In my last writing update, I talked about beta reader feedback on the very first draft of “Tangled Roots” (working title still, but I like it). There were two main areas of the story to fix. First, I needed to clear up the confusion caused early on by the introduction of a new character. Second, I needed to expand the climax and really lean into a more dramatic storytelling vibe.

The first problem took a few days to figure out, but I’m now more than halfway through my edits for Draft 2 and feel pretty good about solving that one. I changed the perspective of the storytelling in an early chapter and carried that forward to another one as well. Along the way, the story got cleaned up, tighter and more compelling. I’m happy.

This week I’m rolling towards the climax and will probably hit those chapters in the next few days. I’m approaching it as a retelling with a stronger sense of the stakes. I’ve made one big change to the front half that has to work itself out in the end, but it’s a simplification that I think makes the book better. Not everything has to be revealed in Book 2. There will be a Book 3.

Over the weekend I read a blog post by Nail Your Novel that reminded me of the fundamentals of storytelling. It’s all stuff I knew but rereading this kind of advice regularly is always good to keep things front of mind:

In other news, I’m working on how to advertise Driftless Spirits after the recent blog tour. I know I should be patient, as they say the best way to market Book 1 is to write a Book 2. I also know I’m more likely to break even if I have a Book 2 for follow-up sales. Breaking even is my goal, but that’s hard to do starting out. I’m trying to balance my fiscal sensibilities with my desire to be read.