New Novel Progress: Getting out of trouble.

I'm almost to the point in the new novel where the story changes from a telling to a denouement. That's a damn fine place to be after all the effort. Chap 18 and 19 are going to have to be merged and split at some point, which will re-structure things to twenty two chapters at least. For now, Chap 20 (as outlined) is where I need to get to declare Manuscript Complete. A first pass at Editing has gone well, too, having gotten several pages into Chap 19 already. If we time this right, I and my Editor will be both focused on the structural changes and then going at "known" rewrites in about a week. Which means it is time to wave this flag:

Some of you will be asked to be "beta", or pre-publication, readers. IF you are, one of the key things you will be asked to do is to read the manuscript quickly. That doesn't mean you can't, or shouldn't, do a careful read... but I think it would help most to get some quick "this needs to be fixed" feedback before anything more detailed. Big fixes take time, and there is still the hope to make the book fit for publication before the end of April.

With that out of the way, here's some more information about the story in the new novel.

The deep team, our main character and his three colleagues, enter Guinea-Bissau as two pairs. I've already teased a bit of the arrival story for Alan and Matty. Here's an excerpt from when Anna and Charlie get in-country:

Holmgren and Duarte had the first part of the afternoon to themselves. They were scheduled for a “welcome meeting” with some of the higher-ups in the Ministry of Health and Education at 1630hrs, but that gave them time for lunch and a couple of hours to get to know what was within walking distance of their hotel. The lunch special at the hotel restaurant was a fancy fish dish presented as if it was French haute cuisine, which Charlie dubbed Maquereau hors de prix. Anna was still smiling about the waiter’s reaction to overhearing that phrase when they paid up and set out for a stroll. She had a linen parasol helpfully offered by the hotel, but even with that, there was no making haste in the mid-day heat. None the less, if there was a pleasant part of Bissau City to take a walk around, this was it.

 Colonial-era government buildings were arrayed nearby, casting short shadows onto the surrounding grounds. The French had a Cultural Center in addition to a prime location for their Embassy. There were several other embassies in the neighborhood as well. The Soviets had only a ceremonial presence, but the Cubans had a substantial building constructed from a significant portion of all the concrete in the country and none of the architectural grace. The Americans were nowhere in sight, having settled for a place out in Penha District to the West as they were latecomers here. The British had a flea speck of a presence at the edge of this neighborhood, close to the old estate that the Portuguese had begged permission to buy as an embassy after they gave up this colony.

The time spent walking gave them some time to talk, although what they spoke of were things appropriate to the identities they were in. A few details became apparent, like the complete impracticality of depending on the network of local buses and the manifest population imbalance between men and women. The first was explained by a lack of imported parts to properly maintain the buses. The second was a reminder of when the Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, the local Communists more commonly known as PAIGC, took over the country. They were pretty quick to round up and slaughter anyone who had been a loyal soldier to the Portuguese. Filling mass graves with ten thousand bodies of military age men, when the entire country had a population of under than a million people, meant the gender ratio was even more off-parity than was common in West Africa.

Nice neighborhood, isn't it? Hope you enjoyed this sample and I'll be posting here again soon!