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Sounds good! What kind of wild stuff are you going to throw in? :)

BTW the same series that book is from has a really good book on plot structure:

If you click on that link, down the page there are also some other books from the same series you may find useful, esp. Ansen Dibell's Plot and Nancy Kress' Beginnings, Middles & Ends. I'd also recommend an out-of-print book Dean Koontz wrote a while back, How To Write Bestselling Fiction , which has a very insightful analysis of Stephen King's plot technique.

Thanks for the recommendations!

My plot had all the action toward the end (hero is convicted of crime, sent to prison, escapes, comes back and seeks revenge, lives happily ever after) and it was going to take ages to set that up. So now I've inserted, into the plot build-up, at least one kidnapping/hostage crisis, a sightseeing trip to Earth, and a lot of my old reliable scene-padders, arguments between relatives.

It's not great, but it's going to be something special. In one form or another I've been working on this story for five years, almost.