WriterDude

Have this ever happened to any of you? I used to have four characters. Not four MC's and several less important ones, but four. In total. There are three main characters, and the book is in three parts. The short version is that part 1 is entirely from Sharon's perspective, part 2 is from Cara's perspective and part 3 is from Annie's perspective. The first part is all about how Sharon met Cara and ends with her being locked up in a mental institution. (let's just say both Cara and Annie are half angelic human and half demonic human.) (edit: The entire first part is Sharon talking to a doctor and show everything in a flashback, so the doctor is the fourth character. He's not important enough to bring back in part 2 and 3.)

With Sharon locked up, part 2 is about Cara and Annie, and Cara is chasing a creature made out of pure darkness. Annie on her side is searching for something called "The Ancient" (whatever that is, even I don't know yet). The problem is Cara and Annie took care of the creature a bit sooner than I expected, and Annie only kept Cara alive as long as she was useful. One little fight later and they are both alive, but hates each other with a passion. This means Sharon is locked up in a mental insitution, the creature is destroyed and Annie has left the story (she has an entire part of her own waiting for her, so she can't do much yet).

That leaves Cara on her own with nothing to do, and I am still several chapters short to be "just a bit" shorter than part 1. I really don't want to artificially expand it, but what can I do? It needs to be longer. I can't let her start to solve Annie's problem either as that would make her part a lot shorter. I can't rewrite everything and make it "normal" and just one part, as that would make it... well, normal.

Anyone have a suggestion what I can do? I've started thinking about re-writing the current ending in part 2 and let the creature survive, but I really don't want to artificially expand the part. And besides, the way she kills the creature is pretty cool and essential for starting part 3.

candle

Possible vision quest to occupy part of Cara's time? Not knowing how the story continues makes suggesting anything a bit difficult.

JHB

She's defeated the darkness... now have her travel into it. Maybe she can visit this creatures home plane and learn more about this "Ancient"?

edit: And how did you end up killing the thing, anyways?

__________________

WriterDude

I can write the short version. Cara is protecting the city from discovering an alternate reality occupied by reptile humans and was supposed to kill Sharon when she found her. (long story).
She and Sharon are attacked by a creature made of darkness at the end of part 1, and end up setting an apartment in an apartment building on fire. Sharon passes out from her injuries, and Cara escapes.

Part 2 starts a few months later, and Cara is attacked by the creature again. She manages to get rid of it for a little while, and Annie show up, says she's impressed Cara survived and all that. Annie then say she's on a mission (and being part normal and part reptile human like Cara, it's obvious her mission of extreme importance.) She allows Cara to live as long as she is useful, but she isn't exactly happy when she learned Cara might have jeopardized both worlds simply by letting Sharon live. But anyway, Cara convince her to help her kill the creature, and they follow that objective while searching for clues to Annie's objective. ("The Ancient"). When they finally do kill the creature, Cara is no longer useful, so Annie tries to kill her. Cara disarm her, threatens her and walks away, effectivly ending that part as the next part is all about Annie.

The problem is it's too short. Sharon is "safe", as even if she does tell everyone, no one will believe her. The creature is dead, and Annie has her own things to worry about. Cara could help her, but why bother? She is supposed to protect the city, not go solve puzzles and crack codes. That's Annie's job.

So what can Cara do? Should she go kill Sharon just to be done with her? She needed normal clothes at one point and knocked out a random guy. This turned out to be a biker, so she accidentally pissed off one of the worst biker gangs in the city. I could let them come after her again, but what's the point? It won't affect the story at all, just artificially throw in some not needed action. I've avoided some action scenes on purpose just so I could focus on other things. (Cara got into trouble in part 1, but Sharon just left. And as that part is from her perspective, the reader wont know what happened at all until Cara showed up again even if that means she barely survived.)

*sigh* So basically, part 2 is done, but too short. Geez...

Edit: Travel into the darkness? I've thought about that, but that's Annie's job.

How she killed it? Simple. The sewers are full of all sorts of waste. Waste release a lot of flammable gasses. One little bullet against one little rock, and you have a spark. One little spark can ignite the gasses, and there you go. The whole sewer blew up. Big time. (it's sci-fi, and she's a part normal, part reptilian human fighting a creature made from pure darkness. Let's just leave out the realism for a few minutes.)

JHB

You could have the biker gang come after her and possibly discover about the existence of the alternate reality? Perhaps the bikers could then think of some way to exploit it and you could have Cara duke it out with them in some kind of epic battle?

You should bring the darkness back into the story somehow. It seems very interesting and sorta creepy.

__________________

WriterDude

The darkness with definitely be back, don't worry about that. It was the grand finale in the first part, and blowing up the sewers to kill it was a grand finale I love in part 2. It will be part of the even grander finale in part 3, too. I thought about having it appear quite frequently and getting "killed" almost easily, so it would appear like they are killing many creatures. The strange thing is it showed up in the beginning of part 2, then stayed away until the end. Maybe I should add a scene or two with it in there somewhere? On one hand, it would artificially extend the story, and I really don't want to do that. But on the other hand, it would make the creature seem far more dangerous. They have already killed it three times, but even blowing up the entire sewers wasn't enough to kill it for good. I'm thinking that it might not be possible to kill it at all. so they need to find another way to get rid of it. Maybe trap it somewhere, or send it back to where it came from. The alternate reality, perhaps?

And yes, I did think of letting the bikers find the creature and/or the other world. The problem is the creature apparently can't be killed, and it's not even fully physical. I mean it's just darkness, so the darkness itself gatherings into the creature. It only turn physical when it attacks, so it's very hard to even hit it. Cara did manage to hurt it a bit when she fought it in the sewers, but it healed quickly. The creature (think dog-like) charged at her and attacked, but she charged towards it instead of trying to dodge it. The result was the creature passed through her (literally), and her entire body started going numb for a short while. She managed to cut the creature quite badly, but the darkness gathered into the creature again, and it was good as new. :

Oh, and they did discover artificial light can't harm it at all. That's why she blew up the sewers. That would cause a lot of flames and really bright, natural light. The explosion removed all the darkness in that part of the sewers for a little while, and the flames severly injured it. With no darkness around to heal itself, it was apparently destroyed. Too bad for Cara it didn't work, though. But her idea was good, at least.

Point is if the bikers found the creature, the creature would probably ignore them until they attacked as they are of no consequense to it. If they did attack, it would just annoyed and kill all of them instead.

They could find the other world, but there are just two problems with that. First of all, you don't just discover an alternate reality by accident. Like walking through a door and voila, a new reality? And second, even Cara and Annie doesn't know how to find it. If they hadn't been part reptilian human, they wouldn't even have proof that it exists in the first place. How then can the bikers find it?

JHB

Well, maybe it's about time they found out. You could have something happen that drives Cara to search for a way into this reality, perhaps even enlisting the help of the other MCs. Maybe the darkness is the key to finding it, or the key to finding this ancient which in turn could lead them to the alternate reality.

Or maybe, the bikers could turn out to have connections to the reality (let's say, their leader is half reptilian or something for example) and agree to help Cara find it in exchange for something. Maybe they could tell Cara to eliminate a rival gang, or perhaps even the darkness, for them, which could turn out to have been a thorn in their backsides for a while.

It's really up to you, I'm just rapidly throwing out ideas in an attempt to help your thinking process.

__________________

WriterDude

The bikers are just normal people, so they don't know about the alternate reality at all. Cara on her side is protecting the city, so why would she leave it to go to another reality? Annie could force her, but that would be in part 3. They do need to kill the darkness, but again, they don't do that until part 3. *sigh*

Maybe I'll just write part 3 first and see how that goes. Thanks for the tips, though.