Heretic Spellblade - Two and a Half Paths

Over the past month, I've spent a lot of time thinking author stuff. Like what sort of presence I want to have in harem, how and when to end my series, should I even really care too much about this stuff if I have fans and I'm not trying to be the next MSE (as seems to be the goal of half the folks in harem sometimes).

This post is purely about one shard of those thoughts: How to end Heretic Spellblade. The name is about the fact I'm at a crossroads (with a sort of half-assed way to resolve it on the side).

Do not read this post unless you've read Spellblade 6. I can't guarantee that it's spoiler free.

Also, if you don't want any spoilers or hints about future content or paths of the series, don't read this. You can get a pretty good vibe of where the series will go from this, even if I don't outright spoil or state anything.

Background

If you've paid attention to some of my past ranting, you'll know there are a few major points where the series' trajectory changes. These are:

• Book 1. I had a loose plan for 4 books, with ideas for how I could add 2 more in. The idea was for each book after the first to cover a country: the Federation, the Empire, and then Falmir. The extra books would be the Spires and Arcadia.
• The aftermath of Book 2. I reworked much of the plot of the series, including major background elements, and settled on the plot you're largely seeing now. It hasn't changed much, although it has expanded. I came up with the dueling prophets, the final scene of the series, Nathan's long-term arc, thematic conflicts around revolutions etc.
• The aftermath of Book 4. It did really well, so I decided to expand the series to 7 books. This also cemented the series as epic fantasy, and everything became much bigger and larger. I've struggled to get away from this decision, because there's so many plot threads that it's difficult to sever them (as I know they'll trash the quality of the series).

In isolation, these decisions look a lot like the typical "make the series longer because it's successful" approach that's often criticized ("every series should only be 3 books long because everything else is filler"). That's true - to an extent - but as I said at the very beginning, I had plans for a longer series from the start if it was successful enough.

When I started Heretic Spellblade, I was in a moment of life where I was about to change career paths again out of frustration. Emperor had flopped hard. While it took off and enabled me to go full time, there are many other ways it could have gone. The series grew to become an epic because I had the opportunity, but it's always had an ending in sight.

Rather, the decisions I've made to expand the scope have primarily been because I want to make the dream "epic fantasy series" that I've always wanted to. Selfpub is pretty hostile to epic fantasy, as while there are exceptions, the vast majority of what succeeds in any genre caters to a demographic that devours simpler stuff that doesn't require much investment and can be forgotten about the moment the book is closed. Even some of the bigger and better series picking up in litrpg and progfantasy fall prey to this, with lots of dungeoncore and strategy-esque series crippling fantastic ideas with more "grounded" or "relatable" elements that drive away fans of the core premise. Hence why Spellblade doesn't really move into the actual epic fantasy until late Book 2, but even the hints of it annoy lots of people by then (the rare times I check out reviews of the earlier books - my god, the amount of whining about "politics").

Book 5 has arguably cemented my current problem with the series: it's too big. I spent an entire book setting up the conflict for Books 6 and 7, including establishing Trafaumh, Sofia, Charlotte, Nathan's godhood arc, the duelling prophets, and the threat of the outer beings.

Just listing all those elements should make it clear how much is going on. I saw somebody comment after Book 5's release that it had more plot arcs than entire other series, and I'm feeling that while writing Spellblade. This is the "epic" in epic fantasy. Book 6 lived in the shadow of Book 5 and was effectively one half of what I intended, with much of the battle against Falmir itself shunted into Book 7 so that Trafaumh could be given the limelight.

Which brings us to the problem...

A Big Decision

There's a lot of anticipation that Spellblade will end with Book 7, partly because I've said that would be the final book. What seems to be have been missed is some comments I made around the start of the year was that I planned to split Book 6 into two due to its scope and to experiment with shorter books (HA!). I posted the Book ? cover of Artemis because I had a pretty strong feeling I'd need a Book 8 due to that decision.

To further set the backdrop, I've been publicly grumpy about the genre and my current situation. This has led to me considering when and how to end the series, and probably some suspicions that it will end sooner. As mentioned in the recent Patreon update, I'm still thinking about where I sit regarding everything aside from writing in a new genre next year, but otherwise I don't know.

But onto the decision.

Books 5 and 6 were supposed to cover the dueling prophets arc. Instead, Book 5 covered the buildup to Trafaumh, Book 6 the fallout from that, and Book 7 will be Falmir.

Book 6 answered a lot of questions and is establishing some firmer guidance of where the story is going, but it's also raising the stakes regarding Nathan and Messengers. If you recall the earlier books, there were players manipulating events, and Nathan pushes closer and closer to the manipulators. After defeating Torneus, he became involved with the Spires and Imperial politics, leading to the civil war. Afterward, the dueling prophets is about international unification. But as Tarako has outright stated, civilizations still fall when unified behind a goddess.

Kadria's plan is very much one of those old meme templates, where there are a bunch of "????" before the profit stage. Even once Nathan defeats Charlotte and establishes Fyre as the true prophet, has he actually won? What about Atlas's weird meddling? What's going on with Nathan's own power?

So, yeah, there are huge plot elements overhanging here. These aren't filler or random things I've made up, but core series elements. Some of these date back to the Book 4 pivot from war between mortals to the war between immortals, when Nathan stepped above the internal conflicts.

This is what Book 8 is intended to resolve. I frame it as an epilogue book of sorts, because it will allow me to handle some fun stuff like Nathan potentially having kids at the same time it resolves the final major plot elements.

The downside is that the Book 7 climax is going to be decisive. A lot of people can already tell there's a huge buildup taking place here for a showdown between Nathan and Charlotte. In much the same way I think I saw a loss of readers after Book 4 because it was a pretty definitive win, a lot of people will tune out after Book 7, even if I end it on a tease for another book. Some people may also think it may just be a neater ending, particularly with what Book 8 will involve (although it will tie into hints over Books 4-6).

So I'm left with a couple of options for how to progress.

Path 1 - 8 Books

The "easy" option. Write Book 7 as planned, end it with a tease for Book 8, and then return to the series in late 2024 for the true final book.

As mentioned above, I expect this will see a pretty sharp decline in readers that return, as lots of people expect Book 7 to be the end and it will likely feel that way. Others will be annoyed that the series won't truly end when they think it should, particularly with the sheer amount of people complaining about any series over 3 books in the genre right now.

One risk is that Book 8 will end up being monolithic, given everything it might potentially contain, and split into two books itself. Realistically, I'd have to handle that with back-to-back releases and finally, truly ending the series. But it's a problem that will may rear its head.

Path 2 - 7 Books

If I decide to cut the series short, I think the best approach is to resolve the remaining plot elements. Unfortunately, some of these are difficult to do. And, simply to avoid the book being massive and because I want to get it out this year, there are going to be some plot hooks that would never get followed up on.

My gut feeling about how I'd handle this would be to tack on an extra 40k-50 words, because I can't imagine integrating this any other way. Unfortunately, that would still make the book the biggest thing I've written by a large margin, given Spellblade 6 ended up overshooting the mark by that amount already. I don't have a team of folks writing stuff for me while I slap my name on it and claim huge page counts, so I genuinely don't know how this might work out.

On the other hand, I'm worried about attempting this approach without expanding the book. Many of the series' plot elements are big enough to need dedicated time to handle them, and that might then detract from all the other stuff that needs to happen in Book 7 (the Spires; the wedding; Nathan meeting Adam; Deverese/Ester fallout; post-Trafaumh stuff; war with Falmir on multiple fronts; Oliver and Nathan; multiple character arcs, including Astra's - the list goes on).

Path 2.5 - 7 Books, soft ending

The source of the post title. Probably a controversial choice, and one I'm wary of making.

As mentioned above, Book 7 will have a rather decisive climax. One possibility is to use that to effectively end the series, but make it clear that while Nathan's dealt with many problems, Doumahr's still at threat from demons etc.

The problem is that it's blatantly against the theme established by Kadria in Books 1 and 4 - her plan was to escape her employer's grasp and to create a new archetype. That needs to be resolved in some way, as it's been the thread tying the entire series together. A soft ending is basically a "I'm done for now, but might come back when I feel like it." After some thinking, I want to do better for Heretic.

So while this is an option, I'd rather pick one of the earlier two paths. Either a decisive decision to come back in 12-18 months, or just a big climax.

Final Thoughts

Honestly, part of me thinks there isn't going to be anyone happy about whatever choice I make. The genre's developed the attention span of a gnat outside of a few older authors and the amount of whining about long series has made the community incorrigible, as if every single series is one of those ghostwritten monoliths that goes on until it's no longer profitable, producing a counterweight of ghostwritten trilogies with the substance of cotton candy.

On the flip side, if I end the series on Book 7, I'm worried that it will just burn me out. Book 6 was an exercise in writing something that somehow felt incredibly huge while simultaneously small. Adding an extra plot arc would be a horrendous amount of effort.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear thoughts. I'll need to finalize my decision on this shortly.