Okay, that’s it. Volume 2 is done and I shall admit that it was a lot harder to complete than Volume 1. Volume 1 was a breeze to write and I had fun doing it. This volume was a lot harder. I think the main problem I had was trying to find a balance between the POV of the Speaker and the Dungeon Hive during the first half of the volume. They were at different locations almost throughout the book and balancing the two was a lot harder than I anticipated.

In the end, I don’t know if I succeeded and that’s something I may have to look into when I actually begin to write the book. I think the volume got easier when I turned it over to the Fire Hive. I didn’t intend to do that at the start but at that point of the story, it seems wrong not to turn things over to those crazy idiots. I’m one of those writers who have a definite idea of the start and the end of the book before I start writing but the middle (how to get to the ending) is an open question mark. In many ways, the Fire Hive was the main character as the volume starts and ends with their Great Spell so having things seem from their POV just seems right to me.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

As for the battle…well, I’m still not sure about using the Firebird and the dumped part of the story. Most of the readers seem to enjoy the part (or at least the ending) so I may keep it with some major alterations. I also intend to try to make the Volume funnier. I know it’s not as laugh-out loud as Volume 1 and that’s something I want to look into. I may also start a supervillain side-story on RRL while writing it so don’t expect Volume 3 to start anytime soon.

Having said all that, I believe the write up for the book will take longer than the time it took for ‘Fantasy Begins”. There’s a lot I need to decide on when I begin writing the book in earnest, and that includes the title of the book. I’m running through a few ideas so…which one do you think is the best?