Rambling about Possibilities, Pt. 2 (Patreon)

So I’ve been thinking about a few things.

Again.

Please ignore the smoke.

The short version is this:

I’m seriously considering splitting what is currently Book One into two separate books.

I’m also considering adding more chapters to what would become the new Book One, before Emilia, Cari, Krissy, and Nyria leave Bephis.

Both ideas are exciting. But also absolutely fucking terrifying.

So I want to talk about them to settle my mind a bit.

On Splitting the book:

This idea has been gnawing at me since chatpers 39 and 40. Then it came back with a vengeance around the 150k words mark.

Now I’m sitting around something like 225k words, and it’s starting to really bug me.

There are a few reasons this keeps resurfacing.

The biggest one is the tonal shift that happens around that point in the story.

Up until Emilia leaves Bephis, the narrative is… intense. It’s chaotic. It’s one urgent situation rushing directly into the next, with very little room to breathe.

Everything is changing all at once, and Emilia is barely keeping her head above water while the world keeps throwing new problems at her.

Once she leaves Bephis, though, the story changes.

There’s still danger—ie, the train gets attacked by bandits—but after that initial spike, things slow down. Slice-of-life starts taking the wheel. Character dynamics and emotional development become the focus. The story turns quieter and more introspective.

That shift feels natural to me.

Which is why splitting the book there keeps making sense in my head.

The Pros:

The tonal shift is clear.

It gives Book One a more clean arc—upheaval -> survival -> stabilization -> calm before something new.

Book Two gets room to breathe without dragging the expectations and chaos of early Book One behind it.

Book One becomes shorter.

The Cons:

Book One becomes shorter.

It means committing to the split.

The reason “shorter” exists as both a pro and a con is tied to how I think about audiobooks.

One of my long-term dreams for this story is to eventually see it become an audiobook. From a purely personal standpoint—not a marketing one, though I won’t lie and say that has zero influence—I gravitate toward audiobooks that land somewhere between 10 and 20 hours.

Over 20 is often too long, unless I truly enjoy the story. Meanwhile, under 10 always feels too short.

If I split the book where I’m currently thinking, Book One would land somewhere around 12~15 hours, depending on the narrator. Which is… kind of perfect, at least to me.

Narratively, the split makes sense.

Emotionally, committing to it makes me nervous as hell.

And that ties directly into the next part.

On Adding Chapters:

This idea has been a thing since my first Rambling about Possibilities post.

The first part of it is something I’ve already decided to do: adding small chapters with excerpts from Emilia’s lost Omen of a Bluebell book, focused entirely on her notes and commentary throughout her life.

But on top of that, I’ve been considering adding one or two chapters of cooldown between some of the more hectic events in Bephis.

EDIT: I have decided against this. Leaving the rest of the Ramble behind for posterity, though.

Nothing plot-altering. Just moments to slow down, let Emilia breathe, let the side characters like Cari, Scruffy, Krissy, and Nyria grow a bit more than they already have.

Doing that in a way that doesn’t change outcomes or derail the momentum will be tricky, and I’m very, very aware of that. It’s the main con.

But I also think it could make the eventual shift into Book Two’s slower pace feel more natural, rather than jarring.

At the same time, just the small Emilia’s Notes chapters could introduce the small breather moments I’m after.

That said… I’m worried.

I get the sense that a lot of you really enjoy the current pace. Things move quickly, and there’s always something happening. Leaving it as-is would preserve that energy.

But if I do that, I’m scared that Book Two’s slower, more character-driven pacing might feel like hitting a wall instead of a transition.

And I don’t know which would be worse.

I think I'm feeling this way because I'm close to finishing the "first book" as I initially intended it to be written. With the success I've had in posting it for you all to read, and the progress the story has made as a whole, I'm nervous about changing anything too much. It's a dumb fear, I know, but it's there nonetheless.