Plotting Fun

Plotting out Ghoulish Trappings is going fun in odd ways: my notes file now has a header on major changes from said notes file. The location it has been set in has changed and a couple of pre-novel events moved about. Three short stories have been written (badly in two cases, pretty much just outlines of ideas) and will likely be fleshed out better prior to the novel starting. I realized late last night that I had been effectively plotting the second and third novel in the series at the same time, hence a lot of stuff didn't feel as if it was working.

One thing I'm focusing on are events that occur between the novels: aka other adventures/weird shit that befall the characters and will get referenced to since I've never liked how characters seem to exist in stasis between urban fantasy novels, as though nothing noteworthy occurs between the events of novel A and B happening a few months later. As such, stuff between the novels includes a move from Vancouver to Prince George for Bryce and Wray, a ghost adopting Wray and an incident involving two dopplegangers both convinced they are the original person. Other things happen, of course, in terms of finding jobs, Wray getting ID,  them making friends and the like, but these will be referred to specifically. I will probably fix and write the doppleganger story up soon as it does constitute Wray's first 'case', but it's nothing urgent.

There was going to be another situation/incident, but I figured it'd work better between novels two and three, and plot for the latter is rummaging about my head as well. I have a rough head cannon that the first book is akin to coming of age, the second to finding a home that matters, the third more Adventure!* and the fourth is going to be Wray taking true steps along the path to trying to be a kind of proper private investigator. At which point the series will, probably, come to close, barring other viable ideas that fit it.


* Aka: if monsters exist, why don't armies and governments use them? Granted, a lot of resources in the setting go to hiding the existence of monsters and magic from the world but not all things can be hidden or even wish to hide. The ideas for it are very vague right now but the major goal is not to demonize the military and the like over what is, to them, a very sensible idea. It will also have the Bryce/Smiths plots and magicians take a backseat to stuff about monsters themselves.