Ryan M. Patrick

Today, I’m going to discuss The Saturn Anomaly, the sequel to The Martian Incident and three of my biggest challenges with drafting it.

The Martian Incident was originally a prequel to what became The Europan Deception, then the two books diverged – a lot. For a while, it was a trunk novel, then I had it edited and released it as my debut.

And it’s done well! I’ve sold ~600 copies and it’s over 4 stars on both Amazon and Goodreads, so I’m doing something right. So I decided to make it Book 1 of a trilogy.

The Saturn Anomaly is Book 2 (Book 3 is The Kuiper Dominion, and I’m still outlining it) and it’s the fastest I’ve ever gone from idea -> outline -> draft. It didn’t exist until April of this year, and now I’m 67,000 words into it.

The first big challenge is making it an entry point. The Martian Incident is good, but I wrote it a decade ago and I’ve learned a lot since then. I’m balancing having enough references to it while making it so that new readers aren’t lost.

It’s harder than it sounds! Especially since I don’t want to totally spoil The Martian Incident (which has a big mid-book plot twist) in case someone reads Book 1 after they read Book 2. But I think I’m on the right track.

The next has to do with the plot. The Saturn Anomaly uses a mystery-style plotline (like many of my books) where the “truth” is uncovered at the end. I want to give the reader enough clues to solve it, yet not make it obvious.

Again, this is harder than I had expected, and there’s no right or wrong answer. I think a tech/aerospace-savvy reader will probably be a bit ahead of the protagonist(s), someone who doesn’t have that background will be behind. I just hope it’s satisfying to both.

Finally, I’m doing a dual timeline plot. Odd chapters take place in 1988, even ones in 2079. There’s 2 primary protagonists and another 4-5 characters who get a POV chapter or two.

It’s a challenge, especially since I’m trying to keep it to around 90,000 words total. The trick so far is to keep chapters short and “signpost” when we jump back what happened the last time we saw this character.

I’m hoping to have the draft done and to my beta readers by mid-September – you know who you are. If you’re interested in doing a manuscript swap or to just read it, X DM or email me. Thanks and I hope you found this helpful!