Meredith Mansfield, Author

This is what I’m wrestling with right now.  THE IGNORED PROPHECY is intended to be the second in a series (of four, hopefully).  However, I very much want it (and all of them) to stand on its own.  That requires a very delicate balance.  I need to give the reader enough background to understand how the characters got where they are now, how they know each other and relate to each other, and establish the milieu all over again.  All without sounding like an info dump or slowing the story down too much.  Piece of cake, right?

It was easier in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.  I had a handful of characters, basically a nuclear family, with only one or two exceptions, to start.  All the other characters got introduced as my point-of-view character met them.  Simple.  Now, I’ve got all these characters–and I mentioned in an earlier post that there are quite a few–and I have to reintroduce them with enough information for the reader to go on with, but not so much that I stop everything every time a “new” character turns up.

Last pass, I clearly had way too many characters introduced in the first chapter.  Some of that was unnecessary.  Just because I know they’re there doesn’t mean they have to make and appearance.  I’ve cut that back.

I’ve added a little reflection by the main character to hopefully give the reader some understanding of how he got where he is now.  I’ve tried not to make it too long or an info dump, but only a reader will be able to tell me that for sure.

Now, I’ve still got to work in how the main character is related to various groups in the story and show a little more depth of the world-building.   Oh, and there are still several characters I need to do a better job introducing. 

This is nowhere near as easy as it sounds–and it never sounded easy.