I haven’t published a Station 86 book since 2024. And I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t even have a rough draft finished for the last book yet.
I’m working on it right now! Don’t worry, it’s coming. But it’s going to look a little different than the others. And, honestly, that’s why it’s taken me so long to write it.
Since I’ve never really done anything like this, I thought I’d share this experience with you.
See, I’ve written no less than three rough drafts for the last Station 86 book. And none of them have worked. They’ve all sucked. I hate them all.
At first, I thought I was just scared of finishing my longest-running series. I mean, I’ve been writing Station 86 for a decade or more now. Finishing it is going to be emotional as hell.
But after some thinking and soul-searching, I realized that wasn’t it. I love this story, but it’s done.
And that’s the issue. The Hollow Suits are all but defeated. So there isn’t much story left to tell. Not enough for a start-to-finish narrative.
But there are loose ends. There are storylines that have remained unresolved, that I’d intentionally left unresolved, because I was planning on resolving them in the last book. And now, here I am at the last book, with nothing but a collection of slightly connected stories that need resolutions. I can’t write a collection of slightly related stories just to give satisfying answers to all the little plotlines, while also finally defeating the main monsters in the series, can I?
Wait, can I?
Artists are always learning and evolving. Art changes. Consumer taste changes. And what was considered unheard of years ago is mainstream now. I mean, let’s look at some books that have thrown conventional wisdom out the window. Incidents Around The House was told almost entirely from the point of view of a child, with little to no punctuation.
The latest Paul Tremblay book has an interlude in the middle where Paul goes on a little rant to his readers.
Dozens of books are now written in present tense, like the Savage Rebellion trilogy. That seems run-of-the-mill now.
This is How You Lose the Time War was written entirely in letters passed between time travelers.
I loved all of these books! And lots of other people did, too. They work in part because their authors told the stories in the way they needed to be told, conventions be damned.
Now, I’m not Paul Tremblay. But I thought I at least wasn’t so hung up on traditions. Turns out I was. I’ve spent years trying to shove a square peg in a round hole because I was sure it should fit. To be clear, I wrote the last Station 86 book before Nova. Nova was supposed to just be flashbacks. I thought the reason why I couldn’t write the last book was that Nova needed to come first. And in part, I was right. I think Nova’s a great book.
I need to let this last book be great as well. I want to be like Paul Tremblay, not George RR Martin.
So, I told you all that to tell you this. If you’ve got a project that you’re struggling with, consider if it might benefit from some unconventional framing. Don’t force yourself to do things ‘the way they’ve always been done’. Write the book you want to write, in the way you want to write it. And if you’ve been waiting for the last Station 86 book, I’m sorry for the delay. It’ll be worth the wait.
My book, Station 86 Volume One, is available now on Amazon! It’s got two dark sci-fi stories about murder and mayhem on the station of First Contact.
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