Hello dear writers, First I am sorry, I don't know in which forum that topic belongs. Yesterday I had an idea which tilted the entire plot and future of my current book. Currently I am writing on a book which is about empowerment, where a young highly sensitive woman (Julia) is faced with the problems of a world that is harsh and uncaring. Gaslighting and manipulation are also playing a part. So yesterday I had an idea. During the book she meets her cousin (Luis) again (if you need the backstory I will tell it down below). They had a big dispute and the cousin comes back in this book to talk with her about it and share his feelings towards her. She is still angry at him but talks about it with him. This scene of the meeting feels like it doesn't really belong into the book but I want to bury the hatchet between those two. Here comes my new idea. In act III Julia is faced with the consequences of that uncaring world around her which make her going insane (while being gaslit by a colleague). I had the idea that she goes for a week or two to her cousin in act three and wants to show herself that she is empowered while steering away from her problems she has at home. She ignores the problems until they hit her like a tidal wave. This would mess up my entire plan for the story but it would feel right. Now to the challenges I see with this. + character background So I planned to make a series out of this one book. I try to make this as organized as I can. First book (already written) I already wrote a book, where Julia visites her cousin. Her cousin moved to canada (away from Julia who lives in Germany) they haven't seen each other for over twelve years. So she decides to visit him with her current boyfriend. Back when she and her cousin where younger they were their best and only friends they had. So to split apart was a big challenge for them. My protagonist (Julia) moved on. She fought hard and found new friends and love. But her cousin (Luis) was stuck. He has friends as well but they get him into trouble. Which he confessed in that book to Julia. He is growing weed. Apparently Julia was shocked. Long story short: she wasn't telling her boyfriend about the weed and kept it a secret. Her boyfriend found out about it and confronted her, if she's hiding this from him, she should think about if she loves her cousin Luis. Julia was very confused. Did she feel something. In her confusion, she wanted to kiss Luis, but Luis didn't want to abuse the situation and was telling her she shouldn't do that. In the end Julia lost her boyfriend and Luis didn't saw a cent of his weed money because he got in jail. That made Julia so furious that she lost her boyfriend over... Nothing! She never wants to see Luis again. The book I write currently To the book i write now. Julias life is going great. She has her dream job and things are finally going good. She gets challenged in her work so she needs to empower. Than she gets gaslighted. She finds a guy who helps her but he doesn't believe her because Julia get's gaslighted by a colleague and he can't see where she get's gaslighted. As I worte earlier after years Luis comes to visit her and tries to bury the hatchet. Originally I planned that she get's together with that guy but he feels just like a plot device. So I had an idea for a new ending. When she gets gaslit. Her friends think she's insane. Her guy thinks she's insane. Julia herself thinks she's insane. With nothing left and feeling like a complete failure she want's to end herself. Then she sees something that reminds her of Luis and how he was the only one who believed in her when she told him about the gaslighter. She thinks and then she sees just one opportunity... There would be the end of the book and I had an idea for a third one. Forgot to mention in that book she meets Luis and resolves her dispute against him. Luis confesses finally his feelings which he hasn't dared to earlier. He gets dumped by Julia. She is still angry at him for what happened in Canada but she says to him: Blood is thicker than water. A third book to end the trilogy The new book would start with the end of the last. There is a foreshadowing where Julia stands in front of Luis' door. Then it goes back where the story talks about Luis' perspective in Part one of the book, how he got to there. At the end of act two there would be the talk with Julia from the perspective of Luis, where they talk things through and Luis confesses his feelings and gets dumped by Julia. He is sad and finally gives up Julia and lives a life without her. Which he tried in act one but wasn't able to. But then act two would end with someone (Julia) knocking on his door. Act three would be out of the perspective of Julia and Luis. Julia is avoiding her problem of act III of the former book and acts like a new empowered version while ignoring her problems at home. She doesn't charge or look at her phone to not get confronted with reality. One day she feels the strong urge to check her phone. Because she build up a good life with friends, a own flat and pets. She left all of that behind. Then she sees hundreds of messages of her worried friends, family and her job wrote messages to her worrying about her. She runs home to Luis crying her eyes out because she lied to herself. She liked the new (fake) confident Julia. Luis empowers her to be strong and go back. He is a loser he says and she needs someone who is a strong person like her. Julia goes back. Fights her problem that grew during the former book and wins. But... She is still alone. Then I thought when she comes back. Luis is in front of her door. This would be the perfect ending for me. D= But I worry about the book structure. The book I write has three acts but act three gets cut in a half and resolved in the book after the current book I write and that seems a bit odd to me. But it would be the perfect solution. Have you had a similar dilemma? I don't know if I should just stick with the old book and get her married to that plot device character or if I should write the new but weird structured version and make a trilogy out of that... And my biggest concern is that Julia may act out of character when she decides to visit him. I mean she has something for him and they were the best friends from being kids until teenage times. And in that moment where she decides to see him she is very confused (because of the gaslight). Do you think Julia acts out of character to visit him after her resentment for Luis? I hope all of that makes sense. I didn't wrote a lot of detail for brevity. Have a good weekend!
I'm not sure how exactly to help with your particular story (since understanding plots is a little difficult to do through summaries alone lol) but I do understand your problem as I've struggled with it myself a few times. In my experience, it's never a bad idea to explore a plotline to see where it ends up, and then decide afterward which one fits best with the story you're trying to tell. I try to allow my characters to drive the story, as anything else feels disingenuous. Also, try not to worry about Julia being "out of character" in her decision-making; from the sound of it, she's been going through a lot so her choices might all seem off if you're trying strictly to see continuity. Plus, real people hardly ever make sense anyway! Anywho, if you think changing the plot will serve your story better, then go for it! You can also write bits of both and then decide which you like better. At the end of the day, if I'm struggling to cut something from a story that I really like but ultimately isn't serving me, I'll just save it to a "graveyard" document so I still have the piece I've written, but it isn't actually a part of my canon anymore. I hope this makes sense and that it helps
It happens. I realized, in the last couple of chapters of a book, that one of the main characters had to betray everyone else. I'd never consciously considered it before but I knew that I had to do it. I wrote the end of the book that way, figuring that in revision, I'd have to make significant changes to foreshadow the betrayal, only to discover, on re-reading, that I'd already done it subconsciously. Somehow, I knew that I'd need to do it all along and only became aware of it at the very end.
