A dog knight, a cat thief, and a frog witch walk into a bar... I have a story full of events, and I'm struggling with stringing it together, the pacing of it all and where to go next. The story follows the bright and optimistic Aubrey, a heavily sheltered squire who dreams of becoming a knight. She loves her kingdom (despite having never seen it), is loyal to the Queen, and admires the Knights of the Hound Table who protect it all. However, one stormy night before her 16th birthday, Aubrey is smuggled out of the kingdom by the old blind crow who advises the Queen, who tells her to seek Emmeryn the Terrible: the infamous witch of Blastwood Swamp. She is given a sword and a coin pouch, and is dumped unceremoniously outside of a village. The village is dank, impoverish, and crawling with thugs. However, our happy puppy Aubrey is enamored by it! Her naivete attracts the eye of a suave, lanky black cat with a crescent moon scar around his eye, Hal Mooney. Hal takes Aubrey on a tour of a town, in exchange for her buying him lunch, dinner, a few drinks, etc. etc. wherein Aubrey proudly explains that she is on a quest from the Queen Herself to slay Emmeryn the Terrible. Hal, completely sceptic, says that he knows just the guy to give her a ride through Blastwood Swamp. He then proceeds to sell Aubrey to a slave trader, while pickpocketing her coin pouch. Aubrey rides along in the back of a barred wagon, talking the slave trader's ear off about nothing, until from the foliage a small frog with a wide brimmed pointy hat leaps onto the hood of the carriage. "Boy am I glad to see you!" The frog exclaims out of breath, and hops away. Moments later, a giant mushroomy beast collides with the carriage, splintering the cage and sending Aubrey tumbling into the swamp. Free of the beast, the frog helps Aubrey to her feet. Aubrey explains that she is on a quest from the Queen Herself to slay Emmeryn the Terrible. The little frog brightens, and tells Aubrey she knows of the witch and will take Aubrey to her. Elsewhere, a smug Hal Mooney returns to his pub to boast of his grift. There, Hal is accosted by a giant reeking pig named Boar, who takes Hal's money to put it towards his 300 gold "debt" to release his captive sisters. A group of glistening knights enter the grubby pub, responded to by leers of quieting thugs. The knights approach the counter where Hal mopes, where they ask the barkeep if they've seen this pup. They slide over a parchment with Aubrey's face on it, and a reward of 1,000 gold. Hal spits out his drink. Travelling through the swamp, the frog explains to Aubrey about how witches are born, about magic pools, and how the swamp is a gravesite, but for whom nobody knows. They reach the town where witches reside, where snooty witches snicker and jeer at them from afar. They reach the leader, a great fat toad of a witch who exudes holier-than-thou sap from her boils. Aubrey challenges the toad to a duel, a holy mission granted to her by none other than the Queen Herself. Aubrey is handily defeated. And the toad announces to the audience of witches that of all the pathetic pranks to plague this coven, this will be the last one ever played by Emmeryn the Terrible, gesturing to our small, sheepish frog guide. Anyway, with our three main characters introduced, it goes along the lines of: Aubrey and Emmeryn are banished through a one-way-portal to an abandoned mountain island. Somehow Hal is there? How did Hal meet up with them! This, I cannot fathom. They are saved by a nomad tribe, where it is revealed that Aubrey is the daughter of the previous Queen who was erased from history by the current Queen, shattering Aubrey's loyal-to-a-fault worldview. Aubrey seeks the truth from the Queen, and drags the deceiving Emmeryn and Hal with her to atone for their misdeeds (Emmeryn agrees out of apathy, Hal agrees with intent to turn Aubrey in for the reward). The three travel to a port full of pirates, where the pirates kidnap them for their knowledge about treasure hidden in the desert (a clue imparted to them by the nomad elder). They lead the pirates to a golden city in the middle of the desert that is ruled by a greedy genie who captures the pirates. Aubrey saves the pirates despite Emmeryn and Hal's objections, and the pirates are indebted to them, as well as the golden city. There is more, however, I'm unsure if I should break up the prose into multiple books. I'm nervous that it's a lot, but that's where I'm hoping to get some insight. What is too long? What should I do about the plot hole of how Hal reaches the two?
If you're hoping to traditionally publish, that will depend on the age range of your target audience. This sounds middle-grade-ish? Which is in the range of 30-40k per book, with fantasy or upper-middle grade sometimes going a bit higher. If you do want to break it up into multiple books, make sure each one has a satisfying ending/ feels complete, even if there are overarching series elements that aren't resolved yet. I could definitely see something like book 1 being all about the hunt for the with Emmeryn, book 2 is about the hunt for desert gold,... Hal has a very clear motivation for wanting to find Aubrey, and he knew where she was going, so you could definitely have him track her to the witch town. As to how he ends up on the mountain island, perhaps he manages to catch up to them just before they're banished and ends up being banished with them for one reason or another? He annoys or insults the person doing the banishing, or even just jumps through the portal because he doesn't want his thousand gold pay-day to vanish. Good luck! Sounds like a fun story.
Wonderful! Thank you! Ah geez, truly an example of Occam's razor with this one. For whatever reason I wanted to over-complicate how he does it, but the much simpler answer is the one that makes the most sense ^^;
I learned from a famous author in masterclass that I am subscribed to, that if you are stuck in terms of story THAT is when you need to add a twist of some sort. Like maybe Hal could be her brother or something- see how story then naturally evolves from that twist? So you can begin trying something like that. Good luck!
