Meredith Mansfield, Author

I’ve reached the midpoint of BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM in this first pass of the final revisions.

Happily for the pacing, it falls at just about the half-way point of the manuscript, too. As a discovery writer, I like to check things like that as I go through the manuscript. The midpoint is usually where some revelation changes the direction of the story. Most commonly it’s where the characters learn something that allows them to move from reaction to action, from defense to offense.

This is also the place one of my beta readers flagged as needing a bigger emotional reaction to that revelation. Since that character is also being hit with a different emotional upheaval at the same time, that’s going to need a good bit of planning. (He’s young enough to think he can hide it from the girl, because he doesn’t want to appear weak to her. Too bad she won’t be fooled. Or, maybe not bad at all, in the long run. 🙂 )

Therefore, I won’t be making that change–or at least not completing it–in this pass. I will be looking for the places where I can bring it out and possibly laying the framework for it. If I want this to really bring this character to his knees–temporarily–and all while he’s trying not to let it show, I’ll need to weave it in seamlessly. If I can make that work, though . . . .