Meredith Mansfield, Author

So, while BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING is in the hands of beta readers,

I’m going back to work on the sequel, BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM.

The first thing to do, naturally, was to read the ten chapters I’d already written just to refresh myself on where I’d left the story. Sometimes, that results in finding problems I hadn’t noticed earlier.

I found a couple of small things I needed to change and several things I need to consider in the next chapters. I don’t normally go back and make changes in the first draft–unless it’s something that will change the story going forward. One of those changes was like that. But it was small and I’ve already taken care of it.

BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM (Book 2) will be a little different than BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING (Book 1).

Book 1 centered tightly on the main character, although a few other characters got the occasional POV chapter–the love interest, the brother/sidekick, the antagonist. One other character got a single POV chapter.

Book 2 starts in a place where the main character can’t carry the action. He’s stuck in a situation where he can’t move forward until certain other things happen–which is one of the reasons I broke the story where I did. There’s a time lapse between books 1 and 2 before those conditions can be met. So, the action is carried mostly by other characters who are not yet, but will become sidekicks, of a sort. Plus POV chapters by two–at least two–other characters one of which is the antagonist. Five primary points of view.

And one of the things I kind of knew when I paused work on Book 2 to go back and make the revisions on Book1 is that I had set up one of those points of view and then was kind of letting it drop until it becomes important again. That won’t work. So I’m going to have to find something to keep this guy on the edges of the story until his moment comes. That will take a little bit of thought.