A Word about Plotting

I'm about 37,000 words into the book now. About half way through. I like the plot and I'm hopeful that the bad guys are a little more psychologically complex than in the first book. I'm trying to portray how easily a person can be manipulated when they have already made up their mind about the 'truth' of a situation. How closing one's mind to other perspectives, living in black and white can get a person into trouble.

Signy is trying to work on opening her mind to alternative viewpoints. However, when the going gets tough, she quickly reverts back to her comfort zone where everything exists in terms of good or bad, right or wrong, black or white. By doing this, she loses out on help that is readily available and the unforeseen consequence of this unmindful practice is that she puts the lives of others in danger.

This part, while not easy, is coming along. The action is progressing, the suspense is building. I have re-written the inciting incident scene and it works much more effectively.

However, what I realized was that the plot so far, lacks menace. Suspense building toward action is okay up to a point but for me, there needs to be an element of menace, as well. Otherwise, the plot takes on a Nancy Drew feel. The same difficulty occurred to me about 3/4 of the way through the last book. I'd started out setting up the Tracker as a pretty menacing guy then...nothing. He didn't live up to the frightening reputation I's bestowed on him early on. To remedy the situation, I went back and wrote in a murder mid way. I think that worked very well.

This time, I am going to go back and write in some very brief scenes (including a prologue) that will serve to illustrate just how frightening the primary bad guy really is. What I hope to accomplish is to leave the reader feeling puzzled. Not quite sure who this bad guy/girl is? And - as the reader watches the psychological manipulation being perpetrated by three of the main characters, hopefully, those questions will niggle until the big reveal.

The point I need to remember is that in addition to characters,  plot lines also evolve during the writing process. I had a good overview of where I wanted this plot to go. I had created a storyboard for most of the scenes ahead of time. I tried to keep in mind the rise and fall of the action and other ways to keep the reader's attention. In spite of all that, plot changes will be necessary as you start to see the thing as a whole. And that is okay - necessary even.

The plot as much as the characters must be allowed to give hints and suggestions and the writer must be willing to listen.