When I first started writing my science-fiction series Meniscus, I had no plans for a series or even a book. I wrote a chapter of Meniscus: Crossing The Churn because my writing group wanted to hold a Saturday workshop on science-fiction/fantasy and I had nothing to share. I pulled out a story I had written years before but it was unbelievably bad. All I salvaged from the older story was the name of the heroine ‘Odymn’.
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Months later, I have two of the series published and four more in the wings. Since the story is written in the form of an illustrated long poem, a 150 page book is about 10,000 to 15,000 words long. This is only about 1/10th the length of a normal book, so when I finish, the story will be the length of a short novel. Once you get used to the narrative poetry form, the result is a rather quick read.
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All six books tell a story: on a planet where humans are not allowed to have relationships, a small group of humans tries to build a community and recapture some of what they have lost. Within that longer story are six shorter story arcs, one per book.
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The table below shows the unfolding story in terms of theme, story length and number of characters. Writing a series differs from writing a single book in that elements of the later story must be placed in earlier books. For example, the lost child in Book 6 is introduced in Book 2, the former girlfriend of the Slain is introduced in Book 3 but is not one of the characters until book 4, and so on. If you want to know what is in the mysterious box in Book 2, Meniscus: South from Sintha, the answer is in Book 3 (Meniscus: Winter by the Water-climb)!
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| Book | Pages | Word count | Number of main characters | Theme |
| Meniscus: Crossing The Churn | 147 | 9,556 | 3 | A young woman, Odymn, thinks she has found her freedom when she is rescued from servitude by a genetically-engineered Slain whose kindness may not be consistent with his purpose. |
| Meniscus: South from Sintha | 151 | 9,740 | 6 | The Slain, for love of Odymn, tries to return his former acquisitions to their homes and finds the task more challenging than he thought possible. |
| Meniscus: Winter by the Water-climb (DRAFT) | 244 | 15,310 | 13 | Winter comes to planet Meniscus and Odymn must cope with the survivors of a transport crash without the help of the Slain. |
| Meniscus: The Village at Themble Hill (DRAFT) | 220 | 15,229 | 16 | When the Dock-winder overlords threaten their friends, Odymn and the Slain try to find a safe place to build a new community. |
| Meniscus: Karst Topography (DRAFT) | 148 ? | 9147 ? | 17 | The Slain and his friends travel to the city of Prell to rescue the women of the community but Odymn is not among them and the Slain fears she may be dead. |
| Meniscus: Encounter with the Emenpod (DRAFT) | 140 ??? | 10,000 ??? | 16 + | A mysterious alien begins to rebuild the community of Themble Hill and helps the Slain and his friends to find a lost child. |
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For each of the books, I am at a different stage in the writing process: marketing for Book 1 and 2, editing for Book 3 and 4, and creation for Books 5 and 6. It means I am never bored, still embedded in the creative process and getting feedback as I go.
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If you have read one of the books in the series and want to leave a comment, I would love to hear from you.
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Copyright Alexandra Tims 2017
off planet 