My Serial Middle Novel: Bride of the Dark

So after a series of failed novel start and tepid finishes or abandonments, I went back to what I truly loved: Fantasy. Specifically, Of The Dark.  If you recall, what was a standalone had blossomed out to a trilogy.

Time to write the second novel.  I dug out my old notes, realised they were crap and started fresh. Having had lots of experience in crap novels, I knew what wouldn't work.  One idea I absolutely scrapped was keeping the main character Adrastea in isolation until she came around to the idea of marriage to the Dark God.

Duh!  Nothing kills a plotline more than a single character in a white room.  So I populated the novel with characters. Rich, interesting, hazy-shade-of-gray characters.

This did the trick.  Suddenly, things aren't so black and white for our little Raised-in-the-Light girl.

Cranked out most of a draft (barring a handful of scenes I wasn't sure about), and drafted an outline for the third novel.

There.  Got that out of the system for the time being.  Oh, ten years later I rewrote the draft Yet Again, this time, applying a goodly amount of Plot Spackle. It's a much better beast now.

While I love the Of The Dark series, this middle novel, this Act II, where lots of bad things happen and the UberPlotArc is not resolved, is my least favourite of the three. (Never did like middle novels.)  My beta readers aren't too fond of it because of its darkness.  But it needs to be there.  Sorry, Melody.

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Her Grace, if she believes enough in a novel, will rewrite it, now that she's armed with a better mastery of the Craft. Richard Armitage still makes the best Mor-Lath, God of the Dark.