(I’ve had to be circumspect here to avoid giving away plot
points for Books 1-7)
No matter what I planned for each book, the narrative has
taken over, and changed the story completely. Book 2 was meant to be told from
Jen’s point of view, Book 3 from Sholto’s. Book 5 was meant to be 60,000 words,
and finish with the events that take place at the end of Book 6. I won’t even
get into which characters were meant to die but didn’t, nor who did but died.
Book 1 wasn’t meant to be set during the outbreak, but
twenty years after. The journal was discovered and presented as evidence during
the trial of Jen Masterton, the last remaining representative of the government
responsible for the outbreak. In that draft, the author of the journal had no
name and no gender (although there was a barman named Sholto who’d
come over to the UK just after the outbreak.)
When I wrote the epilogue for Book 7 it originally continued
for another 5,000 words. But those words decide the fate of a lot of other
characters. Has there been an election on Anglesey? Has Sholto gone back to the
US? Have Bill, Kim, and the girls gone with him? Have they received a radio
signal from there? I could make an arbitrary decision, but that would set the
outcome in stone, and make any more books in the series difficult (and not much
fun) to write.
As it stands (and this is the plan I came up with last night,
so will probably be scrapped by the time you read this), there will be a
prequel book ‘Zero’, beginning in New York, and recording Sholto’s escape from
the US. This will be followed by a book (maybe titled ‘Escape’) that will tell
the story of a woman he meets just before he leaves The States.
The story in the US will continue with the students who were
recording the documentary inside the White House, and so were there to film the
President’s last broadcast. (Probably a trilogy, and connected with the US side
of the conspiracy.) Meanwhile, in the UK , I’ll tell the story of two American
teenagers, in the UK on a school trip and stranded her during the outbreak (and
it’s not exactly giving away the farm to say that they have a familial
connection with some of the character’s mentioned above). This book/series will
be called After The Evacuation and will co-star some of the characters from
books 1-7.
Only then will we get to Book 8.*
Which is why I wanted Book 7 to end the way it did, I think
it resolves the Nilda/Chester storyline, so if there are no more Evacuation books
(for whatever reason), then there aren’t too many threads still left open.
But that’s a lot of writing. Probably another two year’s
worth. Books 6 & 7 were written and published in four months. I don’t think
I can keep up that pace without taking an occasional break. Instead, I’m going
back to my original idea of what life would be like 20 years after the
apocalypse. (It’s a high-tech thriller in a low tech-world.) On the other hand,
I should have these books ready to be published late autumn, so then I’ll be
ready to write some more... well, I won’t make any promises, because, as I’ve
said, whatever I plan rarely comes to pass.
Instead, I'll say thank you for reading this far. I hope you've enjoyed the books to date, and I’ll offer you some original art from the new book.
(I may use this for the cover. A final decision will be made when I’ve got
the series name settled. The book is titled Counterfeit, and the series is
titled “The more things change...” (But the series title changes about once a
week. So far it’s also been called, World War Tea, The Coffee War, Smartphones
and Steam Trains, and The World Turns.)
*unless I change my mind again this evening. Which, if past
experience is anything to go by, I probably will.
