Hello, I'm new here. I desperately need some help with a plot that I have not been able to continue for several years, due to being on stuck on how to divide up the novel. I have two main pairings and they basically both fell into different relationships at the exact same time. After I'd written Nine Chapters, and I realised that there was no real way to fully developed the two pairings in only three novels. I figured that I will need to create a novel for EACH pairing. But now I have the problem of having written Nine Chapters, where the two relationships occur in the timeline, meaning that if I attempt to break this into two novels, I will be repeating the same events in each. Because the pairings formed from one crucial event, I cannot figure out a way to seperate them. Could someone please give me some advise? I'd be forever grateful.
What is the connection between your two pairings? Is there one? Or is it just that they both originated from the same event? Is there a way to bring the two pairings together at some point during the story? Sounds to me as if you need a 'eureka' moment here, where it all suddenly makes sense. I'd work on coming up with a reason for the two pairings to connect up. I don't mean a foursome (!) but I mean a way for the two story arcs to interconnect. Don't be reluctant to re-write those nine chapters, if you do come up with sudden insight into how to solve this problem. It may look like wasted work, if you have to re-do them, but it's not. It's creating a more perfect story. As the saying goes, if you want to make an omelette, you have to break eggs.
Presumably, you have two stories here which are similar. On option is to splice them together by devoting one chapter to one couple and the next chapter to the other etc. Alternatively, you could divide each chapter into smaller sections and alternate between the two. Either way, this would be awkward for the reader and you would need a reason to do it, for it to be worth it's awkwardness. The events may climax in a way that only makes sense when both stories are told. If the two couples end their stories differently, and not in a single event, I'd be inclined to write them as two books. Elements can be common to each, provided they are described differently.
