Carolyn McBride
Carolyn McBride asked G.S. Jennsen:

New fan here! Is there an average amount of time that each book takes you, or have each of them been different?

G.S. Jennsen Overall, my writing "process" has gotten better, and thus faster, with each book. But each book inevitably has its own challenges and quirks that affect the schedule. I've found the first book in a trilogy requires the most work - there are new settings to create (in my case, this often means entire planets, alien species and tech), new characters to introduce, new plot threads to begin carefully weaving into the story, etc. This was true of Starshine of course (as the first "first book," it took 10 months), but also Sidespace and now Relativity.

Conversely, the final book in a trilogy is the easiest (and the most fun) - all the set pieces are in place and ready to pay off and, if I've done the first two books right, the story practically writes itself. Abysm more or less spilled directly out of my brain and onto the keyboard, and I wrote, edited and published it in three months.

That's not typical, though. Given that Relativity is both a "first book" and will be about 30% longer than the Renegades novels, I'm probably looking at 5-6 months for it. But if the pattern holds, Books 2 and 3 of Resonant will be faster!

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