Line of thought re. dystopian ms:

1. It slows and sags by the end of chapter 5. (I think it's chapter 5; still haven't looked at it.)

2. I could make stuff happen quicker; i.e. let the new people show up and introduce the new problems.

3. But I already just brought new people in--3 of them at once.

4. Therefore, switching out the sagging part for more new people and problems feels "off" to me, pacing-wise. It just seems like too much to take in, as a reader. It seems too crammed.

5. I'm trying to remember what I've been telling students lately, and am seeing if I need to follow any of my own advice.

6. If I was my own student, I would advise me to find the emotional points I feel drawn to and see if I can use them as "markers" then fill in the rest from there.

7. I do have two small pieces that I love and feel drawn to, that both go in this part somewhere.

8. If I switch the time of day to evening rather than morning, I can probably skip a lot of the saggy part and go straight to those two pieces.

9. The problem with this is one of logistics, but I'm not going to worry about that right now.

10. Those two pieces are more internal and quiet, and will provide the break in pacing that I need. So I think I might be able to go straight from them back into faster-moving events.

And that is what I'm going to try today: pull up the ms, go to that last completed chapter, and start changing it under the assumption that the characters are losing daylight. But I'm not going to go back farther in the ms and try to change earlier stuff to fit; I'm just going to see how this goes. Who knows what I've forgotten about the story that could make this not work? Stay tuned.