Yeah. I heavily botched the build and delivery of this novel.
In my original design plan and outline, the plan was for the fight with Granny to essentially be the midway of the book… and there was a reason I kept from having a Cecelia chapter until now. You’ll see it next chapter.
This. This was a huge mistake. I had gotten accustomed to how I did the Blue Steel books, which was heavy mission, light interaction, and it threw off my mental calculations for how arcs and chapters were going to look in my other books.
This book is now over 60,000 words long and… yeah… I fucked it up. The fight with Granny and its aftermath should have been the *end* of the book, not it’s mid-point twist/upswing like I had originally envisioned.
I made the jump to dismount, and I can’t stick it. Stopping now would be akin to trying to turn around and climb back on the mean while in mid air.
So this book will be ending soon (still got another Cecelia chapter up in a couple hours, and a Greenwitch chapter which should end this novel, for all intents.)
In the edit works to make this a proper complete novel at some point in the future, I must do the following:
At least 10 or so Cecelia chapters (adding roughly 25,000 words to this book). Greatly expanding the “grow and develop” portions of the story, instead of skipping as much of the summer as I did. Some intermittent “fluff” chapters, mainly from Cecelia’s PoV. I’m hoping for at least one geek chapter, where she meeds Domenic’s friends.
One of these chapters will be the three of them building their little underground base- a Cecelia chapter, no doubt. Creative noncombat powers use… so few supers novels ever bother doing that (except maybe a “sports” chapter, which is the same thing).
Another will be a Cecelia-Seraph chapter. She accidentally promised him a date, remember? More lighthearted and fun chapter than my normal fare, at that.
Introduce a few more characters and gang factions into the story- these will be in heavier play in the sequel to this book. The original plan was to save them for after the Granny Greenwitch fight and aftermath… when Cecelia chapters were going to become a thing… but the more I look at it, the more I realize the tone and structure of that is going to be so different as to be valid as a new book.
Perhaps even change the encounter between the trio and Adam some… okay, a lot, probably… most likely by having them clash earlier on in the story to build that up a bit (and thus spread the two Adam chapters out with quite a bit more story).
All these are things I could have done to make this story better, yet didn’t in the interest of pursuing a specific payoff which didn’t work out. All these are things I need to fix. I had a plan, I took a risk, and it failed. That is what happens, sometimes… and, not gonna lie, it’s a bitter pill to swallow.
Perhaps that’s why Hollywood is so afraid to do anything original- it sucks when you fuck it up. That, and the money..
So. Here’s what’s happening, and while it may cost me readers, it has to happen.
I will finish this book’s last few chapters in order to close this novel. At which point, I forgo my usual week vacation and sit down to republish this entire novel.
I will do what I usually do when creating new novels, and fold all these chapters into their book section, where I will publish a disclaimer explaining it is the defunct version. Then I’ll start working on the “revised version” of Threefold. Every day, I’ll edit and refit at least one chapter, in addition to the usual goal of publishing three chapters a week (most of them Cecelia chapters) and thus build the novel’s ~70k long story up to ~100k, and make it a full novel, with proper development, buildup and payoff rather than… rather than what we have here…
Because I firmly believe this novel can be salvaged. It’s not even bad, it’s just not good enough for my standards.
Then, when I have the revised version up and running, I’ll leave both of them published on site (with this post sitting at the top of it) so new readers and old alike can compare them. Maybe, if I get famous someday, I can use it as an object lesson that everyone fucks it up once in a while.
Thank you for reading, and sorry for wasting your time by fucking up the whole novel.
Price 
Well, while I can’t say that I’m not eager to reach the point where the story starts moving forward quickly again, I definitely respect what you’re doing here. By the sounds of it, this is going to make for a better story. There’s a certain amount of integrity in making this decision, which I appreciate.
I definitely think the Adam parts of the story are going to benefit from a bit of a face lift. They weren’t certainly weren’t /bad/ by any means but it did feel a little bit like he came out of nowhere, especially given his role as the super-antagonist and his connection with Chloe, which probably wouldn’t work if that was all we saw of him this book.
I’m really looking forward to the Cecelia chapters. Her perspective should be interesting to see, and I’ve been wondering about what exactly is going on inside her head. It’s amusing that she of all people is getting a bunch of light hearted comedy chapters.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I respect the fact you are willing to admit to a mistake, and even more so that you are willing to fix it. I have enjoyed this book a lot, but I will admit to feeling a bit rushed at times. I look forward to the rewrite,and thank you for giving us your best work, even at the possible cost of readers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey Tananari,
I’ve been following your stories since your first book. You are one of the few online authors I follow that have a huge output and quality work. Your worldbuilding is phenomenal, and every chapter expands it.
Don’t be too upset about this book, you’ve been working hard.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I see what you are saying Tananari, and I don’t think that you are wrong as far as adding in more Cecelia chapters and building this up a bit more. But let me propose a potential alternative to your plan:
Finish this book as is, and then write another story that is more focused on Cecelia, that covers the stuff that you wanted to do here. You could have it start around the same time as this one and go at a more accelerated pace while showing off Cecelia’s point of view for a few key scenes from this book. You could have the Granny fight be the midpoint of that book, and then hit the your original ending there.
It might not be a very valid idea, since I am not really a writer and I could see it coming off as a bit forced, but I figured I would toss it out and see what you think. While I think that this story could use a bit of a polish and have the pacing tweaked a little, I actually liked a lot of what you did in it. The Adam reveal felt good to me, and the Greenwitch scenes were as cryptic and interesting as I expected.
So it may be possible to do something like have this book end with Dom and the girls licking their wounds after taking on the Greenwitch and Bea still poisoned, then the next book start with a quick rehash of events from a different PoV before resolving the story arc.
Whether you go with your current plan, or something like mine, or something else entirely, I want you to know that I really enjoy your writing and that you are going to be keeping at least one reader. Keep your chin up, you damn duck.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I actually posted this before reading the next chapter. So that changes some of my ideas but could potentially open up a few new ones. The second book I proposed could be mostly Cecelia chapters, with the occasional Greenwitch chapter thrown in to give us a broader idea of what she is plotting. That way after the halfway point you could keep the same format of Cecelia and Greenwitch chapters, but have the latter show up more frequently for the second half. Assuming that that is something you would focus on, which I am.
(I hope that that idea made sense. I wanted to be vague enough not to spoil the twist at the end of the second Cecelia chapter in case anyone sees this before reading it.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, that’s actually not too different than what I’ll be doing, anyway. It’ll be something like a “Cecelia Companion Novel”, then zipped into the main story, and adjusted for flow. The thing is, I’ll be zipping the novels together as I write the Cecelia chapters.
LikeLike
I really enjoyed this book and i respect your decision to rework it. kudos.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really like your writing, and so I won`t comment on the changes you proposed, cause I trust you to only do things that will make your stories even more enjoyable. What I will say, however, is that in one thing you`re entirely correct: Price Threefold is most definitively not a bad book. Heck, in terms of content, I even prefer it over In Triplicate. The plot is interesting, the exploration and use of their powers is incredibly creative, and even the most “expository” chapters don’t feel forced or out of place; having that in mind, I repeat what I said before, that I believe any change you would make would be for the best. Here is another reader that you won’t lose :)
Keep the good work!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are kind, and I thank you for that, but sometimes we writers need to be treated harshly to grow our skills.
In many ways, I rushed this story, left out things which should have been covered in order to push for “the reveal” sooner… it was a mistake. I’m not saying the writing quality suffered for it (it’s pretty much the same as all my other writing quality), but the story structure took an unforgivable blow. The rework will sit on a much firmer foundation.
LikeLiked by 1 person