Halftime

Authors note: A correction for the last post, Chapter six was being worked on, instead of seven.

That's out of the way, so moving on. Chapter -six- has been completed, and one of the tricks in this one was conveying a bit more emotion this time around from more characters given the situation. In all, past a quick review to fix a couple nagging mistakes, I think I was able to convey a bit more on how the situation hits multiple characters and their individual responses (albeit some expected given their natures), and the way it contradicts their normal personality. The human emotional spectrum is a grand thing, and it's amazing what they can do to us in times of great distress.

Chapter seven, after the intermission - is when the story begins to take off and head toward its conclusion. The way it's looking now, the following chapters up to the finale will be the agency getting its ducks in a row and actually making progress on the goal, as opposed to the first half when it was more about establishing the character relationships and letting the readers get a glimpse of what the story may hold. Several new plot twists that were hinted at in the first half come to fruition and power switches hands, placing the world at a greater peril. Meanwhile, the first couple pages of chapter seven will encompass the main character in some dreams and thoughts, giving a better clarity into his background. The riddle he was posed with is finally answered during this time and he begins to refocus his attention on the dual threat that has now arisen. We get another look into his past, in "happier years", instead of the painful ones that have come over the last five years - and more into his relationship with the love interest, his history, his family's history, and how he got to where he was. All it told via dream sequences.

Once he awakens, things get interesting between him and the love interest, the bad guys have some internal problems, and the agency primes itself for a major campaign that will lead to what I hope will be a climatic ending, with an ending that belays not so much the importance of how the project is stopped, but why it is stopped. And even if the researchers data that was saved from destruction cannot do it, perhaps the sheer will of operatives who are moving to save the lives of millions that are threatened by the bad guys, can. Two different drafts have two different endings in terms of how the project is finally defeated, but the second one is mainly the actions of the agency in stopping the threat while the attack is underway, whereas the first one, the antidote was completed and had to be administered. The second draft's ending is a bit more ambiguous and leaves the door open that perhaps they moved just quick enough that the antidote wasn't needed.

Either way, the researchers (love interest included) still have significant roles to play in that, one of them is the catalyst for the main character and the other is the resolve of the pair to never give up, even if they cannot finish the antidote in time. The fact they survived, and it comes to a realization for one of them later in the book that without a certain element, the project is useless.

All very exciting (to me anyhow) stuff to work on. Loving this whole writing thing again.