Throwing out the whole book and starting over from scratch.

Yikes.

I think my subconscious has been gently leading me to this conclusion.

I wrote a whole new first chapter for "Takeover" and liked it a lot. Then I futzed around with the next ten chapters or so and improved it greatly, but...it just wasn't working.

I copied and started cutting drastically, which led me to the inevitable conclusion that it had to be redone, and then the idea for the second chapter came to me and it was good.

And now I'm ready to admit that the solution is to write the book from scratch.

See, if I'd thought this when I started, I would have thrown up my hands and said, "Screw that. I'll write a different book."

But the truth is, the plot of this book is good. Better than just about any I've done. It's the execution that doesn't work. Not even that really, it's the format--the stupid epistolary form--that doesn't work. But a complete plot isn't really that easy to come by--and here I've got one, so I might as well use it.

Plus--it will be a Hart Davis Strawberry Mountain Mystery--a real sequel to "Deadfall Ridge."

The epistolary format was a worthy experiment. My interest in it got the book written, resulting in some good characters and plotting--but it just never became completely readable.

The tone of the new first chapter is what I was after. As soon as I realized I could continue that tone, the die was cast. So here I go, completely writing the book from scratch. As I've been saying, about a third of the way through I can start using some of the material, but I'm going to turn it into standard third person.

Starting tomorrow, down the rabbit hole.