Shattered Salvation, an Introduction (Patreon)

Shattered Salvation is the fourth book in the Tristan series and the first in the second, informal, arc of Tristan’s story. But the second book I wrote, and its existence is basically accidental. After adding the epilogue to the original version of Tristan, I decided to write a short story showing where they are five years after meeting back up, and as soon as I posted it, readers asked about the old man’s back story, and instead of simply giving it to them, once I worked out what he had done that was so horrible he had to be thrown in the deepest hole in the universe, I build a story around it.

This book became about upsetting the comfortable status of Tristan and Alex’s relationship. It is the only story in which Tristan gets a ‘universe shattering’ problem to solve, and almost certainly the only one he will bother with. From the original version of that story, building the story so Tristan’s breakdown happen organically was the challenge, and I wanted to give Katherine a fitting send-off.

An amusing ‘back-story’ is that until the story hit my editor’s desk, the character of Marty had a Point of View, and he existed for the sole purpose of one joke, which my editor made clear didn’t even work. This is the only case of “Kill your Darlings” I have encountered in my writing carrier. And the story became much better for the removal of that PoV and folding it within Katherine’s.

Victor got a PoV, because by then, I knew he’d play a more important part in the following book and he needed to be built up to that point. With putting Victor in the story, that gave me the planet where the bulk of the story would take place, which indirectly gave me a set of antagonist who would target Alex, instead of Tristan (for once) and then I had the core of the story and all I needed was to write it.

As always, I welcome questions, opinions, and comments