Losing a favorite character...again.

One of my favorite characters in "Deadfall Ridge" is the hero's best friend, Granger. He's a big woolly guy who owns Bigfoot Ranch and is a Zen master. Unfortunately, he gets wounded in the first quarter of the book and is taken off to the hospital and doesn't show up again until the last of the book.

When I decided to change "Takeover" into a Hart Davis book, I decided to take the main character, Jon McCarthy, and turn him into Hart. But I realized right away that a few of the earlier McCarthy chapters would be better as Granger.

All the later McCarthy chapters are better as Hart. So I need to lose Granger along the way.

I haven't figured out how, but that's a technicality.

Because of the exigencies of the plot, Granger has to go.


I wonder how long he'll last in the next Strawberry Mountain Adventure.

LATER: OK. I figured out how Granger leaves the scene--without shooting him.



I've reached the point in the book where the plot takes over, instead of character sketches. It's roughly 27,000 words into a 95,000 word novel. So my main goal is make that first third of the book move the plot forward, cutting as much as possible.



I've rearranged and slightly rewritten the first third of the book. Now I need to go through the rest, especially the Hart and Nicole chapters, and make them consistent.