I have reached the limit of earlier versions’ scenes to recycle. Now I have to write from scratch. It’s cut about three weeks’ writing time off this project, but it’s required multiple revisions from the original. I’ve also become much more aware of info dumps and exposition. Some is good. It adds color. But it has to be done right. Get it, say your piece, and get out. Let the characters do the talking.
When this was Quantonesia, I didn’t like the ending I wrote. It was kind of lame with one of the characters basically thrown away at the end. I thought I was being clever by having the unseen enemy assassinate by collapsing a wormhole with a ship still in it. It would be a great way to show some of the consequences of the series’s technology. But within the context of the Compact Universe as a whole, it doesn’t make sense. It’s like transporter accidents in Star Trek. Or airplanes. If transporters scrambled atoms routinely, no one would get on them. If there were more plane crashes, trains would be a lot more popular in this country.
So I’ve outlined another mishap, one that gets our protag Douglas Best closer to his quarry while putting him in mortal danger.
It’s near the end. I’m hoping to put this one to bed soon so I can get to converting Storming Amargosa from a screenplay to prose.