She's crafted a terrific beginning.The first quarter of her story introduces all the major characters within high-action scenes filled with noise and chaos and humanity, and all thematically linked and masterful.
The exotic world of the middle provides fascination physically by the look and feel and taste of the settings, emotionally by the needs of the characters and spiritually by the disintegration of their tightly held bands of control.
However...
In the beginning of the middle, the undercurrent of the drastic changes needed by the characters to survive remains present and the exotic world is, as I mentioned above, fascinating. Thus, flattening out the external dramatic action for a bit of a romp often works. And, it does here, too, until... the good times go on for too long.
The antagonists and consequences fade to the background and the energy of the story flags.
In those few too-long beats, the reader and audience's attention flicker. The outside world penetrates. The dream fades. She puts down the book and leaves her seat to check her messages.
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More Plot Tips:
1) Plot your story step-by-step with the help of The Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories
2) Read The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master
3) Watch the Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? on YouTube. Scroll down on the left of this post for a directory of all the steps to the series. 27-step tutorial on Youtube
4) Watch the Monday Morning Plot Book Group Series on YouTube. Scroll down on the right of this post for a directory the book examples and plot elements discussed.
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