Meredith Mansfield, Author

Well, I’ve gotten through the revision of the first three chapters of BLOOD WILL TELL and I’m generally happy with it.  In the end, I dumped the idea of a new first chapter.  The novel now starts about three paragraphs earlier than it did before, which hopefully lets me get in some of my character’s urgency and show, as well as telling through more free indirect thought, her emotions.  I’ve added a bit more description in a couple of places, cut back on some dialog, and added a little side piece of business to one scene that should illustrate the sticky part of the world building.

I’m going to go ahead through the rest of the book to see if there are more places where I can get a little deeper point of view, etc.  I think any further changes will likely be minor.  Then I’ll reread those first three chapters again, just to make sure everything still works as I intended and there are no typos.  Over the next week, I need to revisit the synopsis for this one, too.  After that, I’ll start querying again.

Meanwhile, I’m starting up new work on MAGE STORM again.  Admittedly, I haven’t gotten very far yet, but I have started. 

It’s going to be a balancing act, trying to do even a mild read-through revision on BLOOD WILL TELL, as well as working on the first draft of MAGE STORM.  I may have trouble with that pesky internal editor.  Then again, maybe letting it exercise itself on BLOOD WILL TELL will help me make it shut up when I work on the first draft.  Who knows?