who flies off the handle quickly should not beat people within an inch of their lives. They might bruise someone or cause damage to furniture etc. instead. While that is still bad enough, it is not something the audience will find unforgiving in the main character. During the story, the character then has to understand what their flaw is and has to let go of it. That can be through being told about it or through bad consequences. In the end, overcoming the flaw should pay off in some way during the climax.
For example, Han Solo’s flaw in “A New Hope” is his selfishness — he only helps for money (hence Luke’s ‘she’s rich’ line to get Han to help him rescue Leia). When he comes back in the end and saves Luke from Darth Vader, he is overcoming that selfishness and is putting his friends before his own safety (as he’s not paying off his debt to Jabba which will come back to bite him later).

One thing you should keep in mind when you’re choosing your internal arc, though, is that it should always connect with the main external one. For instance, if your internal arc is focused on your main character overcoming their shyness, then the climax of the story might include something like speaking in front of a large crowd (where shyness is definitely a problem), not defeating an enemy in combat while nobody else is present (you can be shy and a masterful fighter at the same time).
The main external arc will always be the more important one in any story, every other arc has to feed into it at some point in some way. Overcoming a flaw can help the main character overcoming a roadblock, it can give them an ally they haven’t had before, or it can gain them an object or information they need to win in the end. So if your main character’s internal arc doesn’t help with the external one in any way, it could be considered superfluous.

Internal arcs are an excellent way to give more depth to the story and add another reason for tension as well. By connecting overcoming a flaw to the things a main character needs to do in order to win the day, there is another area where problems can and most certainly will occur.
It also depends a lot on what kind of story you’re writing whether or not an internal arc can enrich the story. In an adventure story, most of the threats which can push tension are external — henchmen who come for your main character, collapsing bridges, or statues coming to life, for instance. In a romance story, on the other hand, it can matter a lot whether or not your main character can overcome their shyness or the love interest can grow out of their arrogant behaviour.
The more a story is focused on the people in it, the more useful and important can an internal arc be. The more a story is focused on action, the less useful and important an internal arc will normally be. That doesn’t mean that an action story can’t have an internal arc and that a romance story with a purely external arc can never work, but generally you will pay more attention to people’s internal struggles when their emotions matter for the story as well.

So to put it all together: an internal arc is not quite as important as an external arc for a story, but a lot of stories profit from having an internal arc or character arc at least for the main character. An internal arc should support the main external arc of the story, as this one will always be the more important one. Do not overdo the character flaw for your main character — despite being flawed, they must still be likeable or at least act in an acceptable manner. If an internal arc can add additional depth and tension to a story, you should have it in there, if not, you can just as well do without it and invest more energy into the external arcs.

Getting Back to Work

January is almost over now and it’s been the month during which I have eased out of the sabbatical I took and back into regular writing. I decided to go with another project than the one I’d worked on before I took my sabbatical and I’ve chosen the third book of the Isadora Goode series — “The Misadventures of Isadora Goode” — to ease back into writing. It was a good choice, as I really needed to get back into the flow and the novellas were easier to commit to than a novel might have been.

I’m glad I took that sabbatical in the first place, though. I had run myself ragged, always trying to keep up with the number of projects I’d plotted already and with the things happening to me and my family in real life.
The two months of respite gave me the chance to recharge, just write for fun, remind myself why I love writing so much. I also was productive in other ways, returning to crocheting, something I haven’t done for years now, taking a more relaxed approach to decorations in my journals, just doing a bit of this and a bit of that.
I’ve been reading, too, plotting new stories, and just thinking my life and my work in general through. I will not let it get to the point I was at in November again, that much is for sure.
It’s not that I’ve given up on writing completely, either. I’ve finished two Star Wars fan fictions which I really love. I’ve written some blog posts. I just haven’t written anything strictly ‘for work’ and I feel much better because of it.

Yet, with two months completely off work, I have also grown a little lazy. To a degree, it’s fine. It was something I wanted to do when taking my sabbatical.
It also means, though, that I had to ease into a regular writing habit again. I needed to find my stride again, get used to sitting down for several hours a day to write day by day, at least Monday to Friday. It’s not easy to go from ‘I write if I feel like it’ to ‘I have to write X chapters this week to make my quota.’ Yet, that is what I had to do.
During January, that is what I have done. As mentioned, I chose a novella set to get back into work, because for one thing a novella is normally around eight to twelve chapters if I plan it — so I can always see the end of the work. I also didn’t push as hard as I might have, giving myself a little leeway. It’s dangerous, as I have to make sure that ‘a day without work’ or ‘some days without work’ don’t turn into ‘months without work,’ but it’s also necessary. Not giving myself that leeway has led to my almost-burn-out in the first place, after all.

Now, I’m more or less up to par. There will always be ups and downs, times when I get a lot done and times when I struggle with just getting the bare minimum of my work finished.
January was a bit of this and a bit of that for me. I did not finish “The Misadventures of Isadora Goode”, as I had planned and hoped to, but I got two of the three novellas done — the last, longest one is going to be finished after I’ve done the editing of “The Necromancer’s Notebook” this month. I won’t even have to change the project file, as “The Necromancer’s Notebook” is volume two in the “Isadora Goode” series.
Despite not writing as often and as much as I wanted to, I’ve also almost met my quota for the month — on months where I don’t edit, the quota is 50,000 words. I have managed to get 48,000 words done, despite only easing back in. I’ll be honest — on quite some months, I’m actually well above my quota. Almost meeting it on a month where I’m just getting back into things was good enough for me.

I’ve also been thinking about why I wrote my first short-story collection very quickly when I decided to try the format out, but have struggled with both “DI Colin Rook” and “Scholomancer” (which is not yet done).
I think I know where the problem lies and how I might solve it now. The first collection (which will be out at the end of May as “The Lady of the Dead”) has a rising threat. The tension is pushed throughout the five stories and a common problem and enemy connects them. There are five different things which happen to Joanna and Alice, but there is the same enemy behind them. “DI Colin Rook” and “Scholomancer” are just a collection of stuff which happens without that person behind it all, without that plot-thread going through all of it. They are not connected.
I will go back to “Scholomancer” and work the stories over, connect them in a way (“DI Colin Rook” is written and it’s fine as it is — yet, who knows? I might actually change a few  things in the edit…). That might make it easier for me to keep writing. The other story collections I’ve plotted will be worked over, too (although “Hunters”, “The Crew”, and “Fallen Angel” all have more of a through-line already). More to do, but it’s fine.

It should be clear from this post so far that my sabbatical has been a success. I have gotten the rest I so direly needed. I have been able to think through something which I had a problem with. I have reminded myself of why I enjoy writing so much. I have gotten back to writing, too. The way ahead is clear for me — February is about editing and releasing “The Necromancer’s Notebook”. After I have prepared the release, I might do more writing on “The Misadventures of Isadora Goode”. I am much more motivated to write now (even to edit, although I don’t like editing) and I am looking forward to writing again. That hasn’t always been the case a few months ago.

My Own Trilogy

While I was plotting last week’s blog post about the failure of Disney with the Star Wars franchise, I was thinking that I would be able to write something better as a sequel trilogy. A true trilogy for one thing, but also something that would treat the old heroes with the respect they deserve while also making room for the new ones. The thought stuck with me and so I sat down and began to write down some basics for such a trilogy. Then I wrote down more. Then I plotted three novellas. The only thing still left to do now would be to write them — something I could do in three to four weeks, if I wanted to.

As had been mentioned by J. J. Abrams, the Sequel Trilogy as approved of by Disney was based around the structure of the Original Trilogy. So I wanted to start out with a structure similar to these three movies, too. I basically wanted to rely on the same basics than they had and see if I could come out of it with something better.
I wrote down a list of eight story beats per story I wanted to have — eight specific things which should happen in the story. Obviously, the first story would have to introduce the new heroes (and the secondary villain — never start out a multi-part story with the big bad!) and give us a look at the old ones. It would have to establish the plot arc (or arcs) I wanted to run through the trilogy. It also should have one part where the heroes went up against the villain, but had to flee (the Death Star escape, if you will) and then it should have a final confrontation in which they’d beat the villain (the Death Star run), but the villain was to survive (like Darth Vader did).
For the second story, I was looking at the inverted form of “The Empire Strikes Back” (which is defined by Luke making one wrong decision after the next) and decided that I wanted to split the heroes up after an early fight and have them fare less well on their own than they were faring together. I also wanted two of them captured with the third getting into trouble upon saving them. One hero would remain in captivity at the end, setting up the third story. This is also pretty close to “The Empire Strikes Back”, although it’s less based on bad choices.
Finally, I needed to start off the third story with the two free heroes coming to the imprisoned one’s help. I needed to give information on the secondary villain and the big master-plan, get him out of the way, and have the heroes face their enemies again in a rather hopeless setting. They’d win and there would be some celebration.
All of that was close to the Original Trilogy and so it would fit with the ‘we’ve based the sequels off the originals’ part of the Disney Trilogy.

Next were the basics for the heroes, the villains, the setting, and possible problems to throw at the heroes.
Starting out with the new heroes, I was going to use Rey, Finn, and Poe. I had to make a few adjustments, though, so they would work with my possible stories. Instead of being an orphan surviving alone on yet another desert planet (honestly, how many does the galaxy far, far away have?), she is now an orphan found by a Jedi and trained at the Academy (which exists). This naturally brought her together with Luke as her teacher and mentor, giving him a place in the story. Finn very much was to be a stormtrooper trained from childhood as in the Sequel Trilogy, but his latent Force-sensitivity was now a plot point, as it is what brings him into conflict with the villains. Poe came in as a pilot ordered to fly Rey around as she looks into strange things happening in the Imperial sectors. He has a problem with taking orders from someone less experienced than he, which brings him into conflict with Rey.
Poe, to take it off from there, would be under Leia’s command, so she was accounted for, too. I gave Han the job of moving among the freelance pilots and smugglers to gather information, so he’d be travelling a lot — and pick up Finn on his trip, so that he could bring Finn together with Poe and Rey.
For the villains, I had more work to do. I scrapped Ben Solo right away, but decided to take a leaf out of Disney’s book and use Jacen Solo as my jump-off point. Ben became Bail — as it wasn’t unlikely that Leia would name a child for her own adopted parents and would thus call a son ‘Bail’ after her adopted father. Yet, he didn’t fall the way Ben Solo did, but rather the way of Jacen Solo, seeking knowledge, then seeking power, then falling to the Dark Side.
For the Big Bad, I’d already settled on a cousin or aunt of Rey, another grandchild or child of the Emperor. I went with grandchild, although she is considerably older than Rey. To make sure there wouldn’t be a question like ‘why is there only one of them?,’ I would have her be after all descendants of the Emperor to ensure nobody could take her place — hence Rey’s parents died.
Setting, as mentioned, was a split galaxy — a republic and an empire — with the empire getting more aggressive again. As problems, I put down Rey’s confidence and lack of experience, Poe’s problem with taking orders from all but a selected few and asking for help, and Finn not being trusted because of his past.

When I started plotting, things got a little darker. At the back of my mind, I still had the principle of the Sith stalker — a dying Sith being surgically turned into a creature somewhere between human and non-human, between life and death, and then sent out to find and eliminate Jedi. To a degree, one can argue that Darth Vader was turned into a Sith stalker himself, as he was turned while awake and feeling all the pain.
For me, that was where Finn’s possible Force connection came in. I came up with the idea that my villains would turn dead stormtroopers with latent Force connections into stalkers. To get away without be hunted immediately, Finn would exchange IDs with a dead comrade, making the secondary villain take back the wrong body — this way Finn’s desertion would be discovered. Naturally, the villain would be after him. That made him the person to be captured and kept in story two and three.
None of my villains, by the way, is to be redeemed. Bail did too much dark stuff to be redeemed, although he gets a punishment towards the end which will give him some good karma back. Needless to say that Rey’s cousin won’t be redeemed either, but defeated for good.

I had a lot of fun plotting the three novellas and I think they would make a better trilogy, being a trilogy in the first place and not being all over the place or only trying to fit in a lot of different characters from the past stories. I know Disney would never do it, though, even if I write it — the Sith stalkers are already far too dark for anything they’d want. After all, they’re raised from the dead to make for a hard-to-destroy army. So I sneaked in a male-male relationship which Disney also wouldn’t want. Yet, I did have fun, the stories might be written one day and I might finally make an AO3 account and put it all out for others to read.

The Failure of Disney

When the Sequel Trilogy was announced, shortly after Disney had bought Lucasfilm Ltd, fans were all too happy. Finally, the story of the galaxy far, far away would continue! What we got, though, was not something to be happy about. How could Disney take over a multi-million-dollar franchise and destroy any goodwill they had with the fans in such a short time? Where was the failure?

The short answer is that Disney did not understand the franchise they’d just bought.
They saw the money Lucasfilm made with Star Wars through the TV series, the DVDs, Blue-Rays, and downloads, the books, the comics, the action figures, and the licences and assumed that they could make just as much, if not more. And they could have, don’t get me wrong. The exchange in ownership of the IP didn’t cause the fans to grow angry. The announcement of new movies was met with happiness. The movies killed that happiness effectively. Now, the TV series are working on restoring it.
Why did the movies (except for “Rogue One”) kill the happiness? Because they reviled the old heroes, gave us a rehash of the Original Trilogy (OT from here on), and are not a trilogy, despite claiming to be one. A trilogy has at least one plot arc running through all three movies, books, etc. The Sequel Trilogy (ST from now on) lacks that. Rey’s parents are the closest it gets to having one, but that topic is tossed back and forth between the two directors and ends with Rey being a niece of sorts (?) to Palpatine. (As she’s the daughter of his good clone, she’s not really his granddaughter, as a clone should be more akin to an artificial twin brother, so she’d be his niece. Relationships in Star Wars are complicated, what can you do?)
The producers of the ST had no idea what the franchise really was about, they not only dismissed what is now Legends (that was to be expected, to be honest, because it would be impossible to catch the casual movie-goer up on what happens in the roundabout thirty to forty years which have to have passed — imagine putting all of that into the title crawl, it would make the crawl two hours on its own!), they also didn’t really catch up on the canon material. They didn’t understand the characters and neither did the directors and screenwriters they chose! You want angry fans? Because that’s how you get angry fans.

The story itself also has loads of problems, though.
There is no way that the war between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance could have lasted for over forty or so years. The Legends’ solution (a split galaxy) works, as the Empire might be able to hold on to some worlds and keep them under control — others might even prefer the status they gained under the Empire. Yet, thinking that forty years of civil war would not at one point end in a balance of power is weird. Yes, I know Europe had a hundred-year war, but at that time, Europe didn’t have modern weaponry and equipment — and the galaxy far, far away has even better military equipment than that. I (and most other fans) can buy into a ‘cold war’ idea, but not into what Disney gave us.
There also was no reason to revile the heroes of the OT like that. Their character development was essentially undone and they were shown in ways which in no way fit with their character traits. Han has learned not to be all about his own advantages (even already by the end of “A New Hope”), so why is he back to being a smuggler and con-man (something he wasn’t before) all in a sudden? I can buy that his and Leia’s relationship might not have worked out — especially with their son turning to the Dark Side —, but that doesn’t mean he has to become a worse scoundrel than he was before. And then there’s Luke. Honestly, there is no way in Hell Luke would have resorted to trying to kill his own teenage nephew while he was sleeping, no matter what said nephew had done! Luke is defined by a handful of traits and the strongest are his compassion and his kindness. There’s no way he’d resort to cold-blooded murder (even though we all know a teenager can easily make you contemplate murder…).
Instead of reviling them and then killing them off, another easy solution would have been for them to be mentors or superiors in a way. At the age they were in the story, they’d have learned the lesson of leaving adventures to the younger ones and stay in the background for assistance. No reason to go out and fight evil on your own if there’s a group of trained Jedi you’ve got at your fingertips — and a Jedi should see the wisdom in that…

I also love the Emperor as much as the next Star Wars fan (or a bit more, I’m the ‘I love the villains’ type of person) and I certainly appreciate every time Ian McDiarmid steps forward and dons the robes again. That man has breathed a lot of life into what could have become a caricature otherwise. Well, to a degree the Emperor is a caricature, but a great one. Best villain ever. Yet, bringing him back for the end of the ST was not a good move. I am aware that Legends did that, too, with the “Dark Empire” story line. That one, however, was set about ten years after “A New Hope” — it seems much more likely that a clone would have stayed hidden that long. Doing it forty years later is over the top and not a good idea at all.
I’m also not going into the whole Ben Solo topic. I’d go into a rave that starts with Leia never calling her son ‘Ben’ as she knew Obi-Wan under his real name and ends with Ben being a failure as a Dark Lord — unlike the Legends character he’s modelled on: Darth Caedus aka Jacen Solo. Enough said about him.
Instead, why not use a child or grandchild of the Emperor for that? In Legends, there was a host of descendants of Palpatine around, although most of them lacked the hunger for power which drove him all the way to the Emperor position. Having a handful in canon would be easy enough. Rey is one of his descendants, why not put up a Big Bad who is related to her? That could have cut out Snoke completely and given us a strong enemy she has to prepare herself to fight. Or made Snoke a smokescreen the real ruler hides behind — also nice.

Instead, Disney gave us three disjointed movies which are definitely not a trilogy with two directors going at each other over their decisions. The Prequels gave us Jar Jar Binks, which was worse enough, but the way the ST deconstructs all that is fun and good about Star Wars is by far worse than that. Jar Jar is one character that could easily be cut out. The ST is a catastrophe that should never have happened. Disney didn’t understand the franchise and didn’t want to invest in directors who did. Now they are doing an about turn by relying on directors with prior experience for their Disney+ series — and it works. Hopefully, they’ll one day banish the ST into another ‘alternate universe,’ as they did with the Extended Universe (now Legends), and make a proper new trilogy.

Scrivener Experiences

It’s been well over a year since I switched from MS Word to Scrivener now, so I think it is a good idea to talk about my experiences, about what I think of the program now that I’ve used it for quite a while — and for everything from plotting to writing to editing to doing my blog posts. Yes, this very blog post, like all for the last year, was written in Scrivener. This should, of course, already give you an inkling of how I feel about it. I would hardly have stayed with the program for so long if I hated it. I still do have Word, I could always go back — but I won’t.

Before I dip into the meat of it, though, I want to start with an aspect which has nothing to do with the program as a such, but all with the mindset of the people behind it: the 30-day trial period. A lot of programs have something like this, giving you the chance to try out the full program, not a limited demo version, for thirty days before you need to decide whether to buy or not. Yet, the makers of Scrivener go the extra mile here.
Generally, a 30-day trial works like this: you install the program and this is day one of the trial period. Every day which ticks by lowers the number of days left by one, no matter whether or not you get to make use of the program. Say you install the program on a Monday, then this Monday is day one. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you’re doing other things and have no time to work with the program. On Thursday, you get around to it again — and three days have ticked by, you are now on the fourth day of the trial. Depending on how your life is going, half or more of the trial period might tick by without you being able to really try out the program.
For Scrivener (and the whiteboard software Scapple by the same people), it’s different. You install the program and this is day one like in the case above, but it changes afterwards. The day-counter of the trial only counts days on which you have actually opened the program. In the example above, it would work like this: You install Scrivener on a Monday, so Monday is the first day of the trial and there’s twenty-nine left. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you don’t get around to opening Scrivener because there’s a lot of other things to do. On Thursday, you open Scrivener and you’re on day two of your trial period with twenty-eight more ahead. With Scrivener, you get thirty actual days of trial — not that I needed them, I bought the program after trying it out for about two days. Yet, if you tried it out next NaNoWriMo, for instance, you could do your project in Scrivener without buying it at all.

I also love the way the projects are organised in Scrivener. Instead of one big file that could become corrupted (I did originally change to Scrivener because some of my projects in Campfire Pro had become corrupted), you have a folder with sub-folders and files to work with. All files are in an .rtf format which means they can be read with every kind of editor, even the simple Windows notepad, so even if the Scrivener file should become corrupted (not that it happened to me in over a year now, even with the big ones), you can still access your files and can incorporate them easily in a new project if you wish.
In addition, you get a backup whenever you want to, as you can set both when a backup is made (upon opening, upon closing, or at a certain time of the day) and how many backups you want to keep. You can even send your backups into a cloud save automatically which really keeps them safe, of course. Then there’s the fact that the program automatically saves your project after changes are made. You can set how long after you stopped typing this happens, but it always will and that means no thinking about ‘when did I last save my stuff?’
I also love how all of your files and folders are available within the program through the binder space. It’s so easy to switch between different scenes, to bring up notes or research material you have gathered, to fill out the bible I keep for each of my series like that. The binder gives me the chance to see everything at a glance while the file-and-folder structure allows for me to split up my stories into scenes which are easily found, read, or moved when need be. It’s much better than having to work with one large file in Word or having to keep several windows open at the same time because I need to reference different parts of a project.

One of my more recent discoveries is the composition mode which I have ignored for most of the year, working in the regular Scrivener window. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind, but having the composition mode where everything else is pushed in the background and you have a large space to write in with the typewriter mode automatically activated is much better.
Composition mode can be started and ended by pressing a key, although I usually use the icon in the Scrivener window to start it — yet, I usually end it with the escape key. Dropping into and out of it, therefore, is really, really simple and fast.
I’ve found this a pleasant way to write, especially long passages, such as full scenes and chapters. For short writing, or writing while I have to consult my notes a lot, I use the regular window — most of the time, that is. Composition mode helps me focus and makes doing my writing much easier.

Compiling in Scrivener isn’t easy. That is a simple fact. The compiler is a powerful tool which can create files in a lot of different formats and powerful tools are rarely easy to use.
I’ve needed my time to get more familiar with the compiler and I still have situations in which my files (normally .epub) don’t come out the way I want them to. It has helped, however, that I have made myself my own release format which is saved as a general format and also as an external file I can put up again, should I be forced to move between computers again (as I will be in a couple of years, I guess, but not any time soon).
By now, most of the time I get what I want when I compile a story. I still check them with the Kindle Viewer to see if they’ve been formatted the way I wanted them to, but I rarely see surprises.

Overall, I’m glad I’ve switched to Scrivener. It was hard work to bring all my projects to the new program, but it has paid off. I have found a program which is better suited for my work. That doesn’t mean that Word is a horrid program — for the office applications it was meant for, such as writing business letters and reports, Word is pretty good. I never had a problem with extremely long files (one of my Knight Agency novels has over 100,000 words), either, not on the technical side. Yet, I am a writer and not a businessperson and I’m glad I have a program which was made with someone like me in mind. A program that’s an ‘all in one’ solution for a writer, letting me keep all I need in one place with easy access. If you’re uncertain, check the program out, it might work for you as well — and it has a very fair trial period, too.

On Self-Publishing

Self-publishing still has a bad reputation. It’s something to feed one’s vanity. It’s clearly ‘lesser than’ being published by a proper publishing house. It’s not something a serious author would do. While this used to be true in the past, at least to a degree, modern means of publishing — including self-publishing — have opened up new avenues for books to reach their readers. Self-publishing is better than its reputation (and then there’s the topic of indie publishing, too).

Some authors choose self-publishing to keep control over their work. The moment an author signs a contract with a literary agency or a publishing house, they do lose control over their manuscript and that can be really bad.
Usually, contracts leave the author little influence as to where, when, and if the book ever sees the light of day. The literary agency chooses which publishing houses to offer the manuscript to. The publishing house decides on when and how to publish the book, usually sets the genre and sub-genre, may make severe changes to the text and change the title. The cover might severely misrepresent what the main character is supposed to look like or give people completely wrong expectations of what the book will include.
Yet, in the end it is the author who gets blamed for all of this — it’s their book, after all, and their name is on the cover. An author who has been through this, perhaps even several times, might choose to self-publish or indie publish instead and keep control of their manuscript.

Some authors self-publish because their book is part of a niche market. Big publishing houses usually do not serve the niche markets and the only way to get the book out can be to self- or indie publish it.
Publishing houses have only one interest: to make money with their books. This means that they’ll be on lookout for possible future bestsellers. They look for books similar to what they already publish, similar to what sold well in the past. While this might be short-sighted, it’s how the business works. Well-known authors with a lot of bestsellers under their belt are wanted — and often can take more influence on how their book will look in the end. New authors who are focused on the same audience as other best-selling authors also have it easier to be published, because the publisher expects that their book will perform similarly well.
Everyone whose book is written for a more niche market, on the other hand, stands little chance to get published that way. The niche market doesn’t turn a lot of profit, the publishing house might not even want to be connected to it (such as a conservative publisher not wanting to publish homosexual romance stories). Self-publishing or indie publishing are the way out and bring those books to their niche audience, enriching the book market.

Self-publishing is also a lot of work. It’s not just about writing your manuscript and all is done.
After writing, the first step is usually editing the text. This can and usually will include content editing, copy editing, and line editing (as I have no printed versions of my books, I do not line edit, but I have to do the other two). Content editing is looking into the content — making sure that there are no illogical parts in the story and all threads are tied up nicely in the end (or as nicely as is possible in a series). Content editing might include rewriting big parts of a text, especially for discovery writers. Copy editing means looking for typos, wrong words, and every kind of grammar mistake. This is usually the most tiring process, as you need to go over the text several times to be sure to catch them all (or at least most of them). Line editing, finally, happens once the printing is organised and gives the editor (in self-publishing, the author) the chance to make sure that there are no widows or orphans (single last or first lines on the page belonging to a longer paragraph) and, ideally, no chapters ending with one or two lines on a new page. As said above, I do not do the last one myself, as I’m not self-publishing in print so far.
Writing a blurb is the next step, so there is a way to advertise the book to the reader on the platforms on which it can be bought. This is something entirely different from writing a story — this is advertising and needs a new skill set.
A book needs a cover, so then it’s about creating a cover for your book. This might be easier if you have a series going and have kept a template, but it still needs work every time you want to put out a new book. Design is also a different skill set from writing a book.
After all of this is done, the next step is to actually put the book online. I personally put my e-books up at Amazon and use Draft 2 Digital for the rest. By now, D2D also does Amazon as a platform, but I don’t want the work of pulling all of my books from my Amazon account to re-upload them through D2D. This can take quite a while, depending on how well your program can format and what way you upload. I personally am quite happy I can upload the .epub format after making it with Scrivener by now.
After this, there’s still advertising to do (also not a regular skill for an author) and a website to keep working and updated these days. This is something I have to look into again, as my Google-sites website just doesn’t really cut it.

The difference between indie publishing and self-publishing, by the way, is that most of the steps above are done by hired professionals if you have the money to do indie publishing instead. Like this, the author doesn’t need to learn all the other skills, but they have to pay people who have them.

In the modern day, self-publishing is no longer just a vanity project. It can be, but it’s much less likely to be one these days than it might have been in the past. There are good reasons for self- or indie publishing. The author can keep control of their own manuscript and make sure it is not advertised wrongly or changed beyond recognition. The author can write for a niche market which the publishing houses ignore. It’s a lot of work — or costs a lot of money —, but it is perfectly viable and can be the best choice for any and all manuscripts.

Character Arcs

Character arcs are important. That’s something which basically every bit of writing advice will tell you. Yet, which character can or should have a character arc? Which character absolutely needs one and for which character would it be a waste of time? Let’s find out.

Generally speaking, the main character, the protagonist, the hero, should always have a character arc.
Always? Okay, superhero comics and pulp stories usually get away with not giving them an arc, mostly because everything is set back to zero at the end of every story — that goes for deaths, romantic developments, and also all other kinds of character arcs. It’s not that it is forbidden, it’s more that it’s not considered necessary. Pulp and comic-book heroes usually are developed enough for their adventures and don’t need to find new skills or associates to master them. Hence, there is no need for character development. It could be there — and, sometimes, it is —, but it’s not necessary to make the story work.
Classic character arcs for the hero are usually upward arcs — arcs that make the character a better person. They can include — but are not limited to — overcoming fears and other flaws (such as more undesirable character traits), building a new relationship, or developing a new skill. Romance arcs, for instance, are usually all about building a relationship and can include overcoming a flaw so the relationship has a future.

Love interests are another group of characters who often do get a character arc — also an upward one which makes them ‘better people’ in the long run. This is especially true if the love interest is male and falls into the ‘brooding’ category.
A full character arc for the love interest, though, is more likely in a romance-based story and less likely if there’s just a romantic sub-plot somewhere. In the romantic sub-plot, the main plot often provides the reason for the couple to get together in the end, even if it might feel ‘unearned’ from the protagonists side.
What should be avoided is turning the female love interest from a confident and able woman into a helpless damsel, just so the male main character can save her and ‘win’ her that way. There are other, better ways to bring two people together than making one the passive trophy to be ‘won’ by the other.

The last big group of characters who might get a character arc are — the villains! Yes, villains can have two different types of character arcs.
More commonly known is the redemption arc in which the villain stops being a villain and becomes one of the good people instead. Good redemption arcs are hard to do, though, and quite often they include the death of the villain — after doing something for Team Good (think of Darth Vader, for instance). Others take the longer, harder route and give us a full redemption with the villain turning hero (a great example would be Prince Zuko from “Avatar: The Last Airbender”).
What if the villain is not supposed to be redeemed? No arc at all then? No, for this case, there’s still a possible character arc — a downward one. A downward arc is the opposite of the upward one — instead of making the character a better person, it makes the character a worse person. The character commits more and more atrocities and proves themselves to be someone who can only be vanquished — and possibly killed — and never redeemed.

In addition to these three groups of characters — hero, love interest, and villain — some other characters might get a character arc of some kind. The most common two would be the sidekick and the mentor.
A sidekick could come into their own over the course of a story — which would set them up as a possible main character in the sequel — or at least lose a bad trait or gain a good one. Their arc usually isn’t as strong as that of the main character, but it might still be there and enrich the story.
Even though the mentor is normally the one giving life lessons, some of them still have something to learn. “Kung Fu Panda” has mentor Shifu learn that sometimes his regular methods of teaching might fail while different ones might yield results when he finds out that food is a good motivation for his new student to give his best. Shifu goes with it and thus trains the new Dragon Warrior successfully.

Character arcs are often referred to as ‘internal arcs’ in opposition to the main story arc which is usually an ‘external arc.’ This simply refers to whether or not the arc is mostly driven by visible action. Taking the One Ring to Mordor is an external action and this is the main arc of “Lord of the Rings” whereas Frodo’s development as carrier of the ring is mostly internal as the One Ring influences his character.
A story needs an external arc so there is something happening, so there’s tension and stakes. It might or might not have an internal arc for any and all of the main characters. Even romance stories need that external arc, which is often about overcoming an obstacle on the way to the ‘happily ever after.’

Character arcs are important for main characters like hero, villain, and love interest. All of them can profit from a good character arc that makes them visibly grow in some way (even if it might be growing worse in case of the villain). Some other characters might profit from a character arc as well. That doesn’t mean that ‘henchman 275’ or that merchant who sells the hero some provisions also need a character arc. Before you give someone a character arc, ask yourself whether it will enrich the story or not. If it does, put it in. If it doesn’t, leave it out.

Winging It

Recently, I had an amiable online discussion with someone over whether or not George Lucas had already planned out how the Force works by the time the first Star Wars movie was released. I’m still pretty sure he was winging it, given he couldn’t be certain whether or not he’d get to make more movies in the universe. That led me to thinking about winging it as a such when you’re a writer.

I tend to do it regularly myself while I’m writing. When I stumble across a one-off object or other detail, I make it up on the spot without really thinking about it. That then sometimes comes back to haunt me when the object, skill, or other detail later needs to be expanded on. Luckily, I’m quite good at winging that, too, and add more detail and depth even if I didn’t do so originally. That might be due to my past as a discovery writer, though.
Even though I do plot by now, my plotting is not set in stone. Therefore, I might suddenly find that I need to introduce something to finish a scene, just a little detail that is important for the moment, but won’t really play a role long-term, since my general plot usually is not affected by changes to a scene as plotted originally. I still know where I’m going, even if I might take a slightly altered route.
In my experience, those ‘spurt of the moment’ additions are fine. They exist simply to enrich a scene, not to make any important changes to the overall story. For that, I can wing it. Sometimes, though, I’m wrong and it turns out that the detail becomes much more important as the story progresses.

In such a situation, there is one big danger, which is to overthink things to make up for under-thinking them before. After just having thrown the thing in the first time, it gets to be developed far further and into something far more complicated than it needs to be and the end result is not working out as it should.
This has happened to me, too. When I first wrote the basic outline for “Stray” (the first novella featuring Gabrielle Munson), I didn’t think much about the necromancy in the story — there was no reason to, as she was mostly on the run and would only use her powers to find out who really had done the murders by asking a victim. When I expanded into other stories, when the first book took shape, I began to realise that I needed to go deeper. I began to overthink.
I tried to write down a whole essay on how necromancy worked, tried to make it all logical and invent rituals which I wasn’t going to need any time soon. Then I took a step back and realised it wasn’t necessary. I needed to write Gabrielle’s skills as a necromancer and an alchemist down to keep them in mind. I needed to make sure I wasn’t writing one thing in one story and the opposite in another. I didn’t need a full magic system for her skills — she uses them little enough. I had overthought and I had to stop doing that.

If you don’t keep notes of the details in your stories, you might also run into a situation where the audience will wonder why your main character doesn’t just use a skill or object shown in a prior story. It’s important to keep track of skills which your recurring characters have shown, in case you need to use them again when they would normally be used again instead of the new solution you want to implement in your plot.
This goes twice for any kind of skill or special object you have given a character in a pinch. As you’ve been winging it, there was no planning this out in advance and you’re probably not expecting to ever use it again. If you’re writing a series, though, you should write it down so you will remember it — parts of the audience definitely will.
Sooner or later, you might put the character into a similar situation and again wing it and write something else in to help that character. Fans of the series will remember that magical object or advanced technology or little-mentioned skill which the character used the last time and they’ll be surprised to see it doesn’t make an appearance. They might even get sarcastic about it, realising you’ve forgotten.

One thing you should never do is wing an important or recurring aspect of the story. When you want to implement something for good, it needs to be thought-out or you will sooner or later be in trouble. Skills and special objects need to be balanced, otherwise they will lower the tension and that is never a good thing. Relationships or backgrounds of recurring characters need to be able to survive the stories or change accordingly. It is always possible to add more details later, but the foundation must be sound.
This should go without saying, but you don’t always know which part of a recurring character is going to become the most important over time. Even if you plan out a full series, while writing it, you might find that there needs to be a certain shift. It has certainly happened to me, see the necromancy in “Theoretical Necromancy”.
Before you give a major character a skill or object, you especially need to think about how it can be used. Even if it’s normally limited, if there’s a way to misuse it, that way has to be eradicated. If one character’s skill or object completely cancels out another character’s skill or object, there might need to be changes. Balance is important for both the stakes and the tension and that means the protagonists must appear under-powered compared to the antagonists.

‘Winging it’ is a solution for small details that are not used for long in a story. Sometimes, you just need to make something up on the spot. Yet, if the detail is a skill or object that might return at some point or be useful again, it pays to keep a note on it, especially in a series. You never should try to wing something important for the story, either, because it will always come back to bite you later on. Always…

Sherlock Holmes And Count Dracula Deep Dive

This deep dive follows right on the coattails of a blog post on how not to use supernatural elements in a story (which was also about a Sherlock Holmes novel). In “The Classified Dossier —Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula” by Christian Klaver, there are a lot of supernatural elements, but they’re well-incorporated in the four stories and they actually work out well.

There will be spoilers, as I want to dive into how the book deals with its ample supernatural content!

This book dives fully into the supernatural from the beginning, as Count Dracula appears in the first chapter of the first story — to seek Sherlock Holmes’ help. In most novels which include Sherlock Holmes and Dracula (and you might be surprised at how many there are), they are set against each other. Not so in this book. In this book, they’re on the same side.
While there have been rare cases where they were not directly on opposite sides of the board (“A Betrayal in Blood”, in which Holmes tries to figure out the whole Dracula affair, springs to mind), they usually are not working together. Dracula is considered a villain (for good reasons) and Holmes is a hero — they’re not supposed to be on the same side of anything. Normally, it is Holmes who comes to the aide of someone threatened by Dracula (often one of the Vampire Hunters around van Helsing) and takes up the fight against the undead count.
This book, on the other hand, does it well by making Dracula a client who wants Holmes to help him find his wife Mina (yes, that Mina). They’re not knocking about together for mutual friendship and Holmes doesn’t always like his clients — he’ll still work for them if the case is interesting or the stakes are high enough. The stakes in this case certainly are high enough.

Vampires are also introduced as people with an infection. They are still alive, but they have a changed body which barely breathes and has a seriously slow heartbeat. The audience hears it from Dracula, but later on also from Watson, who is turned into a vampire, too.
As the story is still told from Watson’s perspective, this also means the audience comes to understand the differences between humans and vampires as Watson does. Watson is a rare vampire who keeps his personality and morals after the change while most vampires who make it through the first ‘animal’ stage of the change become predators with little left of their convictions as humans. They are intelligent, they remember their past, but they don’t care about human morals any longer. Mary Watson (who turns her husband) becomes an example of that.

In the climax, I would have liked for the big bad in the background, the ‘Mariner Priest’ to have been someone else, though. Moriarty is just a villain in the Sherlock Holmes canon, not the only villain. Anyone else would actually have been better — except perhaps for Irene Adler.
It’s not that Moriarty (who had apparently just become a vampire before Reichenbach) doesn’t make for a good villain. Cold-blooded mastermind and vampire is a dangerous combination and he comes up with an interesting solution to the ‘animal’ stage of the vampire transformation. Yet, ‘it was Moriarty all along’ is just too common to still be a proper plot twist by now.

One thing which breaks things up a little is the influence of Lovecraftian horror in the second story (this plot will eventually be taken up again in the sequel), yet this also shows that the oceans — where Moriarty is floating about with his followers — are more dangerous than one might think.
This also means there are more supernatural powers around than just the vampires (the Jekyll-Hyde transformation will follow in the sequel) and gives Holmes and Watson something to do while the main plot is brewing in the back and coming around again eventually.
Personally, I think that introducing the deep ones and Dagon is a nice idea, given the whole ‘vampire ship on the seas’ situation and the title of ‘Mariner Priest,’ which could very well point to a Lovecraftian background and makes for a nice red herring.

While each of the four stories which the book is comprised of is self-contained to a degree, all four also form a larger story of a kind. They fit together, boosting Watson’s understanding of his new powers and Holmes’ understanding of the supernatural which in the end make the victory possible. They also introduce the audience to a wider world than just ‘vampires exist.’ There’s deep ones out there. There’s vampires. There’s supposedly other creatures as well.
The world is much larger and stranger than the regular person is aware of — and Watson is now inevitably part of this larger world for good and has drawn his closest friend into it, too (although Holmes is still fully human). Now, Holmes and Watson also have to keep a secret from the world — Watson’s change. He has new needs — and I still don’t know what Holmes has told Mrs. Hudson about that teapot of warm chicken or cow blood which Watson now takes in the evening when he gets up. He has new powers, but also new weaknesses.
Watson works through his new relationship with his wife Mary eventually (it helps that she dies, it doesn’t help that he’s the one who has to kill her to save his friend) and has to face the fact that he will probably spend more time in this world with Kitty Winters (who has also been turned) or the Count and Countess Dracula than with his best friend. Holmes refuses to be turned early on, claiming he’d be a huge danger for mankind as a vampire.

The author is also excellent at dropping hints for what will happen. It’s never too obvious and always close to when it becomes important, which is how I love my foreshadowing.
Especially in the last story when the big confrontation happens, there is a hint dropped which enables the whole twist in the end — the simple mention that Holmes and Dracula are the same height and build and both have a similar facial structure. This is what brings Moriarty down in the end — thinking he’s caught the human Holmes, but really having brought the vampire Dracula too close. A lot of things established before, like a vampire having next to no scent for another while a human has a strong one or vampires having a much stronger sense of smell than sight, play a huge role in that situation.
All of this is mentioned before and enables the audience to see how clever the plan which Holmes and Dracula come up with really is.

Unlike “The Dartmoor Horror”, “Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula” makes the best of its supernatural aspects. Every aspect is useful. Every aspect plays its role in the story. Even the seeming tangent of the deep ones and the Lovecraftian horror has its use. This is ‘supernatural Sherlock Holmes’ done right.

Doing Nothing With A Plot

“The Dartmoor Horror” by Joe DeSantis is a Sherlock Holmes novel which does include supernatural aspects within the story. It is also an unofficial sequel to “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. This is not about how supernatural elements can’t be introduced into a Sherlock Holmes story. I’ve seen that done very well in other books (look out for a deep dive on one of those soon). It’s about the way in which the supernatural elements are used — a way that makes them surplus to requirements.

There will be spoilers in this post! I can’t discuss the plot threads without talking about what is happening.

The main plot of the story is sound. Jack Stapleton (the lost child of the lost Baskerville brother) has survived the events of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” — which would be possible, as he is lost in the Grimpen Mire, so there’s no body. Stapleton, who knew the mire like the back of his hand, might very well have made it to the tin mine in the middle and hidden from the authorities there. He’s still after the Baskerville fortune, which also makes sense, although I’m not quite sure how he would have claimed it after Sir Henry’s death (Costa Rica was mentioned, though). Stapleton has an assistant in Murphy, a character mentioned as being shady and knowledgeable about the moor in the original book. That, too, pans out.
The romance sub-plot between Sir Henry and Laura Lyons also works out. While it’s not the most natural thing for them to connect, it’s still believable and well-handled. With both of those plot threads working as they should, the whole novel is standing on solid feet. Both of these threads also don’t need any supernatural element to work, as you might already have noticed.

Now for the supernatural elements. Keep in mind that the original novel had a supposedly supernatural element in the hound already, but made it turn out to be something natural instead (a specific dog breed which Stapleton had bought and trained). The basic possibility of using supernatural elements in a sequel is there. After all, the story of Sir Henry and the hound has a scientific background, but there’s still Sir Hugo being killed by a Hellhound centuries earlier.
The Hellhound is back in the sequel, this time as a real, physical creature which, in an interesting twist of fate, becomes a guardian and protector for Sir Henry. Yet, I can see how that would work out if used well.
The second element is an ancient bog witch who is raised by Murphy with his grandmother’s help (Murphy has been exiled from his clan, but is still Romany) and who apparently was alive at the time of Sir Hugo already. She is the more unnecessary of the two elements, as there’s nothing she does which can’t be done without her.

The Hellhound could work nicely within the narrative. It has been around to ‘punish’ evil members of the Baskerville family before, from Sir Hugo onwards. This is hinted at in “The Hound of the Baskervilles” already where several strange deaths on the moor are mentioned. Yet, if the hound kills the evil Baskervilles, why should it not also protect a good one?
Within the story, Sir Henry does a lot of good for the nearby towns and villages, taking care of the repairs to the local church and having specialists do repair work on the local roads. For a poor community living in the middle of a large moor, that is certainly a blessing. He also treats the hound well when it comes to him, starving and injured. This is what wins the hound’s loyalty and proves he’s worthy of its protection.
In addition, Stapleton is a Baskerville as well (otherwise the main plot would make no sense) and certainly one on a level with Sir Hugo himself. By protecting his new friend, the hound could very well also return to its job of punishing the evil members of the family.
In a better use of the hound, it would come to Sir Henry’s aide in the big climax and either kill Stapleton like it killed Sir Hugo or at least drag him into a bog in plain view of others, so it is clear this time around that he’s really dead. That is not what happens, though.

Unlike the Hellhound, the bog witch has no practical use within the story. I personally always approve of a little necromancy on the side, but there is no reason to have the witch there. She does nothing which no other established character could be doing instead.
In the story, the witch kills two people, one by luring him into the bog (which is what she enjoyed doing before she died in that bog herself) and one in a more direct way (presumably by strangling or breaking his neck, the audience doesn’t ‘see’ the death). Yet, before she’s raised from the bog, Stapleton has already committed two murders himself. He’s not shy of doing it and he’s certainly capable of it, too. He doesn’t need the witch to do his dirty work, as he’s perfectly capable of doing it himself. In addition, one of the witch’s two victims (two more are suggested, but it’s not clear whether she’s killed them, too) is superfluous and the other one could just as well have been waylaid and killed by Stapleton.
Frankland, Laura Lyons’ estranged father, is lured off the track on his way back home after telling Laura he doesn’t approve of her divorce and new engagement to Sir Henry. He is lured into the bog and sinks slowly while the bog witch watches. Apart from how that is not how swamps and bogs work, there is no reason why Stapleton on his own or with the help of Murphy couldn’t just overpower Frankland and put him in the bog. The end result would be the same.
The second victim, the superfluous one, is an old man who has seen Murphy move about on the moor at night, mostly to bring Stapleton food and water and to get his marching orders from his boss. This character is never mentioned before, he has not caught Sherlock Holmes’ eye already, and his murder is not noted in any way. His death has no influence whatsoever on the outcome of the story. This murder is pointless and unnecessary and should simply have been left out.
With that, the witch has completely lost her use for the story. Her first victim could just as well have been killed by Stapleton (who murdered with his own hands before already) and the second victim could simply have been left out completely.
In the end, the bog witch tries to kill Sir Henry and the Hellhound comes to his aide, grabbing the witch and bearing her into the bog. The hound could just as well have done that with Stapleton. Stapleton is again fleeing into the Grimpen Mire and supposed to have been killed when taking a misstep after Holmes has moved his new markers. To be honest, I would have preferred a confirmed death the second time.

Unfortunately, “The Dartmoor Horror” is a good example of how not to do supernatural elements in a story. The Hellhound and the witch cancel each other out and become pretty superfluous that way. The Hellhound could have been a nice addition to the story, a nod to the legend which is read out to Holmes at the beginning of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, but it hasn’t been used that way. The witch isn’t needed in a story where the villain has already proven he’s able to kill before she’s even raised. She is neither a tool for the villain nor a mentor or other useful helper.

A Body Isn't Necessary

At the beginning of the year, I wrote a post about how ‘there must be a body.’ I was referring to S.S. van Dine’s “Twenty Rules of the Detective Story” and to my own experience with a cosy mystery without a murder which was horrid as a mystery novel (it was a nice romance novel, though, even if that wasn’t planned, I’m sure). S.S. van Dine claimed that a detective story must have a body ‘the deader, the better.’ After reading the book, I had to agree with him. After reading another two books, I now have to disagree to a degree.

I recently read two mysteries by Shanna Swendson from her ‘Lucky Lexie’ series which didn’t feature a body at all. In one case, there was a suggestion of murder and there not being a body was the point (“Case of the Vanishing Visitor”) whereas the other case didn’t even suggest a murder (“Case of the Curious Crystals”). Yet, none of the stories lacked in tension, stakes, and enjoyment for the reader.
Tension and stakes, of course, are what makes us enjoy a story. We want to read on because there’s something at stake and we enjoy the story more and more as the tension rises and pushes our own engagement with the characters and their possible fates. Now I think that the failure of the book mentioned above wasn’t not to have a murder, it was not to have stakes for the main characters and thus no raising tension. There was no personal involvement and there was nothing horrid to happen if the stolen fireworks weren’t found. The two books mentioned in the last paragraph, though, manage to build up stakes and tension wonderfully.

In “Case of the Vanishing Visitor”, Lexie seems to have met a woman who got herself killed afterwards. Given that Lexie can speak to ghosts and the woman is not to be found, dead or alive, it seems as if, perhaps, Lexie met the woman after she’d been killed already, but in the end, the facts don’t add up and it turns out that the woman isn’t dead and was never in danger of dying, either. Yet, the way the story handles the plot is excellent and you go through the uncertainty and the worry with Lexie as she tries to find the woman, dead or alive. It’s, therefore, not horrid when the woman turns up alive — it’s rather something you’re glad for after going through the story and learning about all the bad things that might have happened to her.
In “Case of the Curious Crystals”, no dead body is even suggested. A wave of strange thefts runs through the town and sows distrust between the regular ‘townies’ and the descendants of the sideshow crew (this is part of the town’s world-building and discussed from the first book of the series onwards — ‘Curious Crystals’ is the second book). Lexie needs to find out who steals cheap 1930s costume jewellery and why and so she stumbles over a try to sway the jury of an upcoming court case. The story has stakes — at least for Lexie and her love interest/local cop Wes, as both don’t condone influencing the court even if it’s not a murderer going free. More importantly, if the case is not solved, the tension between the townies and the sideshow descendants will only rise and one day might end in the severe injury or even death of an innocent person. That can’t be allowed. There’s stakes, there’s tension, there’s a satisfying end, so there’s a good book.
The other three of the five cases in the series (so far — fingers crossed here) do include at least one murder each, so it’s not as if the author has gone for lower stakes in general. The stakes in the two ‘body-less’ cases also don’t feel low at all. Sure, it might be more threatening if you’re caught in a bed-and-breakfast in a storm with a murderer, but watching as people distrust their neighbours simply for their pedigree can also be scary.

Lexie only has a personal involvement with the first case — she has found the victim, she is the person from out of town, and she is standing to gain something from their death (not that she knew and not that she needs them dead as it turns out). In all other cases, her interest in the case as the editor and reporter of the local weekly newspaper get her involved and she strives to solve the crime for the sake of solving it as well as for a more satisfying article in the newspaper. Not to mention that the ghosts of the victims want her to solve it so they can pass on. Then there’s the ghost of the former owner and editor of the newspaper, a delightful 1930s business woman, who will not be satisfied unless the newspaper brings out the news before the gossip mill can.
Nevertheless, all cases are engaging and interesting. They’re being brought to her attention in a suitable way, pulling her out of the regular life in town she has grown used to. They are challenging her by not being simple ‘open and shut’ cases. They involve friends and neighbours and her understanding of justice as well as her wish to make every edition of the newspaper as good as it can be. Not to mention that they bring her into closer contact with the charming and handsome Wes…

It is easier to make high stakes and rising tension when there is a murderer on the run, of course. In a cosy mystery (which is probably not the kind of detective story S.S. van Dine was thinking of in his semi-serious list), the stakes don’t have to be that high and the tension can rise much more slowly. In the end, the stakes must be high enough to engage the audience. The tension must rise fast enough to make them want to read on. If that is happening, you can have a good cosy mystery without a body and people will still enjoy themselves while reading it.

Supernatural Cosy Mysteries

I have liked cosy mysteries for a long time already, yet there is one big problem with them: keeping it believable that a regular person would get drawn into several murder investigations. In more recent years, I’ve found myself drawn more towards supernatural cosy mysteries and those where the profession of the main character makes it easier to explain them being drawn into murder investigations. Quite often, those overlap in my book collection. Why the draw to the supernatural, though?

Suspension of disbelief is probably one of the main reasons. With a supernatural story, I am already doing more suspension of disbelief while I’m reading it — I have to believe in witches, demons, or other supernatural beings. It’s easier to move on from that to the idea that a regular person (well, a regular supernatural being) could be drawn into several criminal investigations.
I am already stepping away from ‘real’ life when I’m opening a book where the main character is a witch or a fury or can speak to ghosts. From there, the idea that they are also stumbling over dead bodies and get drawn into solving the mystery of the dead isn’t that far-fetched. Especially someone who speaks to ghosts would be a draw for every ghost who needs a wrong righted — and what bigger wrong is there than being murdered?
Things also might work differently among supernatural beings. Perhaps they don’t have the same government structure. Perhaps they are much more tight-knit and need to keep the whole case from regular law enforcement. There are options and with that, it is easier to keep believing for longer.

In addition, of course, quite some of my favourite supernatural cosy sleuths, such as Eden Fury, are already working within the legal system or are at least researchers by profession and character.
Of course it is only natural for a law-enforcement agent to investigate a murder in their town. It’s their job when all is said and done. Of course a reporter and editor will not allow themselves to be send away from the scoop that will make people buy the next edition of the local newspaper. Of course the defence lawyer of the town will look into a crime their client is accused of.
This works without the supernatural element, too, of course. Yet, it helps explaining why someone is stumbling over corpses and needs to figure out how the murder happened and who did it for what reason.

It’s not that I need for magic to be present in every moment of the story or only want to have supernatural beings all around. Most of the stories I’ve read have supernatural people mingle discreetly with normal people, so there’s also humans who are completely unaware that there is something like magic or vampires or whatever. Yet, supernatural elements play their part and usually play it well.
With Eden Fury from the Federal Bureau of Magic, it’s often less about the case as a such (although the case will be solved by the end of the book) and more about the shenanigans which happen with her family made up of witches, demons, vampires, angel-hybrids, and other supernaturals. With Jayne Frost, it’s about the daughter of the ruler of the North Pole stumbling over cases while she’s just trying to manage a toy shop and decide which one of the two possible lovers she should choose (she chooses a third one in the end, by the way).
Human life and supernatural elements mingle in those stories and I love that very much, because being a witch or a vampire or a fury or Jack Frost’s daughter doesn’t mean you’re not also, deep down, a human being with a love live and your own wants, needs, and fears.

World-building is another aspect for me. Every book has to build a bit of the world, has to give the reader a framework of how things are, of what to expect. There is a world someone lives in — a town or village in most cosy mysteries —, which needs to take on shape so the audience knows where the characters are going, who is living and working where, and how they are connected. It’s about the streets and landmarks as much as about the families and friends.
One big world-building problem with all cosy mysteries is that cosy mysteries are usually set in a small town or a village (US authors seem to favour the town whereas UK authors seem to favour the village) where not that many murders should be happening. That takes some serious suspension of disbelief of its own — which I also find easier to do when supernaturals are involved. It seems to me that in a village or town filled with supernatural beings, there is a higher chance that things might heat up and end in a murder or other serious crime. A fight between two regular men in a bar will most likely lead to a few black eyes and other bruises. A fight between a vampire and a werewolf, on the other hand, could very well leave one of them dead as they’re much stronger and have predatory instincts.
A book with supernatural content has more world-building to do to integrate the parts which are not ‘real’ with the parts which are. Often, it is much more detailed for this reason and gives me a better feeling for the town it’s all set in. It’s a town with werewolves and vampires in it, so there are going to be things which are different and things which are as you’d expect them to be. It’s fun to find out more about that as I dive into the stories.

Cosy mysteries will always have problems when they reach a certain number of stories. In the end, it might be easier to believe that someone has just stumbled over their tenth (or seven-hundredth — looking at you, “Murder, She Wrote”) body if they also have witchcraft at their disposal or live in a town full of supernatural creatures. If they’re in a profession where contact with crimes is a thing, it’s even more believable for them to stumble over several murders over time. I love cosy mysteries in general and find I can follow series with supernatural aspects for longer without getting all ‘she’s found another body again?’ about it.

Mr. Straight White Dude

Over the course of the last one-hundred-and-twenty or so years, a standard hero has emerged in storytelling: the straight white man. Or, as I call him, Mr. Straight White Dude. Even in many stories not written by white men, the hero is a straight white man or seen as one because nothing is said otherwise and he’s the standard hero figure. Why is that and why is that bad?

I could blame “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” for this, but that would not be true. While the book has had an influence on many writers, it’s not that influential. Yet, the western world as a such is.
As most of what amounted to ‘literature’ and later on storytelling in other media such as stage plays, movies, TV, or computer games was created by people from either Europe or North America, the overwhelming majority of main characters fit with the creators or whom the creators pretended to be: straight white men. The only literature genre where the straight white man normally is not the main character is romantic literature. Here, it is the straight white woman, which is not much better (but a little).
The problem with this is that everyone who is not a straight white man, everyone who can’t immediately see themselves in Mr. Straight White Dude, does hardly feel represented. With the large majority of heroes being incarnations of Mr. Straight White Dude, other people aren’t considered regular hero characters. They can take other roles, such as the damsel (usually the straight white woman), but not the main spot, not outside specific genres.
We can do better than that and we should do better than that. Mr. Straight White Dude has worked long and hard and deserves an extended holiday now.

The overwhelming presence of Mr. Straight White Dude is not doing the stories any favour, as it were. By narrowing down the idea of who can be the hero, the stories limit themselves. Mr. Straight White Dude has a certain set of regular skills (usually martial ones) and a certain way of dealing with his problems. He also has a limited amount of different faces — mostly those of a handful of white male actors who regularly play the action hero.
Diversity doesn’t just mean different skin colours, genders, or sexual orientations. It means filling up the ‘toolbox’ of the author. A fighter has a limited reservoir of skills, as does a healer, a diplomat, a spy, or any other character class (to dip into RPG jargon). Yet, a group made up of all of them will have a wide range of possible solutions for any kind of problem which might crop up in a story. A fighter can defeat a group of thugs. A healer can patch up someone who has important information. A diplomat can get the group past a guarded roadblock. A spy can creep ahead and spy on the evil mage in their lair. Imagine overcoming all of those problems with just one of them.
Mr. Straight White Dude has proven over and over again that he can handle saving the day (or the world). Considering there’s many other people in the world, it is time for him to take a break and let others get to the day- (or world-) saving.

There is no change, however, until people make it happen. This means that instead of relying on Mr. Straight White Dude, authors would do well to choose other heroes for their stories. Every story which is not focused on him is a story which broadens the idea of what a hero can look like or what it means to be a hero in the first place.
There are authors (and especially production companies) who shy away from that, rather going with what ‘has always worked.’ They play it safe. Don’t be one of them, though. A lot of people will enjoy books with a more unusual hero, with a hero who, perhaps, is closer to them than Mr. Straight White Dude. There is a market for it and it’s easier for your story to stand out that way as well.
Replacing the standard hero with another one — someone who has not been through a million stories already —, not only gives the author something new to work with, but also gives the audience something new to get into and enjoy.

One argument against using someone else than Mr. Straight White Dude is often ‘there were no [enter other social groups here] in this place,’ especially in historical fiction. Yet, even changing one aspect of Mr. Straight White Dude (the straight, the white, or the male) helps. A straight white woman is a step in the right direction. A straight black man is a step in the right direction. A gay white man is a step in the right direction. There are choices, even if some might be minor ones.
The more aspects you’re able to change, the better — and every fantasy or science-fiction setting should allow you to change many aspects. Yet, every change is good. Using a female main character makes changes to the story. Using a POC character makes changes to the story. Using a gay character makes changes to the story. Each of them also makes different changes to the story.
Every change undermines the idea that Mr. Straight White Dude is the only hero out there and nobody else can take his place. Every change makes it more likely for Mr. Straight White Dude to be able to take a much-deserved sabbatical.

First and foremost, even if it’s the last point here, remember that characters are characters. Not male, not female. Not white, not POC. Not straight, not gay. They are characters and should be created to fit with the story. Or they are characters and the story should be created to fit them, depending on what comes first for you, the story or the main character.
Don’t make stereotypes but fully-realised characters and you’re already mostly in the green. The more you step away from the standard, the more you will take your character and your story in the right direction.
Mr. Straight White Dude deserves a long holiday.

Mr. Straight White Dude has had a long and successful career. He still can have a lot of work in the future, too, but it is time to move past him and discover a wide world of other heroes who do things differently and are part of different social groups. Expand your writer’s toolbox and dive into a more diverse set of heroes. Expand the range of your stories and allow them to stand out.

My Writing Process

First of all, a disclaimer: This is my writing process, it doesn’t have to work for everyone. It probably won’t work for everyone. It might not even work for me in a few months or years. Things change.
Currently, though, it works well for me and allows me to write quickly (in most cases) and efficiently, to plan out my stories and get them done well.

For quite a while, I was a discovery writer or ‘pantser’ (I like the first term better). I just set out writing without a real plan. I had an idea where the story was going, I had a character or a scene or a basic plot I wanted to incorporate and the story would just grow out of it.
This isn’t a bad way of writing per se — I have completed quite some stories that way. It is, however, a way which means a lot of revising afterwards to get contradictions and continuity errors out of the story. Plotting makes that part easier.
These days, my process includes a lot of steps before the writing (and just one afterwards), which makes the writing as a such easier to do. Yet, when I started out, I wouldn’t have been able to get the stories written after that much preparation. Life can be weird.

My writing process goes like this: first, I gather ideas, then I draw up a rough outline, then I plot the scenes and sort them into chapters, then I write the story, and finally I revise and edit it. In addition to that, there’s research which can come in at any point in the story. I do most of it during the plotting process, but sometimes I do it earlier and sometimes I still have to do it while I’m already writing or in the editing process.
The process is longer, but also means that by the time I have to sit down and do the writing — the longest part of it —, I know exactly what will happen when. That doesn’t mean I never make changes to the scenes as they’re plotted, never change them, move them, or break them up into two or more smaller scenes. It means that I have a good idea of how the story will run and can see any problems with the plot long before I start the writing process. It saves me a lot of time in revision and editing.

My writing starts in Scapple, a whiteboard software from the same company which also does Scrivener, my writing software. That’s not the main reason why I use that one, though. I simply like quite some of the features such as easy stacking and transfer of formatting.
In Scapple, I open a new file and simply throw down my ideas for the story as notes — whatever I have, be it characters, scenes, specific plot ideas, a summary of what the story should be about. Once I have them all down, I can then sort them out.
I make notes for the main characters and, perhaps, give them names already. Sometimes, I work with descriptions like ‘detective,’ ‘murderer,’ ‘damsel,’ or ‘villain.’ For finding names all through the process, I love using the Random Names Generator online. There are a lot of different settings and you can get five suggestions at once, too. I do take more time with main characters, but there’s also a lot of side characters to name and there the generator definitely comes in useful. I might also make notes of what to research if I need to get deeper into a topic (such as, for instance, the exact wording of how to get Baba Yaga’s house to turn around and open for you).
Once I know the characters and have sorted out the basic plot, I sit down and write a rough outline of the story, putting down what I want or need to happen when and sort it out until I have a narrative, unpolished as it might be.

At this point, I usually switch from Scapple to Scrivener (or at least I also open Scrivener). For a stand-alone project or a project which might become a series, I open a new project and put everything in. I have my own template for Scrivener which offers all I need and nothing I would have to delete anyway. If it’s going to be part of a series I’ve already worked on, I simply add it to that project. That’s one thing I love about Scrivener — the possibility to make large projects with a lot of data work.
In Scrivener, I put down all I have in Scapple, usually starting with the characters. At this point, if not earlier, at least the important characters get their names. Those get a character sheet of their own from me whereas side characters get a space on a list. I make notes for my research or put down what I have already. At this point, I might also download pages I need for reference — like monster pages from the Lovecraft wiki for “The Crew”. Like this, I begin to fill up my notes and research folders.
After that, or sometimes parallel to it, I write down the scenes, referencing the rough outline as I do. Every scene gets a short description in the synopsis and a place in the narrative. I sort the scenes into chapters and build up the structure of my project like that. By the end of this, the story is ready for writing, even if I might not get to it immediately.
At this point, most projects get a bit of rest, whereas I usually go through the process so far in a relatively short time of either days or hours. Not all research might be done, but I’m mostly clear on what I will be writing.

The longest and most tedious part of the process comes next: Actually writing the story, of course. I can write reasonably fast and I write full-time, so I can definitely get a project done in a good time, provided all goes well (with “DI Colin Rook” it didn’t).
I usually try to write one to two chapters a day — my chapters are between 2,500+ (novellas) and 3,000+ words (novels). I normally take the weekend off for other things, so that’s five days a week and usually eight to ten chapters per week, too. In a week, I can write between 24,000 and 30,000 words of a project.
Most of my projects clock in at between 60,000 and 90,000 words as the target and usually a few thousand words above that once written. I can, therefore, produce a book in a month if nothing bad happens. That doesn’t mean it always works. I usually calculate two months for a project, what with real life and other things happening. Some days, I don’t get down to writing, some time every month I don’t really feel like it (other women may understand why).
I end the writing process by compiling the first draft for personal use and then letting the project rest some. It is never a good idea to go into a big project and edit it right after you’ve finished writing. Distance is good for the judgement.

The last step then is the revision, editing, and release of the book. After a few weeks or months (the latter is better), I pick the book up for the last part. I release a book four times a year and use the months in question (February, May, August, November) to edit the project in question.
First, I go over the text in a content edit and revise what needs to be revised. Usually, there’s only small things coming up, but I’ve had a few cases where chapters had to be added or rewritten.
Once this is done, it’s time for three rounds of copy edit to check for wrong words (misspelling usually isn’t a problem because of the spellchecker in Scrivener), weird sentences, and other grammatical issues. I have to keep an eye on my sentence length as well and I know it. I do the copy edit backwards, starting with the last scene and working my way to the first. Like this, I’m less likely to be distracted by the story and can focus on the actual words much better.
Afterwards, the book gets another general check and the release version is compiled. As I only do digital books, I don’t have to do a line edit. Somewhere within the editing process (or sometimes earlier), I also produce my cover design which is then added to the release.

This is my current process for writing my books. It’s not set in stone, of course, in a year it might be completely different again. Yet, for the moment, this split between Scapple for the early work and Scrivener for the rest works well for me, as does doing a rough outline and then the synopsis for all scenes so I can see the development of the story. Nothing is set in stone there, either, though, as I might find I need another scene or need to move a scene during the writing or the editing process.