The Future (and Past!) of River City
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[TL:NGR (Too Long, Not Gonna Read):
1. New release – Dirty Little Town on November 18th, at a special price for a limited time! Pre-order now!
2. All River City-related digital titles will be specially priced during this same promotion!
3. I’m making changes in the River City series, going forward, AND…
4. I’m sharing a chart with all the River City works in chronological order – scroll down to the highlighted section for that.]
River City Release
Special Promotion
The Future of River City
What do I mean?
Keeping it Straight
The River City timeline (let’s label this as being in the River City Universe—or RCU, ha!—for the rest of this discussion) begins in Under A Raging Moon, set in 1994 of the RCU. The next book, Heroes Often Fail, is set in 1995.
Now, spoiler alert, but at the end of that second book, Stefan Kopriva leaves the police department. In 2005 (of our real world timeline), I wrote a spin-off novel featuring Kopriva called Waist Deep. I set it ten years after the events in Heroes Often Fail, so also 2005 (but in the RCU timeline).
This was the first of several Kopriva novels, comprising a series in its own right. Set in River City, these books are definitely canon. There are characters from the main series who make appearances, including Katie MacLeod, Ray Browning, and other minor River City characters.
Also in 2005, I wrote Some Degree of Murder with Colin Conway. This is set in River City and takes place a few months after Waist Deep in the RCU timeline. Detective John Tower is one of the two main characters but many others have roles, too. Lieutenant Crawford, for example, and Browning again. Even Katie has a cameo appearance.
Now, the writer in me set those stories ten years in the future so that it wouldn’t mess with the novels of the main series. At the time I made this jump to play in the future sandbox of River City, the main series was only at 1995, with the next book, Beneath a Weeping Sky, set in 1996 of the RCU.
All of that is a long way to say that I never really thought about what would happen when I “caught up” with the main series to the jump ahead I did in 2005.
But here I am, sixteen years later, and the main series has done just that. Dirty Little Town ends in early 2004 (RCU).
The stand-alone novel Chisolm’s Debt begins at the same time. In fact, the scene in which Chisolm gives his badge to Saylor also happens to be a slight reworking of chapter one of Chisolm’s Debt. Then comes Waist Deep and Some Degree of Murder in 2005 of the RCU, followed by two more Kopriva novels in 2006 and 2007 RCU.
So, the novels set in River City thus far, in chronological order are:
Seven are in the main series, two are standalones, and three are in the Kopriva series.
See? Messy.
It gets messier. I’ve also written dozens of short stories set in River City. These are collected in the four different River City short story collections (Dead Even, No Good Deed, The Cleaner, and Sugar Got Low). I always had a good sense of about when each of these stories occurred, though my dating method was sometimes “after this major event” or “before this happens to so-and-so.”
Some of these stories were published as early as 2004. So, seventeen years later, things are a little cluttered. I’ve always been able to easily keep it straight in my head, probably because to me, all these events are happening in an alternate universe and I am merely chronicling them… more historian than crime writer, as it were.
But for the first time, either because I’m getting older or because there’s just so much more in terms of characters and events to keep track of, it’s become a little more difficult to keep everything straight. For example, in Dirty Little Town, there are several promotions, including Miyamoto Shen, the longtime sergeant to Katie MacLeod and Thomas Chisolm. Lieutenant Shen’s vacant sergeant position needed to be filled. I thought it would be a nice touch to promote minor player Mark Ridgeway. Thus, the first draft had Sergeant Ridgeway handling Adam sector on graveyard. Not a big role, but nice.
Then, when I started giving serious thought to putting together a timeline, I reealized that a story set in December 2004 (“Three Days of Christmas,” which is more of a Katie MacLeod story than anyone’s) features Ridgeway as still on day shift patrol. Dirty Little Town starts in 2003 and ends in early 2004. So Ridgeway can’t be a sergeant then because he’s still a patrol officer nine months after the book ends.
This might seem likea small detail and one that most readers won’t even catch, but I just can’t have it. So I made the change, assigning a different sergeant to that position. Then, after my draft was finished, I created a spreadsheet with all of the works (novels and stories) in the RCU by year.
I’ll update it as new novels and/or stories are published.
Jumping Ahead
I realized something else in the course of writing this latest book, too. Since the ground in River City from 2005-2007 is well-trodden already, my interest became more about seeing what’s next after that, rather than what else happened during this time period of the RCU.
So that’s why I’ve decided that there will be a time jump between Dirty Little Town (#7) and the next River City novel in the main series. As to how much of one to expect, I’m going to give myself a little room to figure this out over the next six months or so. My best guess would be three or four years but don’t hold me to that. Could be more. Mostly, I’m putting this information out into the world as a courtesy to my constant readers, so you all are not surprised when you open River City #8 and see that time/date stamp on page one.
Shorter and Tighter
The other thing that I’m chainging for that next installment is a tighter focus. I mean this both with regard to characters and storylines. Over time, the River City novels have become more sprawling in terms of both. That’s just the way the series developed, and since I am committed to an ensemble cast, I don’t regret it. But I do think a narrower focus might be what is best for this series moving forward. So, expect to see fewer POVs, which also means you may experience some storylines more peripherally, only through those fewer POVs.
A tighter focus means the books will likely be shorter, too. The last several novels have pushed (or exceeded) one hundred thousand words. In the future, I’d like to see them closer to sixty or seventy thousand.
Now, the good news is that writing shorter books means they’ll come out more often. Since I got back on the River City train with book #5, I’ve managed three books in four years. I’d like to double that. I want to explore more of River City, more often.
So, there it is — a new RCU timeline chart and some upcoming changes to the River City formula. Thanks for coming along on this ride!
Frank
Source: All The Madness In My Soul
