This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 48 second episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I've been talking a lot lately about working on book three in my Dreamlander trilogy,

and some of you have been asking me what happened to book two.

Short answer is that it's officially on the back burner and unofficially in the editing phase

until I finished the outline for book three. Not only am I waiting to revisit it

until I have the objectivity of some distance, but I'm also waiting until I

finish figuring out what tweaks book three will need me to make on book two.

Some of you have also been asking me to do a post or a series of posts on writing a trilogy or a series.

This is my first stab at a multi-book story and I'm definitely learning a lot.

I'm sure I'll have some things to say after I finish the process. In the meantime I'm still

figuring out how to bring book three in for a landing. After I finished the

outline it'll be back to book two for editing and getting it ready for a publication.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast, a writer's guide to understanding

people. Write three-dimensional characters.

Bring your characters to life.

Create realistic human experiences.

These ditties of writing advice are so common they're almost cliches.

But how can you fulfill these dictums to write real characters without first mastering

the even more foundational principle of understanding people.

Recently I received an email that raised a question so pertinent, so obvious, and yet so overlooked

that I felt it worthwhile to answer in a blog post.

The email said, after searching through your archives, I have been unable to find an article

...