Reposting You Can’t Trust The AI, Chapter Three

You Can’t Trust The AI, Chapter Three

Here is chapter three of You Can’t Trust The AI. This is the book that introduced Bailey, April’s AI friend. You can get the whole book now on Amazon or Smashwords.

And don’t forget, Nova launches on Friday, May 17th.

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Writing your second to last book

Nova comes out in a week. This is incredibly exciting. But, you probably already knew that. You probably also already knew that this is book 5 in the Station 86 series and that it is the second to last book.

What you might not know is that this is the first time I’ve ever written a series this long before. Woven was only four books, and one of those was a prequel. So, technically, that was only a trilogy.

Writing a long series, as I’ve found, is a whole different creature. Now that I’ve written the penultimate book in my series, I’ve learned a few things. And so today, I’d like to share what I’ve learned with you.

Have a series outline as soon as possible

I’ve talked a lot, and I mean a lot, about bad endings. Especially in my reviews on Haunted MTL. Endings that don’t feel satisfying, don’t fully answer all the questions asked during the series or simply don’t fulfill the promises of the story.

One of the ways you can avoid that sort of bad ending is by establishing a series outline as soon as possible. Ideally, before writing book one. I had a series outline for Station 86 after book one, and I honestly wish I’d have started earlier.

This is important for several reasons. The first is that it enables you to start working in foreshadowing from the start. A great example of this is Futurama. Spoilers ahead.

In the very first episode, we see a shadow on the floor when Fry falls into the cryogenic tube. It is several seasons before we find out who that shadow belonged to, and the significance of Fry being frozen.

Writing a series outline also stops you from feeling paralyzed when starting your next book in the series. Unless you’re writing a continuing series that doesn’t have an overarching plot, like The Cat Who series, you have an overlying story that you’re telling through the series. So it’s important to understand, at least a little, how each book is going to move that main plot forward, while also being a satisfying story by itself.

For example, the main storyline of Station 86 is that there are hollow mechanical things that are killing people for seemingly no reason. This is the main issue our heroes have to face. Each story has been about some new aspect of that.

Seeming set the stage, introduced our characters and world, and established that Earth had gone dark and wasn’t sending or receiving messages.

You Can’t Trust The AI was a story about AI dogs attacking Station 86, because the Hollow Suits had taken over their home station.

Virus was a zombie sci-fi story, that happened because someone was trying to create a weapon against the Hollow Suits.

Station Central was the first one to include an actual attack by the Hollow Suits. And Nova is where we finally learn what the Hollow Suits are, and our heroes come face to face with them.

None of this was by accident. It was all in my initial series outline.

But understand that it is not set in stone

This is something I think a lot of people don’t understand about an outline. Just because you have one, doesn’t mean it can’t change dramatically. If you come up with something better, or your original outline just isn’t vibing anymore, you can redo it. You can change it. You can toss the whole thing and start over.

For example, Nova was not going to be a book at all. All the important parts were going to be flashbacks in the final book, the one I’m writing right now. Then, I realized that there was simply too much to tell, and too much I wasn’t going to have the space for if I tried to do that. It would feel rushed, and unsatisfying. So, I wrote a whole other book. And in doing so, I had to rewrite the final one.

This is why this book took so long, but that’s a whole other issue.

The important thing is that you don’t have to stick to your initial outline. Your series is going to surprise you. Let it.

Anything might happen

A series ender can bring all sorts of surprises. People who you never thought would come back might. People you never thought would get back together might. People you thought were certainly going to live to the end of the series might not.

This is when it’s time to pull no punches. This is when your character’s worlds are unraveling. It’s when they’ve leveled up, been beaten down, and are standing just outside of the big boss’s reach. Which means it’s time to go for broke.

Which sometimes means making some tough decisions. Like killing a character you didn’t want to kill. Or having a love story end badly. Because, well, that brings me to the next point.

It can look like the bad guys won

No one wants to read a book where the antagonist is a pushover. They need to be someone intimidating. Someone it seems like the hero can’t possibly beat. And so, it’s okay if it looks like good is temporarily defeated in your second to last book. Maybe their team has been thinned. Maybe they’re imprisoned. Maybe we think they’re on death’s door.

Maybe any number of things. But, it’s okay for your second to last book to not have a happy ending. I would argue it’s probably for the best. Because we all like a comeback story, right? We all love the times someone defeats all odds and comes out with a win.

That’s what your last book is for. It’s the finish line, the moment of triumph after years and years of writing for you and years of journeying for your readers. So if you want that comeback, you have to knock your character down first.

Know what’s happening in your last book

While I was writing Nova, I had a document open the whole time for notes on the last book. Because, of course, this is what it’s all been building to. And so it’s fair to say that the last two books in a series are one book, just published at different times. Never is it more important that the story should flow from the last page of one book onto the first page of the next. I’ll be honest, I was tempted to write Nova and the new book at the same time, going through drafts together as though they were one large book. I might have done that if I hadn’t let so much time lapse between Station Central and this one. But if I do another long-term series, I’ll probably do just that.

If you’re writing a long-term series, I’d love to hear about it. And if you have any suggestions or tips, let us know in the comments.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love this post, please like and share it. And if you want to support us financially, you can do so on Ko-fi.

Nova is coming out next week! You can preorder it now on Amazon.

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Creating like a child

I’ve started taking art classes at my local library. I’ve been to two so far. We’ve painted canvas bags and decorated ceramic tiles. In both cases, mine looks like the work of a child.

I love it. I love the crafts we do. I love meeting the wonderful people who come to these events. Most of them are older ladies and it’s an uplifting environment. Everyone compliments each other’s work and shares the glue. It’s like an elementary school art class, except with people you might want to spend time with.

I am a writer. Creativity is my job. I write stories, posts, reviews, and poems about the birds I see out the window. I make graphics for social media to showcase my work. Creativity is a mainstay in my life.

And yet I am constantly looking for other ways to create. I scrapbook. I draw. I keep a bullet journal and decorate my planners for fun. Like, as a hobby. I get that a lot of people do this, and I still think it’s a little weird we’ve made a whole hobby around the book we keep to make sure everyone gets to their dentist appointment on time.

But I digress.

My writing in novels, here on the blog, in my reviews on Haunted MTL, and on social media need to be good. They at least need to be competent. I am a professional writer. So if I’m going to put out a piece of writing, it needs to be as good as I can make it. All the I’s dotted and T’s crossed. It needs to be good, professional work.

When I am crafting, none of that need apply. I can just make something. And that might be the best thing that I do. It might be the best thing you do, too.

Creation for creation’s sake

To start, creating just to create is a freeing activity. It’s a wonderful feeling, to simply make something and not worry about how it turns out. It’s a mediative, healing thing. Especially if you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, or several other emotional issues.

Physical creations are great for this. I love things like working with clay, paints, or pastels. It’s wonderful to simply feel something in our hands, to craft something that didn’t exist before you started.

I have certainly done some crafts that didn’t turn out how I wanted it to be. Lots of them. Scrapbooking pages, sketches, even a handmade snow globe. The result was, for lack of a better word, shitty.

And that’s okay. The result didn’t matter. What mattered was the act of creation. What matters is losing ourselves in the act.

As we learn this truck, we can apply it to our writing. We learn to turn off our inner critic with clay and paint by telling ourselves that it doesn’t matter if someone else likes it. And as we learn the trick of quieting the critic, we can carry that trick into our rough drafts, allowing the muse free reign to inspire work and words that you might not have thought of with the critic pointing out every perceived flaw.

Novelty is to be sought after

Every new activity stretches our understanding of the world. This might not seem to apply to something like making coasters with alcohol ink. But even that, because I’d never done it before, allowed me to experience the student mind. This is harder to activate when you’re out of school, but it’s no less important.

Learning that a new craft might be fun and accessible also allows you to find something else that can bring you joy in your life. This applies to a concept I learned from therapist Mickey Atkins on YouTube. She calls it ‘diversifying your portfolio’ in regards to things that make you happy.

The theory is this. If you are only feeling alive and enjoying life when you are doing one or two things, then a lot is riding on those things. Let’s say you’re only happy when you’re reading or writing. Well, then what do you do if you’ve read so long you have a headache? What if you’ve run out of good books? What if you have simply read so long that you’re bloody well sick of it? But there’s nothing else that makes you happy, so you read so long you make yourself even more sick of it, sucking all the joy out of something you once loved?

But if you love reading, writing, playing video games, scrapbooking, crocheting learning new cookie recipes, and watching YouTube, then you have a lot of things to do to bring joy to your day. So if one of those things fails you, you aren’t stuck.

Novelty also brings out your creativity. Anything can inspire your writing, even if it’s an evening making a canvas bag with other people. You just don’t know what it will spark until you have the experience.

We can do things just for fun

Finally, creating is fun. It’s an enjoyable experience, even if it does nothing else for us.

It can feel very much as an adult like everything we do has to be productive. Anything that’s fun without another purpose feels like a waste of time. But it’s not.

I am not doing anything productive in my craft classes. I am not learning a skill that I can make money from, or crafting things that I will then not have to purchase, thereby saving myself money. I am just having fun for the sake of having fun. I am enjoying being alive, enjoying living.

The best thing we can produce is a happy life for ourselves. A life full of things that make us joyful. A life full of things we look forward to. Otherwise, what’s the point of all of this?

If you have the chance to take a craft class in your community, I can’t suggest it enough. If you can’t, check out YouTube for some craft lessons. You never know what you might find that will bring joy to your life and inspire deeper wells of creativity.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you want to support what we do, please like and share this post. You can also support us financially on Ko-fi.

Nova is available now for preorder on Amazon. Get your copy ordered now before the launch on May 17th.

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