Meredith Mansfield, Author

Happy Easter

Then, let me draw your attentiong to new chapters of FIRE AND EARTH and BLOOD WILL TELL that are up on Wattpad.

So, maybe it’s the time of year, but I seem to be taking different directions on a couple of projects. I’ve already blogged about “Magic and Power”, most recently here. There’s another story that I think is going to take a major direction change, too.

When I first got serious about writing, the very first novel I wrote was called THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. The second was a sequel called THE IGNORED PROPHECY. TSC suffered from a great many beginner mistakes, so I set it and TIP aside and worked on other things, but I still love these characters and this story. And as for world building, well, most of those entries under my “Worlds” tab are for this story.

A year or so ago, I pulled TSC out and tried a rewrite of the first third or so of it as a middle grade fantasy. MAGIC’S FOOL. I actually rather liked that version, but then I found out that a 13-year-old protagonist was a non-starter. He’s quite literally an in-between–too old for middle grade and too young for young adult.

Next I tried another go, taking my protagonist up to 15 and making it young adult. That’s not working out as well as I’d hoped.

Well, now I think what I’m going to do is just rewrite it without trying to fit it into any premade mold. It’ll probably still be young adult–at least the first book will be. The character will have “aged out” by the sequel, but so be it. If it turns out to be something that no agent will be interested in, well, the publishing world has changed and there’s always e-publishing. I can live with that.

There will be a few plot changes, I think, in addition to just better technique, but the story will be basically the same. It’s a good story and I’m sticking with it.