Two solid days of work purely on structure, and I have a radically different story from the one I thought I was telling. The really good part is that several times as I was reshaping everything and slotting the parts together, I actually said out loud “Aha!” I actually have been surprising myself with how well the foreshadowing and the red herrings are going to work.
There’s still a lot to figure out – including making the key plot element believable without giving away the secret at the heart of it – but that’s what the second draft is for.
Oh, and if Larry Brooks is reading this (you never know); I have a concept, I have a premise and I have a theme. It’s already ten times the story it used to be!