Another thing just struck me. If I wasn't so stubborn about writing in 1st this thread probably wouldn't exit, as the missing 30,000 words would have gone on following the villain's side of things.
You can have two First Person POVs in a novel. Switch back and forth. There's no rule against that, could be interesting. All you have to do is make it clear which POV you are in for each chapter.
I haven't read your story, so this is just spitballing. But it sounds to me as if your mc doesn't have enough going wrong.
Yes, I think I worded that wrong. It's not so much boredom, more getting fed-up with being on the road, and all the hardships and troubles that can bring. If anything he's had his fill of things going wrong.
And what might he do about that? Warning - the follow-up question is, "and what could go wrong in trying to do that?"
Hey OurJud! I just thought I'd try and give some help even though I'm new and am writing a different genre. I'm not sure how much you have done to things you've already written in your 30,000 words, but I find myself going back to all areas of my own work and discovering spaces I didn't think of before. I feel this can be much easier if you do a change of perspective (though you do not have to change the narrative POV, meaning you could stay in 3rd). How much time have you spent on both characters together, one character, and then the other? As in, have you had each with 'alone time'? It may also benefit your story to briefly rotate the narration from an outsider's perspective (which you could stay in 3rd person, or move into 1st [which is harder in my opinion]). I think this was hinted at in some of the suggestions. I also like Spencer1990's idea of splitting the story in many halves. You could keep the framing to just behind each character and stay in 3rd, or you could just give in to 1st person. Remember that you can give a limited knowledge to the narrator in 1st (which gives reason for a second voice from another main character), or you can even have a limited 3rd person view(which is actually standard, I believe). There are different types of 'penetration' when it comes to 3rd person, so you can have a floating camera behind one of the two where we can even know their thoughts, but we don't know the other's thoughts until we swing around and start looking from there. Of course, this may be more powerful in 1st person. Anyway, besides the possible POV of narration and the sub-categories of perspective, I have also found that when I wanted my story to be a length fit for publishing, creating a chapter framework that I can (very) loosely follow has helped me tremendously so far. I just bullet pointed something that I wanted to happen and came up with a dozen more 'approximately' chapters to double my story into the length I was shooting for. Maybe in your case, going back and filling in the gaps with not just description, but what exactly happened before and after each chapter...or even in the midst of each scene...could help you reach your word count goals. I hope that any of these things could be helpful to you and your story!~
So what happens with the loan shark drug dealer? Does he catch up with them? Does something happen that forces the buddies to go home and turn him in, even though that jeopardises their own freedom? Will they get into a scrape they can't get out of by driving away? A more fundamental way of putting this is: What promises did you make to your readers at the beginning of the book? What will they assume they're going to get by the end? Once you're clear on that, give it to them. Or pull off a plot twist and give them something even better.
@AlexInoue - Thank you for your comments. I think knowing what I know now I may have perhaps written this in 3rd. Being able to switch between goodies and baddies would have doubled my overall current word count and I wouldn't be having this problem. However, to go back now and change everything from 1st to 3rd, while shoehorning the baddie scenes in is not something I want to even consider. I know Spencer said I could have two 1st POV, but it goes against the grain for me. @Catrin Lewis - Thanks for your comments too. I think the showdown with the drug-dealer was always in the back of my mind as being the story's pay-off, so I think the best thing I can do is st start steering things to an end, then bulk up each chapter during re-writes. Hopefully then I'll have something around the 70 - 80,000 word mark.
Sounds like a good approach. You don't necessarily have to write anything from the bad guy's point of view. But if it's been lighthearted romp up to now and you know things will get serious at the end, you can get a lot of word count going back and making sure that shadow is there from the start. Not that you want to use this, but Sunday night I was talking to a co-worker. I hadn't seen her since the Monday before and figured it was just the schedule. But she told me she'd gone home that Monday night and found her only surviving daughter dead on the floor of a heroin overdose. Seems her no-good boyfriend and his dope dealer friend had come over with what they said was some really good stuff and shot her up with it. When they saw she was dying they took off and left her. No call to 911, no nothing. The EMTs could have gotten there in time to give her an antidote and bring her back. But no, they were afraid of getting arrested for possession. Well, now they have been arrested, for negligent homicide. If your buddies found out your dope dealer did something like that to someone they cared about (and he hadn't been caught), that'd give them a good incentive to go home and deal with it. But as I said, this isn't something you need to to use, though tragically, it's something that happens. You're getting clear on what you want to do, and that's good.
Your point is a good one. They've been on the road for a few weeks now so it would seem a little odd for them to just suddenly decide to turn back and go home to face the music. I think there needs to be a good reason to abandon the road trip so suddenly. I think I'm a little disappointed this novel hasn't turned out the way I'd wanted. I wanted it to be much more of a contemporary, meandering, character-driven affair, but instead I've ended up with cliched baddies and set-ups that make it read more like a Tony Scott film than anything else. I think I'll go the whole hog and have my baddie die in the blades of a chopper
Your story idea sounds great! Just make sure to make it about all the awesome, little, nagging details of addiction, camping, brain scratching madness that goes with stress and addiction! I would love to read about someone, on drugs, trying to pitch a tent. Is it funny, more of a mind trip, or dark?
There's both darkness and humour in there (at least that was my intention). I just want it finished now, but I'm afraid I've lost interest in both characters and story. If I force myself to see it through to the end there's a danger it will turn out forced and rushed, so I'm in a no-win situation. Just another in a long line of half-finished abandoned novels.
These scrapes they get into, do they serve a purpose? Do the characters learn something from each incident? Is there a thematic link between the scrapes? If you're looking for a climactic end to your journey, perhaps a person from each scrape begins to follow your protagonists. So by the time they turn around and decide to face the music with the drug dealer, they have dragged a whole bunch of other furious and shady characters behind them. They deal with each antagonist using a method they learned from their encounters in reverse order, turn them all on each other, and slip out in the ensuing madness, also rescuing the bewildered drug dealer who then calls it square and decides to join up with your hapless duo.
