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    I finished revising Act 2 of RIVERS RISE! Hurray for me!

    What have I accomplished? First, I’ve told the tale the way it should be told. I have a lot of changes to make and a lot of foreshadowing to be done, but this second draft captures the story I want to tell. Mostly. The next draft will be a continuity draft. And it should make the book so that others may read it and offer their opinions and suggestions. So I’m feeling very optimistic going into Act 3.

    I’m still stinging from that expulsion hearing. That was rough, and it has a lot of rough edges that need to be sanded down. But, I do have two lawyers arguing, and I wanted that conflict.

    After the expulsion hearing, things went alright. I’d say it was 50% good stuff and 50% concern about info dumps. The section where protagonist Kelsey is forming her friendship with Dr. Minty is exactly that. In the first scene, I wanted Kelsey and Minty to discover that their grandparents might have worked in the same Scranton mine together—though of course they weren’t allowed to know each other. Kelsey’s grandparents were Irish, a group discriminated against. Minty’s grandparents were Black. My research says that the races were kept together and pitted one against the other. The climax of that scene should be the poignant moment when both women realize the connection. The scene needs work. The other key scene is where Minty tells Kelsey about her nervous breakdown.

    A digression. We all know that info dumps are bad. Sometimes beliefs about writing remind me of the rote memorization in Animal Farm, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” Those of us who read also may agree with me when I say that lots of books have info dumps. Here’s how the authors get away with them. If your info dump is relating fascinating, shocking, and/or outrageous information, you can get away with a dump. As long as they carry the reader though, the writer gets away with it. I’ll go so far as to say that the right info dump can change how the reader looks at the book and create newfound tension and suspense. Given this batch of new information, now what’s going to happen? If you disagree with me on this, leave a comment for me.

    I’m hoping that Minty’s info dump works in that manner. OTOH, I may make it more dialoguey when I go back over it. It’s funny how, after 13 drafts of this book, I’m anxious to read it again to see what it says this time!

    The last scene in act two is Kelsey’s family in their vehicles, pulled over on the side of the road, watching their farm house being torn down by a backhoe. The boys find it fascinating. Kelsey weeps. Mom holds back her tears. Following the Save the Cat! beats, this is the end of the All is Lost beat and the entire Dark Night of the Soul beat. I need to extend the scene showing how everyone is feeling sick that they’ve somehow ended up in a two-bedroom shabby apartment, and show that the freedom and space that their farm gave them and that they so prized has been totally taken away from them. Like many other moments in Act 2, this is a matter of tweaking and not a rewrite.

    I’ll close with a few stats.

• Current length of Act 2: 259 pages. That’s WAY too long! Act 1 is only 59 pages. Act 2 will shrink down once I revise Act 3.

• Overall length of novel: 442 pages, 109,000 words. Also too long. I want to get it down to 80,000-90,000 words. Between me, my beta readers, and the editor I’ll be hiring, it’ll happen.

• Pages cut already from the 1^st draft: 150.

    So. The adventure of Act 3 begins! I’ll write about it tomorrow. Look for the diary entry here and/or on my Thursday Substack blog. Thanks for reading!