Curses, Tarantula Lady!

My lovely wife, Tarantula Lady, has made it 2/3 of the way through my manuscript. I'm still shy of the 1/3 mark. Last night, she announced I had major problems. Sul, the main female protagonist, has motivation issues. As written, the story has her traipsing off into the wilderness to find someone who may or may not exist (and, even if he does exist, there's no guarantee he can help Sul) when three of her children are missing. Her ostensible reason for doing this: it's her only way to get leverage on the bad guys and thereby help her family -- MAYBE. Karen took issue with this. We brainstormed for over an hour and succeeded in fixing the problem. I'm going to (1) take care of one of those missing kids right off the bat; (2) give a much better explanation why she can't go after the other two; and (3) give her a far stronger reason for seeking out that fellow in the wilderness. Better yet, these changes will take care of what I've felt all along to be one of the weakest aspects of the climax: I pulled all my major characters back to one location for the big showdown. Thanks to the changes above, Sul and Tui (my male lead) now have a far better reason for converging on the same location. Bottom line, though: I have scenes to axe, others to modify, and others to create from scratch. I'm looking forward to it, though, because I know the end result will be a much stronger climax. Have I mentioned my vow to write a better outline, next time around? D. PS: Surgery today and surgery committee meeting this evening, so this be all my bloggin' for today, my droogs.