Meredith Mansfield, Author

I’m a little more than three-quarters of the way through the first draft of Beyond the Prophecy, the third book in the Dual Magics series. I’m at a point where I’m making a lot of notes of things that need to be fixed in the revisions.

This is the first book in the series in which things are moving on two fronts. Not that I haven’t occasionally cut away from the main character to show what was going on somewhere else. But now it’s not something that’s going to impact him later. Now, while he valiantly tries to put a lid on things over hear, they’re boiling over somewhere else. And, being only human (if a magical one), he can still only be in one place at a time.

The thing was, I didn’t have a good way to connect what’s going on in one place with the issues in the other–at least until everything blows up in the fourth (and last) book. That is–until yesterday, when the solution occurred to me.

I also had a couple of characters who’d played a part in the second book, The Voice of Prophecy,

who had virtually disappeared in this book. I wanted to at least have them show themselves, since they’ll have roles in the fourth book.

And the plan came together. One of those characters is the perfect link between at least part of what’s happening away from the main city and what’s going on in the city.

I’ve backed up to add a chapter. That’s not something I usually allow myself to do in a first draft, but I’m making an exception this time.