The Structure of Storm Clouds Gather (and the anchor of Prelude to the Storm)

There's something very special that can happen when your main characters really resonate with your audience. They stop being characters in a book and begin to become people you care about--people who live and breathe in your mind long after you close the novel at the end of the story.

I've mentioned before that I wanted Prelude to the Storm to be a prologue of sorts for three very special characters who will be the companions to the readers. Guides, friends, and, above all, heroes. Before Storm Clouds Gather is published, the audience should already have a very good idea about what drives these three people. What their strengths are and where their blind spots might lie.

That being said, the second book in The Storm Cycle is a very different animal when compared to the opening novel. At this point, it becomes important to show my audience a world that's in danger from more than one place. Kazultuzak isn't just coming at Auren through Baria, He's got designs on the whole world, and this means we can't see everything exclusively through the eyes of Imar, Kitoor, and Garith.

Our story is going to cross the continent from Lansea to Darg, making brief stops in the Kingdoms of the Vansernic and the Orman Perisie nations, as well. We're going to meet new heroes and villains, and follow up on some of the friends we made in the first book--because their stories are just beginning as well.

Originally, I had planned on straying from the routine I had established in Prelude and just start hopping around willy-nilly from viewpoint to viewpoint, but my editor and some of my beta readers pointed out that this was a trap of sorts that many other fantasy series fell into. An author can sometimes get so excited about his or her world that they leave behind the characters who made the first book so interesting. The readers want to know what's happening to the people they've made an emotional investment in, not some flashy new hero wannabe or a sinisterly mustachioed villain.

So then I thought about a hybrid model for the outline. We'll have the same major pattern for chapter POVs established in the first novel. That is to say, an Imar chapter, then Kitoor, then Garith, but in between the chapters, we'll have smaller stories--things that are happening "off screen," which our main heroes won't know about. It's a great compromise in that I'll be able to set the stage for parts of the story which are really going to drive the narrative of the entire series as the cycle plays out, but also lets the readers see the big picture and have a better idea of what's going on than the main heroes will.

And that's a great source for tension! If the reader knows that the monster under the bed is real, but the hero doesn't believe it's about to grab his leg with a cold, slimy tentacle, the audience is all but shouting, "Watch out, Calvin!" Meanwhile, our protagonist is preparing to leave the safety of the bed for a midnight snack, unaware that he's about to become the snack. Tension!

Now we've got the structure set up: Imar is heading south to meet with Kitoor. Kitoor is riding north to meet with Imar.

And Garith is trailing behind, trying to find the Favored Son of All. Whatever that means.

As each of their stories gets closer together until they inevitably meet with one another, we'll learn about three other types of demons that are sneaking into Auren. We'll check in on our friends in Baria and how they're doing without Imar around. We'll follow the further adventures of The Warlord (for good or ill). We'll learn about the Drakin, the Chosen One, and meet five more people who will be joining our heroes on Imar's Quest.

We might even learn what his Quest is!

But with all of this that's going to be happening, each full chapter will remain an anchor to reliably ground us back into the main story of the heroes from the first book. The warrior, the jack-of-all-trades, and the knight and his squire. The heroes who are the touchstones that will keep the narrative flowing like a river surrounding the small islands of discovery ahead.

Imar, Kitoor, and Garith. The three who stepped out of the swirling unknown to brave the storms that will beset their world.

All artwork by Forge. Copyright Leonard J. Chastain 2026