Armored Piercing Operations

So I'm about 60 pages into the outline for AP3. This covers about the first 850 pages of the original draft. I'm making progress everyday and I hope to get it done later this year. Though, I don't always make a lot of progress each day. I tend to spend at least 30 minutes sitting at my desk trying to figure out what to write next. This is the difficulty of writing under heavy constraints.

I last left off in the middle of an action scene. This is the last major battle in Hamburg, Germany. The characters have gone through many trials to combat a major "General" of sorts who works for Merlov Krachenko. I can't go into more specifics without going into spoiler territory. The last thing you are likely familiar with is Sipho and team flying in Petrenko's jet in England, and that jet getting shot down. Maybe…

The first drafts of the first three AP books exist in one timeline, while the second drafts of AP1/AP2 (i.e. the published versions you're familiar with) exist in another timeline. While writing the outline for the second draft of AP3, I have to make it fit with the second timeline. One big issue I noticed with the first draft of AP3 is that it has a lot of plot holes and inconsistencies. For example, in Germany, there are different factions: German military, Russian military (i.e. Merlov's henchmen), and Sipho Morgess's crew. There are times when the Germans and Russians are working together against Sipho Morgess but then also against each other and sometimes the Germans and Morgess team up against the Russians, which makes no sense. I was in high school while writing AP3, so I didn't have a deep enough grasp on plot consistency. This makes preparing a second…

So I have been making a lot of progress on my AP3 outline. I'm above 30 pages of notes so far, which cover the first 600 pages of the original draft. I never wrote an outline that long before and AP3 will be the first book I write with a full outline to guide me. It has been very difficult, like I mentioned in my last posts. One of the most annoying things so far is needing to rearrange certain scenes to fit within my notes. Let's say I have a battle in Augsburg, Germany in the original draft, but in the new draft, I need to have that battle take place in Stuttgart, Germany and add in a different context. Or the Augsburg battle takes place on Chapter 27, but now I need to move it to Chapter 38. This is the type of complexity I've been dealing with…

Sometimes I regret adding extra details to AP1. For example, groups like Warhawk, Zaeed Front, and the Afghan insurgent groups were not in the original drafts for the first three Armored Piercings. They do add an interesting dynamic to the world of the series, but it created a lot more work for me. One recurring issue I had while writing AP4 was repeatedly forgetting details I wrote earlier, which resulted in plot holes later on in the book. I don't usually write outlines, but for AP4 I had to write multiple for each main plotline so I could properly keep track. I may need to do the same with AP3. I think I was premature in stating that AP3 will come out in 2026 at the earliest.