SHANNIVAR cover!

Here's the cover for Shannivar, the second book of The Seven-Petaled Shield.  I am so pleased with the artwork by Matt Stawicki! It's available for pre-order at the usual places, for an early December release.

The "Middle Book" of a Trilogy

I’m in the process of proofreading  Shannivar, the second volume of a fantasy trilogy (The Seven-Petaled Shield). As is typical, I swing between elation at what I’ve accomplished (“This is brilliant!” “I nailed it!”) and wishing I could take the whole thing apart and put it back together right. I’m also reflecting on the challenges and joys of “middle books.”

Middle books present particular challenges that reflect whether they are truly the second of three parts or whether they are “the continuing adventures” of a successful-but-complete first book. A trilogy is like a three-act structure, only on steroids. The whole work gets fractal, if I’m using that term correctly. Overall, you have three books, but each book has a three-act or four-act architecture within it. And each scene has its own buildup and partial resolution of tension, etc.

In a successful trilogy, the second book soars. It takes off like a rocket from the firm foundation that has been established in the first book, using the unresolved or partially-resolved tension to get a running start. There’s a great freedom in middle books because the “problem” – the threat or goal – has already been established. It may be clarified or elaborated or modified, but we’re not starting from scratch. Now we have the freedom to ratchet up the tension, increase the stakes, have a gazillion things go wrong wrong OMG DISASTER. I wonder if many middle books have a soggy quality because they limit themselves to “getting from here to there” instead of “swamp-malaria-alligators-sinkhole-hurricane-ALIENS FROM SPACE-PLANET GO SPLODY!” Middle books work when every turn makes the situation exponentially worse and our characters have to work that much harder and suffer that much more.