Marie asked Graeme Rodaughan:

On your blog post in 2016, you were expecting to write a 15 book series, but now you have shortened the series to nine. Is the rest of the series going to be condensed down making the books longer?

Graeme Rodaughan Hi Marie,

EDIT: 11Apr2020

At the time I wrote my first book, A Subtle Agency, the whole Metaframe War series was (and still is) structured into five parts.

1. A Subtle Agency
2. The Crane War
3. The Red Ghost
4. The Key of Ahknaton
5. The Metaframe Adept

Part 1, became three published books, A Subtle Agency, A Traitor's War, and The Dragon's Den.

Each part of the series ends on a major and dramatic turning point, and I use those big, dramatic endings as markers for the ending of the parts, and the series as a whole.

The number one reason I published A Subtle Agency as the first act of the first part, was because I wanted to get the story into the market and in front of readers, and I didn't have the patience to spend another eighteen months writing The Traitor's War, and The Dragon's Den, and then publishing all three books in one hit as a single volume.

I'm glad I went down the path I did, as I started to learn so much more about writing, story-telling, and marketing from getting feedback for A Subtle Agency that I would have missed out on if I'd waited.

Part 2, was originally three books, The Day Guard, The Panopticon, and The Crane War. The Day Guard, has been published, 'as is,' the other two books have been condensed into a larger volume, titled The Crane War.

The number one reason for consolidating is that the combined book is simply a better story, as the The Crane War ending is very dramatic, as befits a series level turning point. The original The Panopticon ending while also dramatic, is not as strong and has become a viable Act II turning point in The Crane War volume.

My experience with writing The Crane War has convinced me that the best option going forward is to write The Red Ghost, The Key of Ahknaton, and The Metaframe Adept as two books, and take advantage of the series level turning points to produce fabulous endings - and you know how much I love a great ending.

So where does The Enforcer fit in with this scheme? The Enforcer is a new, almost stand-alone novelette (approx. 25K words) with Chloe Armitage as the main character, set in the final weeks of the second world war. It provides an extended prologue for the events in part 4, The Key of Ahknaton, and provides deeper context and understanding for the motivations of Chloe and Cornelius Crane, while also illuminating the nature of The Metaframe.

So our final structure (as of now) is as follows.

1. A Subtle Agency (as three books, A Subtle Agency, A Traitor's War, and The Dragon's Den).
2. The Crane War (as two books, The Day Guard, and The Crane War).
3. The Enforcer, The Red Ghost and The Key of Ahknaton (as one book - The Key of Ahknaton)
5. The Metaframe Adept (as one book).

Planned publish dates are,

Published:

A Subtle Agency - 2016
A Traitor's War - 2017
The Dragon's Den - 2018
The Day Guard - 2018
The Crane War - December 2019

Planned:

The Key of Ahknaton - December 2021
The Metaframe Adept - December 2023

So, hopefully all finished, wrapped up and delivered with a bow by the end of 2023. (Three and a half years to go to complete the story).

And, yes. The books from The Crane War forward are longer format. (140K+ words).

I hope that answers your question.

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