The Wolfcat Chronicles Book 4 Revision Completed

Earlier this morning I completed the revision to Book Four of The Wolfcat Chronicles. Titled A Necessary Evil it continues the One Pack storyline begun in Book Three Shattered Truce. As part of the One Pack project I began with the original draft written between May and July in 2000, the story follows the wolfcats Ela’na and Rotor while introducing a number of new characters and updating the lives of other supporting characters from the first two books of the series The Spectre’s Warning and A Warrior’s Heart. I submitted the manuscript to my publisher this morning. There are now four wolfcat books in consideration and I continue with revisions on the remaining six books of the series.

Book Four had some minor revisions challenges with the flow of the story. Several of the chapters were longer than what I now consider normal (2000 to 2500 words). Where possible I wanted to speed up the story. I also moved some chapters before or after other chapters to aid in the fluidity of the presentation, advancing different storylines.

Early on in Book Three a human character named Tomas is introduced. Although he is not a major character int he action of that book he is a catalyst for the triggering event that drags the wolfcats into conflict. Tomas becomes important later on in the series. A portion Book Four that is about Tomas was previously relocated into Book Three as part of the revision process for that book. In adjusting the flow for Book Four a couple of chapters that were previously in Book Five were moved into Book Four toward the end. Also, several of the chapters were split into two sections and presented in a more logical event sequence which should enhance the reading experience.

I have already begun working on Book Five. Last night I rearranged some of the chapters early on in the book to better align with the structure of Book Four. The remainder of the book is already organized in a similar way. So I do not foresee much further rearranging. However, I am concerned with the length of some of the chapters in Book Five and may have to adjust the story accordingly, adding some to later of earlier chapters. My intention is not to change the overall story so much as to fix the sequencing of events so that the story is logical for the reader.

Also in Book Five there is the first major departure of Ela’na from Anter’x with her visit to a futuristic Ea where she continues to learn about humans and the impact of wolfcats on their history. These elements are key in bridging The Wolfcat Chronicles into the larger One Over X storyline as well as making the proper connections into Fried Windows and other stories about Brent Woods, most of which take place after the events in The Wolfcat Chronicles.

The ten books of The Wolfcat Chronicles comprise about one third of the entire interconnected storyline that follows the lives of minor characters from one series as main characters in other. I feel this has helped lend a level of realism to the characters and their background as well as proving greater depth to the overall creation process.

Writing all the storylines and having them connect properly has taken the bulk of the past ten years. I was writing part time while working as a retail manager. That is not something I recommend as I was also a father of three and a husband. Often some things suffered as other things took on greater importance. Spending 70 hours a week at work left scarce time for me. And so I tended to write after I got home from work, carrying on into he wee hours of the morning. Sometimes I took a combat nap before returning to work. Other times I took a shower, dressed and went to work without having slept. I always knew that at some point I would need to quit working as a manager in order to finish what had become my true life’s work, creating an alternate universe and populating it with my characters.

Only in the past nearly three years, since I left management, have I devoted the majority of my attentions of properly organizing the stories, one of the later projects was Fried Windows, the first novel I composed entirely after leaving retail management. Also I have written several other side projects over the years that are in Elgon Universe though not directly connected to the major series. One of those stories is Becoming Thuperman, which will be a multiple volume tale once completed – at least two but perhaps three or more books.

#ElgonUniverse #TheWolfcatChronicles #FriedWindows #BrentWoods #Writing #Publishing #Revising