52 chapter pickup.

OK.  I've got the basic framework in place.

It's a stronger narrative, but has a whole bunch of loose ends, as you might expect when you eliminate so many chapters.  I'm going to really have to work on the continuity and the transitions, make sure I didn't duplicate anything or leave anything important out.

There are several places where all the moving around left characters and information in the wrong places.  But the cellphone is also a marvelous invention for plots.  That is, the character doesn't have to be right there, you can get ahold of him on the old phoney phone.  And it's a fair trick too, cause that's what would happen in real life.

I think I have a stronger grasp of the characters and their motivations:
It was always going to be problematic to have Cobb trying to convince strangers to pick up guns and follow him into battle, but it's better to save people, especially children.  It was silly to base it on animals, when it wasn't necessary.


I still want to give it a thorough cutting of unnecessary words.  I figure another 5K from the 75K words I have.  Then, when I add back in the "famous writers" chapters, I'll be back to between 75 and 80K.

I'm thinking I ought to just take all 8 flashback and divide the number of chapters by 8 and insert them there, no matter what else the story is doing.  See how that works.

I had a fair number of duplications that I eliminated.  2 scenes at the Judges house, made into 1.

2 scenes at the library, made into 1. 

And so on.

So structurally and motive wise, it is a much stronger book.  I think.  Or a disaster.  That's possible.

So yeah, its a big mess, because I did 52 chapter pickup.  I threw it all into the air and then reassembled it.  Of course it's a mess.