Instead of doing the sensible thing and sleeping last night, I instead read one of the stories I wrote for Dystopolis. It’s called Death In Exile, and by and large I’ve found that people like it the most out of the six in the book. In the story, a woman grows up, becomes an assassin, is embroiled at the centre of a screw-up with her employer, finds herself in exile, and learns the value of relating to other people. I think it’s that last part that’s the hook, and it’s a useful lesson to learn: it doesn’t matter how many ridiculous bells and whistles you put on a story if it’s hollow at the center.

I think this is probably why I’m reluctant to start my latest book. It has to be - the premise of what I intend to write is utterly ludicrous, and features alien civilisations and global terrorism and gameshows and a company that edits together the memories of the dead for popular consumption, and yet at the moment it kind of feels like a bunch of ingredients rather than something whole. I want to confidently answer if someone asks what the point of it all is, even if that answer is that there is no point.

Making things a little more complex is the fact that this is going to be a two-part series, and while Part Two immediately follows Part One, I still want the first book to have a satisfying coda. I think this is the biggest struggle, really - I have some pretty earnest ideas about the final direction of the whole thing (that I need to tweak somewhat because I realised the emotional beats were starting to mimic The World’s End), but Part One ends on a pretty grim note and I want to find a way to at least take stock and give my protagonist some room to breathe.

I think I might have an idea, but it still needs some groundwork. There’s a scene in a metro station towards the end of the first book - in a weird way, the location I have in mind almost acted as the genesis for a lot of the rest of the book. There, the protagonist discovers a portal through which all manner of unspeakable horrors have entered the world, and makes the decision to go on through with the dim hope that they can be stopped. This isn’t an original idea, of course. This sort of thing happens at the end of The Maze Runner, and Catching Fire, and a bunch of other novels that lead into a sequel. Venturing into the unknown at great personal risk is something that makes sense as a narrative beat, but it’s been done time after time. It’s the one thing making me cautious. It’s a gimmick, but I think it’s one I can justify. I just need the right emotional beats.