When I first wrote The Final Spell I hadn’t the vaguest idea it would turn into a series. As I put the finishing touches on a reasonably final draft I thought, “Hey, this could be part of a series. But what should I call it?”
I shopped Final Spell around, picked up a whole slew of rejections, and started working on The First Horseman. That’s when I came up with calling this series The Brotherhood. Then I had my first surprise: Final Spell was accepted by Darkwater Syndicate.
My first thought was, “Did I even submit there? Guess so, or they wouldn’t have given me the nod.” That’s how The Brotherhood #1 ended up in the anthology Shadows and Teeth: Volume One.
While it wasn’t my first story to be published, it was nearly first. At that time it was the biggest publisher to put my name on a cover. So when I found out Darkwater was taking submissions for a Volume Two, I submitted Horseman. No luck that time. When the time came for Volume Three I didn’t have anything to submit.
However, Horseman did find a home in another anthology, Lost and Found, from Wagonbridge Publishing.
So as I write this I’ve finished a first draft of the third installment of The Brotherhood, The Prophet of Death. This one has exploded in size beyond all belief for a short story. I’m over 15,000 words and counting. No way something that size will be accepted for publication unless it’s part of a Brotherhood collection.
Or is it?
There are publications that do take novellas (or is it called “novelette?” I can never keep that straight). So perhaps some time in the near future Prophet will find a home.
The plan is for at least two more stories after Prophet. I’d originally planned ten shorts, but if they’re going to hit 20k words I don’t want to do ten. I want to finish up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 80k words and publish the entire collection.
Final Spell and Horseman might be expanded a bit. If #3, #4, and #5 all hit 20k, and I expend #1 and #2 to 10k, that’ll be 80k. A nice size for a collection.
I look forward to finishing up this series. More information on these stories as it becomes available. Since these posts are written weeks ahead of time, you might want to look for The Brotherhood on Facebook. That’s where the latest is found the soonest.
