Project updates: August 2025

Progress continues on the sequel to The Good Killers

Hello everyone. It’s been a month since my last update so here’s the latest on the sequel to The Good Killers.

They Also Breathe Fire is the sequel to the first book in the Ben Rossi/Riley Lopez series, The Good Killers.

If you recall from last month’s update, I made a significant mental leap when I realized, and accepted, that this book is about Riley Lopez.

So for the past few months, I’ve had everyone’s favorite tall, intimidating, and surprisingly socially awkward deputy taking up space in my head. Which has been interesting. She’s intelligent, she’s literate, she’s snarky, and unlike a lot of her contemporaries in mystery fiction, she really enjoys being a cop. I’ve enjoyed exploring her history and exploring other aspects of her personality, which come into play in the book. Her approach to problems is also different from other characters I’ve created, so that’s a refreshing challenge.

If you’re a fan of the Ben Rossi character, don’t worry, he’s still a key part of the story!

Other characters have also come into being: antagonists, victims, suspects, and more.

As someone somewhere must have said, writing a novel feels less like building a house and more like living in one while the walls are still going up. That’s where I am with They Also Breathe Fire right now: drafting one scene while rearranging the blueprints for another, learning what holds together and what needs to be torn down. I have about a third of the planned 60 scenes drafted.

This month, the work has centered on two big pieces of infrastructure: the Scene Tracker and the Story Bible. These are the scaffolding that let me move through the story without losing track of the emotional threads. Every scene is mapped, tagged by point of view, and linked to the ones before and after it. Each entry carries notes on its purpose—whether it’s meant to advance the investigation, deepen a relationship, or plant a seed that will bloom much later.

I’m going through all this trouble because I have to balance a career and family, and other interests like martial arts, and I can’t “pants” my way through writing anymore. I need the structure to stay on track. If I’m lucky, I get half an hour in a parking lot to actually write. If it’s a more typical day, then I’m probably dictating into Voice Memos on Apple Watch while I wait for a stoplight to change. I’ve developed a complete workflow for this novel that I’ll detail later for all the writers out there.

The Scene Tracker now covers all three acts, with Act I the most developed. Some scenes are still flagged as “brainstorming,” others have advanced to “in progress” or “revised.” That labeling scheme in the Scene Tracker helps me to see what I need to work on next.

The Story Bible is also evolving. It’s the central document where I capture not just the plot, but the deeper architecture: characters’ motivations, secrets, fears, and the recurring motifs that stitch the whole thing together. I got the idea from reading about Ridley Scott and how he develops films. Over the past few weeks, I’ve clarified some of those emotional through-lines, especially the ways characters mirror one another. It’s helping me keep the focus on emotional resonance rather than just plot mechanics.

Another aspect of the book that’s come into sharper focus are musical motifs. Music has always been part of my writing process, but here it’s become an organizing principle. I’m attempting to incorporate snippets of lyrics, or examples of songs, into the book. Each song connects to a character’s inner state, sometimes in ways the characters themselves don’t recognize. I’m hoping it’s a useful way of making sure the emotional heartbeat of the story stays audible, even when the characters can’t quite articulate what they’re feeling.

Process-wise, I’ve also been refining the Scene Notes template. Each scene draft now includes not just what happens, but why it matters emotionally, what conflict is at play, and where it connects to the larger arc. Keeping track of a simple question, specifically, “what does the character feel at the start and at the end?” has been invaluable for keeping the story grounded in emotion rather than drifting into situations where I kill the same character twice, for example.

Looking ahead, my focus is on finishing Act I in draft form and then moving steadily into Act II. I want each scene in Act I to feel stable enough that it can support the weight of what comes later. I’ve drafted key scenes from Act II and III so now I need to focus on introducing the characters in Act I. Now that I have the plot set up, I can focus on the characters themselves and let them organically develop their own mannerisms and rhythms of speech.

The amount of research I’ve done since January has been overwhelming for me but necessary. They Also Breathe Fire is the most complex and difficult story I’ve written so far. But it’s starting to feel like a novel now and taking on a life of its own. I love the part of writing when a character replies to a question or problem with something that arises naturally out of their background and personality.

I hope everyone is having a good summer, otherwise. I had a minor motorcycle accident that has been slow to heal but I’m about 80% back to normal.

Until next time….

If you haven’t yet, check out the first novel in the Rossi/Lopez series, The Good Killers (ad).

Click this link to find all my books on Amazon.