I first wrote a large chunk of Dark One’s Bride way back in November of 2013, not long after Dark One’s Mistress was originally published. Back then, it was the second of a duology. And, technically, complete.
But it felt rushed, especially the second half which became Dark One’s Wife. Whilst struggling on with a self-edit, I lost all enthusiasm for it. Even after levering my mental crowbar into the plot and cracking it into two books. Yes, there’s now more time to flesh out people, voice fears and…
Well, for some time, I’ve wondered what direction to take it. After the emotion-filled ride In Pain and Blood gave me, Dark One’s Bride seemed so… boring. In part, that is likely because of a little voice that pipes up insisting that I’m done with this story, I’ve written and rewritten so many times that it feels like I’ve completed it several times over. Except it’s not.
The other part was due to there being very little conflict. Clara and Lucias aren’t clashing with each other here and, apart from a brief misunderstanding that is quickly resolved and one bout of nerves, there wasn’t much going on with the enemies side until the last few chapters.
It’s only recently that I found the answer I’ve been trying to unearth for some time. In the first book, the enemy’s aim was to take out the Dark Lord. Five months and the enemy’s focus falls on Clara before trying to take out Lucias again. It’s led to some major rearranging of the plot, but I finally have forward movement!
Which is probably just as well as I’ve a certain spellster prince that’s very eager for me to be done so I can tell his story.
Aldrea Alien 
At critique group last night, we were just talking about how hard it is to do the second book in a trilogy because the whole series is like a book, and the middle part has a tendency to dip and drag.
I’m glad you figured out a way to rearrange stuff. It’s annoying when you have to do a lot of extra work, but so worth it. I had to do something similar with Cameron’s POV when I got stuck trying to figure out the logic behind an event I had written, and decided it just wasn’t going to work out, so I had to throw out about 15K and rewrite a bunch of stuff.
I’m looking forward to the assassins and how Clara and her Dark Lord deal with them. 🙂
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I’ve whole chapters that I’ve tried and tried to squeeze into the story, but no. They sit in bits in other files, just in case I want to pillage a sentence or two from them.
Lucias’ response to people trying to kill him and/or Clara will be pretty predictable. Clara’s reaction though… that’ll depend a little more.
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