Copyright notice: I’m simultaneously releasing this story on Wattpad and Royal Road.
About This Story
The Pyromancer's Scroll is a clean epic fantasy novel about a fire mage's quest to redeem his soul.
The book tells other stories along the way:
a young queen struggling with the stress and inadequacy of leading a nation at war
a battle-hardened general whose strategic brilliance becomes clouded by his quest for revenge
a scheming politician whose thirst for power plunges him into far deeper consequences than he bargained for
an aerial pirate squirrel who dodges mountains while working for both sides
The novel addresses themes of justice, mercy, redemption, trust, forgiveness, war, leadership, and faith. It is a standalone story that will form the foundation of a planned series of 5 books.
What Do I Mean by “Clean”?
This book is clean, family-friendly literature. If it were a film, it would be rated PG. In this book (and all my other writing), you will NEVER see:
Mentions of sexual activity of any kind, including passionate kissing, on-screen or off-screen sex, or sexual jokes or innuendoes.
References to mature topics such as infidelity, prostitution, extramarital pregnancy, sexual abuse, illegitimacy, nudity, or substance addiction, or their use as plot points.
Gory descriptions of death, injury, or violence
Profanity
Potty humor
You should know that this book does contain:
battles, duels, and intense action sequences
on-screen deaths
an on-screen assassination
intense emotional moments
About This Serialization
This book has a 57 chapters, including a prologue and an epilogue.
Starting September 10, I will be releasing a chapter each Tuesday morning on my website, on various reader community platforms, and in audiobook format on YouTube and major podcast platforms.
Following this schedule, about half the book will be released by March 2025. On March 10, 2025, the full book will become available for sale on Amazon and on my website.
At that point, I will decide whether I will discontinue the serialization or continue to release one chapter per week until the whole book is available for free. That decision will depend on how various factors play out between now and March.
Where Did This Story Idea Come From?
Back in the summer before my junior year of high school (August 7, 2013, to be exact), I had an idea for a story.
The idea began with a title: “The Hero That Never Smiled.”
My idea, fleshed out in a page of notes I wrote that day, was that this would be a story about the characteristic hero: brave, heroic, strong, fast, agile. He travels the world performing heroic deeds. But he never smiles, and he never sticks around to receive praise or attention. Because this hero is carrying a great burden: guilt. He has committed horrible deeds in the past, and now, in an attempt to atone for what he has done, he wanders the earth doing all the good he can.
That idea—a hero with a dark past—was the foundation of Durrin Rendhart’s character. Instead of writing about Durrin after his turn to heroics, however, I ended up focusing the story on his redemptive shift from an egotistical assassin to an unstoppable hero.
Another piece of high school writing also worked its way into the story. At some point, I wrote a scene fragment about a man riding through pouring rain, haunted by guilt and shadows until he reaches a town that has been destroyed by war. That scene made it into the original drafts of The Pyromancer’s Scroll, until I eventually cut it because it no longer fit the story’s arc.
What Was the Writing Timeline for This Story?
Fast forward 4 years to 2017. I had just completed a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was starting college. I had written several stories in high school, and now I decided I was ready to write a book to eventually publish. I drafted 10 story ideas and ran them past friends and family to get their input on what to write. This story was one of them, and I decided it was (1) the most compelling idea, and (2) the story I was most excited to write.
It took me four and a half years to write the complete first draft, finishing it in 2021. Most of this delay was because I was busy with college, getting married, and having our first child. The last third of the book was written in a two-month sprint at the end of 2021, so that I could send the full book to my family for Christmas that year.
In 2022, I gathered feedback from over 30 beta readers. Then I started a comprehensive revision, which I finished in 2023.
In the summer of 2024, I launched a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $7,000 to pay for a professional line edit, music tracks for the audiobook, an initial print run, and other production costs to self-publish this story.
After eleven years, I am thrilled to finally share this story with you.
Let's get started!
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