I wrote my first book at around 12. It wasn’t very good, a weird mishmash of stuff I stole from the Lord of the Rings, Terraria, and Naruto, but it brought me right here, so I owe it a thank you. I’ve been at this for nearly a decade now, writing book after book and, for some reason, not finding much improvement. Sci-fi, fantasy, even one attempt at a thriller, and nothing seemed to be working. My scene writing was getting better but, somehow, my stories weren’t.
On the last book I wrote before this one, I finally realized what I’d been doing wrong. My first novel, still my worst, had a clear main character and 2 other POVS. The book I wrote before Nysus had, as far as I can remember, 9 POV characters, at least 3 of which could’ve been feasibly called the main, with 2 others frontlining incredibly important side plots, and 3 of the remaining 4 having their own hyper-relevant arcs. When I was first envisioning Nysus, I thought of doing the same thing. Having no idea who they would be or what they’d be doing, I decided that I wanted to tell a story across multiple eras. A globe trotting adventure that would need at least 3, no, 7 books to finish the story.
I don’t know what got through to me, but eventually I realized how stupid I was being. It hit me that I’d played myself. My drive to one up my own accomplishments had led me into this eternal tunnel of never improving and so, for the first time in my entire life, I decided to sit down and write a book through the eyes of one character. Virginia Araya, the woman on the cover, is probably the most complex and fun character I’ve ever made, behind, maybe, the robot who’s also on the cover.
It took going back to my roots for me to realize how much I’d improved. My characters, my plot, my writing itself. I’ve never been more proud of something I’ve made and I feel confident in saying that if you picked this book up, then you’d understand. Despite all the great ideas, great characters, and great moments in my 9 POV story, I wouldn’t show it to my worst enemy because I just wasn’t there yet. And there were great ideas in that story, I’ll get to it eventually, but for now I’m comfortable where I am. I had all the skills I needed to be a great writer, but just hadn’t realized it, simply because as fast as my skills were growing, my ambition grew faster. Sometimes the answer you seek is at your front door.
This isn’t me writing off multi-POV stories. Hell, Buried Wings, my work in progress, has 4 of them, but it is me realizing that if you can’t see the forest for the trees, then maybe you just need to go somewhere with less trees. Happy writing!
Michael McCollum ⌬