August 10th, 2017

I've had a lot of fun over the last few days plotting out the next Jack Frey book. I used to find plotting very difficult. In the past I used to have an idea and then chase it to see where it went. While this is fun, it's incredibly time consuming as there is lots of waste and false starts. The original drafts of CRY HAVOC are unrecognizable from it's final form and I think I deleted about two more books' worth of material. However I've gotten much better at it recently - mainly thanks to John Yorke's book INTO THE WOODS. It's a fascinating study of the structure of story and it gave me the right questions to ask myself as I plan a story's beats. If you're a writer, you need to read this book.

I'm never going to write a detailed outline as that would kill a lot of the magic for me but knowing what will happen in each act is a massive help.

CRY HAVOC continues to do well and that also is a massive boost to see. Writing a book is a long, lonely experience so it's great to see so many people reading it and enjoying it. Now back to work...