I'm writing a short (Is 50,000 words considered short?) story for one of my classes. I've actually finished, quote unquote, the whole thing, but I'm having some trouble with the...well, the most important plot point. In short, my main character is a former (sort of) hired mercenary, who is attacked by a woman in an alley who has disguised herself as someone else. This means she's stolen their clothes, and their baby, too. The whole thing is very slap-dash, so my lead knows this wasn't a long con and more of a spur of the moment thing. So tries to contact the phone written on the pram (think "IF LOST CALL THIS NUMBER"), but the guy shoots him down. The problem I'm having if why my lead takes the baby with him and doesn't leave her at a police station or in a dumpster. Any sort of suggestion would be helpful, as my work is due back the 26th (I got an extension) and apart from this, admittedly, very major plot point, I'm finished. Thanks.
He sells it. He raises it to kill. He raises it not to kill. He gives it to a friend that wants a baby. Maybe he investigates and returns the baby to where it was stolen. 50k words is short novel size, 175 pages or so.
50k is novella territory. Tad high for a short, in my opinion. It doesn't feel like a kidnapping, more of an acquisition of happen stance. Perhaps he does not feel obligated to burden the system, and so he raises the child as his own. The best that a gun for hire can. Could always drop them off at a church or a hospital, if going to the police is not an option. IDK. We don't know what kind of guy this Merc is. He should do what he feels is the right thing. Be it keeping the child safe, or pitching it off an overpass on the freeway. Simply put it has to make sense with the character persona. There is no right or wrong answer, just that he does something that is true to his nature.
The guy suddenly realizes that he might actually like to raise a child and decides since fate decided to dump one in his lap, well, why not?
Thanks for the advice, guys! I've decided that he takes this as a 'chance to redeem himself' and, probably badly, raise a child.
