US BEFORE THEM SYNOPSIS RELEASE! (Us Before Them Updates #4)
Now that I'm in the home stretch for Us Before Them (A Zach Croft Novel), I figured it'd be good to keep you up to date with my progress.
February 25th, 2025:
We're really moving.
During this last period of REAL editing, I have been able to divide the areas that need work into five main 'subplots.' Thankfully, I have been fully implementing / polishing each of these at a rate of about one a day. That means that I will—hopefully—have basically all aspects of the story done within two weeks.
After that, I will still need to do some copyediting and proofreading, but the changes I've recently made will make that process go faster. One big story element that I've solidified is just how... well... screwed Zach and his friends are.
The stakes of the story are now much higher.
It may seem like I'm making a lot of story alterations at a very late stage in the process, but trust me—the pressure of the deadline makes the best plot elements come out. Believe it or not, the coolest part of The Forgotten Colony (how the Red Plague biomines iron into irogen) didn't exist until two months before I finished the book!
This happens because authors put their books under a high-powered microscope during the line editing stage, and this exposes any lingering plot holes or inconsistencies that they may have ignored earlier on.
In other news, I have a back-of-the-book blurb!
In a recent poll, fans of The Forgotten Colony overwhelmingly voted for Ryker Gagarin as their favorite character (more than 2/3)! I probably should have gathered that with all the fan art of him that’s out there. Zach Croft came in second place, with Cora Keaton trailing him. Nicolas Carver somehow found himself in last place, something very surprising to me (he is and will always be my favorite). Maybe he’s so unpopular because of the terrible things he has done… oh well!
Ryker deserves the love after everything he has been through.
Which character are you most excited to follow in Us Before Them? Let me know in the comments, and please share this free newsletter with any of your sci-fi-loving friends or authors you know. Thank you!
J.B. Ryder
Have you read The Forgotten Colony yet?
To all of you who already bought The Forgotten Colony, thank you so much for your support. Your excitement and enthusiasm for the book has made the long four-year journey totally worth it.
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If you haven’t had a chance to pick up a copy, it’s available on Amazon now, in paperback, hardcover, and ebook format.