Triptych Third Draft: Katsu's Story Complete

It took slightly longer than I hoped, but the rework of Katsu Sumara's thread is now complete. At last.

No particular reason why it took longer, other than my own lack of focus. I kept finding ways to distract myself. Oh look, cricket's on. And tennis.

I've currently got Jack Draper playing on my right monitor, Katie Boulter on my iPad, and England v India on my TV. Oh, and a live video feed of the Kilauea volcano eruption on my left monitor, just next to my Bluesky feed. If only I could work out why I'm lacking in focus.

Anyway, Katsu's rework went pretty well. As I expected, I carried out a significant rework of his opening chapter to avoid the big infodump exposition at its start. It's a much more interesting introduction to the man.

The changes to the middle chapters were straightforward, only getting significant once Steffan entered his story. Probably about a third of that phase of the story was new, primarily to fix Steffan's motivations and make better use of the knowledge Katsu had gained during his story.

Very pleased with those changes, as it will lead to an expanded role for Katsu in the reworked finale when I get there, which will now form part 2, The Troika. It's almost as if I've finally worked out what this story was supposed to be!

Seriously, I did know, but there was a much better motivation for Steffan lurking there that needed to be used once I realised. That's going to be the focus for the next phase of the rework. This is the big – and fun – bit.

Currently, all Steffan's chapters are empty, split away into separate scenes of flashback, current day events, and linking sections, all stored elsewhere. A lot of the pieces will end up back where they started, but not all. Some will move. A couple will be deleted, and new scenes will be added. They all need tightening up.

Once that's done, I need to join them all together with new/reworked framing sections, which will be greatly simplified and lean heavily into Steffan's improved motivations and make better use of the reworked Tomlin and Katsu stories.

I've been looking forward to getting to this bit! Now, I need to focus.

When does Wimbledon start?