So to catch you up, I wrote a fantasy novel, it’s too long, I’m chopping it into two main stories, I’m using Siamese twins as a metaphor, you’re not supposed to say Siamese anymore. Cuz now it’s Thailand.
The first story is about an old priest trying to find an even older alcoholic so he can forgive him for killing his childhood friend (oh Lord, I suck at pitches). Anyway, the summary of that story is here: Splitting my Novel – A Tale of Two Tales
The second story is about Gaia, a young woman who loses her father and gets adopted by a mercenary miller. No, he’s not a miller for hire, he’s a proper miller, but he runs a mercenary group as a side hustle. Also, his name is Miller, because I like the challenge of being stupid confusing.
Anyway, Miller the miller sends her to the Library of Gameen to study. OK, it’s basically a college, but I call it a library to be more medieval. It’s inspired by the Great Library of Alexandria, which sounds like it was a kick-ass facility before it burned to the ground.
Moneyed girls in this world study at the best library. Why? So they can be more useful when the patriarchy marries them off to guildsmen and other nobles. It’s still medieval.
Gaia, our MC, is delighted. Except for the part about her father dying, this is all good news. She loves books, loves history, and is a bit of an annoying smartypants about it.
Anyway, the Library of Gameen was once housed in a bunch of gigantic towers, each large enough to fit a small city. There’s every type of craftsman, some light farming, animals, etc., all inside these huge towers, set atop thousands upon thousands of books and scrolls.
Most of the towers were lost in a war with people who hate reading but love building catapults. Naturally, a couple of these towers are ruined and abandoned, but still standing well enough to serve as the basis for a lot of rumors and ghost stories.
So of course, Gaia, our MC, ends up going for those lost, forbidden, broke down towers to find the books that she thinks will tell the real™ story, the history her College masters have conveniently edited out.
She ropes some friends into her quest, gets captured by an evil nature cult who force her to learn a bunch of dangerous spells that their religion forbids them from even looking at. It’s like if some dude on the Paleo diet kidnapped you and made you eat dinner rolls… but if like, nobody thought dinner rolls were real, and it was for world conquest.
OK, enough spoilers. It’s cool. You’ll like it. There’s a lot of climbing and falling, and a bit of flying and eating rats. And magic. Very low-key, lovely, gritty magic.
Next up, we’ll talk about how the two stories connect and how I’m chopping them.
P.K. Merlott 
Sounds intriguing.
Why do you want to split them up?
To me, it sounds like you could feed off the chapters and swapping the POVs.
Yeah the combined novel has more of a Game of Thrones feel, with multiple stories going on. I definitely prefer it that way, and if I end up self publishing I’ll go back to that structure. Splitting is really just to get the word count down to a level that agents will consider. Thanks for reading!
The idea definitely gives that GOT feel. I think if you pitch it to fantasy agents, they will consider the multiple POVs regardless of the word count.
Good luck with it all 👌😊