Meredith Mansfield, Author

I have only three chapters to go to complete this revision of BLOOD WILL TELL.  Woo Hoo!  I have to say, I’m ready to finish it. This revision turned into a more extensive near-rewrite than I had originally planned. I think the story is stronger. At least, I certainly hope so.

I will definitely need to recruit a reader or two with no previous knowledge of the story to go over it and make sure it still makes sense.

Among other things, I deleted almost all of the scenes/chapters from the point of view of the antagonist. I decided that knowing so much about what he was attempting was making him seem more bumbling than threatening. Because, of course, I couldn’t let him succeed in killing off the main characters. That would have brought the story to a rather abrupt and premature end. Besides, I’m a sucker for HEA (Happily Ever After). 

I also added some scenes late in the story to give a previously insipid character a chance to shine. It comes late, she’s still pretty wishy-washy at the beginning of the story, but that’s deliberate. She needs some things to happen to her before she can really start to shine.  If and when I get to the sequel (and that story has been rising in my mind, lately), she’ll get a bigger part.

And I redid the climax so that there’s a reversal (which should have been there all along, of course). A character who didn’t die before, does now. (Don’t worry, I didn’t mess up the HEA ending.) That, hopefully, adds more tension and suspense to the ending. It really shouldn’t feel like a foregone conclusion that the heroes will win.

All that and a host of small corrections and improvements along the way.

So now to finish up those last three chapters and get ready to start on the second draft of SEVEN STARS. I’m starting to get an itch to get back to that story.

HAPPY EASTER