I forgot to note that the movie Titanic was on the other night, and I watched part of it and was reminded that, at the end, Rose has to make a quick choice to leave tragedy behind and get moving. I'm thinking of this in terms of my transitional problems with the swordfighting ms. The MC has to quickly drop his trauma and move on--but it's not believable, the way I have it. Why is it believable when Rose does it? She dumps old Jack and starts swimming. Perhaps it's believable because the audience knows that death is right at her heels; that she has seconds to react or she will die. Also, the movie pretty much ends after that. We don't have to see her absorbing or not absorbing her losses. Instead, we get quick snips of her on the Carpathia. In my ms, I still have a lot of story to get through, step by step, and yet there's no time to absorb. I might somehow be able to ramp up the urgency in my ms. I don't know about the rest, all the scenes that come after. No point in thinking about it much until I'm ready to start the rewrite.