Sorry for the mixed metaphor (I have plenty more where that came from). The Fantastic America, Midwestern Magicians (and more to come) storyline didn’t evolve in a linear fashion. There are several short stories I wrote alongside the events in the novels that helped me flesh out the world, and practice my craft. These stories were great to show me the way forward, make more sense of how my magic system would work, and work my way through the mechanics of storytelling. They also fit perfectly with the word count my critique group uses, so I got excellent feedback as I wrote them. That’s the good news.
The other side of that coin is that now I have to reconcile those narratives (All of which made sense as stand alone short stories) with the novels they are meant to compliment. This became especially apparent tonight as I worked with scenes about Liz Fairchild and Ana Rivera. Both are strong female characters who have known each other since childhood, but their story arcs are wildly different. Both women are important to each other’s story arcs and character development, but their timelines are a pain to align as Ana’s solo story is already written and in my mind at least establishes the timeline for Liz to follow as I write it now.
What a terrible problem to have right? If this was the first time I’d run into this I’d be freaking out, but I had a similar problem aligning Fantastic America’s timeline to the new novel before I started Midwestern magicians. A lot of head scratching and an excel sheet later, I think I’ve ironed most of those wrinkles out. So Ana and Liz don’t seem as daunting after that. Only time will tell…