Explanation of Current Events

Okay everyone, here is an explanation of what I've been up to lately and why there have been no recent releases. I'm very sorry about that but I've just been very busy. 

I have in fact been working on the story but not on writing new chapters. Instead,  I'v been trying to improve the first half of the story. Your feedback would be much appreciated. 

I really feel that I've improved as a writer since I started and thus I've been editing the first few arcs. On top of just general improvements I've also been trying to bring it up to e-book quality and format. 

Below is a timeline for the story as it stands now. I had a much rougher timeline I was working from but as I actually wrote the story a lot changed. This is my first big writing project and I had no idea how to pace everything as I wrote. The Iron Teeth has turned out to be much longer and slower paced than I initially planned so some things need shifting around. 

Current Timeline:  Warning Spoilers

The Road North

Honor Among Thieves

Written in Blood

Along Twisted Paths

Den of Beasts

A Tradesman's Tools

Queen of Swords

On top of a lot of editing to speed up the pace of the first few arcs I've been thinking about adding a new arc in after Written in Blood. The point of this would be too make the first half story more self contained and like a novel; so it has a clear beginning, middle, and end that gives readers more of a sense of progression. Again, this is also to fix the really slow pacing of the story at the start. 

Some ideas I've been throwing around for this are:

Tell me what you think and about any ideas you have! 

Another big thing I've been thinking about is rewriting the prologue to make it more relevant and have a bigger hook. A good story needs to get people's attention in just  the first paragraph and I'm not sure my current one does that. Some readers have also complained about it being so long and the shift in perspective, and they have a point. 

New/Changed Prologue: The Shattering of Ways

Blood poured from the man’s wounds onto the cold ground beneath him. He was dying and beyond help now. He choked and gasped as bitter blood clogged his throat but he fought to hold still and at least die with dignity. In his last moments, and in front of all these witnesses, he wasn’t going to go out thrashing around like a fish out water. Burn that!

He refused to have regrets, even though he had never gotten what he’d wanted out of life. He had done the best he could and died for what he’d believed in! His would be the last laugh anyway.

He could still feel the inhuman eyes that watched and blazed with hate. The dying man tried to chuckle but all that came out was a weak gargling cough. The fools had no idea what they’d unleashed! They couldn’t see how the world had changed and turned against them.

As the man’s vision grew dark, scenes from his past began to play out before him. His last breath rattled through his teeth and he couldn’t help but think back to how it had all began…

The point here is to shorten the really huge and not completely relevant prologue I have now and really get it to grab peoples' attention in only a few sentences. The story is just so long now that keeping the same prologue wouldn't make much sense. I'll probably re-add it as an interlude. 

If you have any ideas or criticisms for any part of the story I would love to hear from you. It would be really helpful to hear from all my readers about what they think makes my story strong and what makes it weak. 

The more input I get the faster I can get this out of the way and get back to new chapters! 

-ClearMadness