Project S² Progress
It seems like only yesterday that I was hiding the title of my book, Advent 9.
For a long time on this blog, it was known only as “Project A9”, which would not have been decipherable by people not in the know.
This system of codenaming works particularly well for me, as it allows me to discuss my works in progress in a way that will be traceable after those works are published, but allow for a healthy amount of concealment until the final product is ready to be shown off.
In other words, it creates an opportunity to do a title reveal.
And my next book is approaching the same threshold.
Project S²: A Three-Act Structure
It became clear, upon writing the first few chapters of project S², that what originally was planned as a single book would have to be split into three. The adventure is simply too big to hold within a single volume.
And that is not as simple as dividing the manuscript into three equal portions and putting them out one at a time. Accommodating this change means setting up a climax and payoff in each volume of the finished product. The easiest way to go about this is to take existing tension points within the original story and ramping them up to the point where they can stand on their own as the central conflict of each volume.
Luckily, the existing story outline allows for just this kind of improvement.
Still, it throws my publishing schedule for a loop, as I’m going to want to publish at least two of these volumes before proceeding on to other work. That means the sequel to Advent 9 is taking a back seat to Project S² until I finish writing the second volume (which I hope to accomplish this year). If I’m light on my feet, I will get the first volume of this work out before the end of 2023.
I can tell you right now that the hardest part is going to be finding a narrator for the audiobook.
So About that Title Reveal
A somewhat-common practice in publishing is to give every book in a series the same title. Individual books are then differentiated by the use of a sub-title. A good example of this would be the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, by Jeff Kinney.
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings shares this trait, as it is a single book in three volumes, much like Project S² will be—except that unlike The Lord of the Rings, my book will attempt to give each book its own mini-arc that ends at a natural stopping place before beginning the next volume.
As such, Project S² will have a single title, but three subtitles. And I have revised some of these subtitles as I have moved the project along, meaning that I won’t be making any firm title reveals for any volume that does not have a firm production schedule.
Hopefully, volume 1 will be ready for its reveal this year, meaning that both the title and subtitle will become public information.
I promise to give you a payoff. But even I don’t know the exact timetable.
Until then, why not take a look at Advent 9? If you haven’t read it already, then prepare to be surprised and blown away by how it takes a familiar genre into new and wondrous places.
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