Meredith Mansfield, Author

After finishing that latest chapter in BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING, I was forced to pause for a few days to make a decision about point of view for the next one.

Most of the story is told from the point of view of my Hercules-like character, Gaian. But there are a few other important POV characters, too. And, in this case, I finally decided that this chapter needs to be from the POV of one of those other characters–to wit, the love interest, Mariel.

See, they’re about to visit a neighboring country–a diplomatic visit, of sorts. This particular location isn’t especially important in this book, but it will be in the next. And, while Gaian will never go there again, Mariel will. So her impressions are more important to setting this up for the next book.

That seems obvious when I lay it out like that, but it wasn’t at first. Partly, I suppose, because Mariel had recently had a POV chapter. Doesn’t matter. This is what the story needs.

These are some of the problems of discovery writers. If I was an outliner, I’d have known that from the beginning. But outlines don’t work for me. I either abandon them when the story diverges from the outline at about Chapter Five, or I spend too much time updating them as the story continues to diverge.

Ah well, back to writing. This should be an interesting chapter since, after the experience with the very large lion, Gaian has decided that Mariel needs to learn to defend herself. Not that he’s not willing, able, and happy to defend her, but–in his opinion–everyone should feel confident that they can take care of themselves if necessary.

Poor Mariel. She thought it was hard getting over that mountain pass. She has no idea.