Oki, so here's the thing. I'm working on a novel, five chapters, each chapter devoted to one of the main chars. Now they all know each other and are more or less going through the same thing, it's just that particular character's view on the subject and how it affects them. Right then. Chapter1- Is the beginning of everything really. Miki gets a love interest and realizes that she's going to have to do more with her powers since there's a more potent enemy than before. She struggles with coming to terms with that, finding who exactly the enemy is and why they want her love interest, Cyril Chapter 2-Erin wants to take a momentary break. She feels suddenly overwhelmed and when her friends don't beg her to stay and are, well, too understanding, then she feels the need to get back in the mix and do her part. After all, her mother went through the same thing. She makes friends with a detective and develops a love interest with Miki's cousin Burke. Chapter 3-Zoe is fretting that they are not doing a good enough job at protecting Cyril's clan. People are still showing up dead and they are no closer to finding out who or why. They enlist the help of Gypsy and Gabriel who take them to a Shadow Realm. The queen there sheds a little light on the subject and sends a mole to help them along. Zoe gets kidnapped, brainwashed, and has to fight her way back. Chapter 4-They know the enemy and what he wants. Mason is geared up and ready to take on the battle. Unfortunately, he develops a love interest in Martin and doesn't know if that's a strength(a reason to fight) or a weakness(to take martin and run the other direction). he struggles with this, and keeping his abilities a secret, and with Gabriel showing up randomly, trying to dispel any jealousy Martin might feel. This is the chapter were the enemy is confronted and destroyed. Chapter 5-Jasmine feels a little shell shocked. Erin, Miki, and Mason have their boyfriends to turn to after the big fight. Zoe is content with meditations. Jasmine doesn't know what to do or how to handle officially killing a living creature, or the fact that she herself was so close to dying. She takes up holding sunday night crafts with Mason's boyfriend and couple of others. And then i freeze. it has a nice flow but i don't really know how to end it or where to go. The other four chapters develop the chars and i feel if i just give it a quick ending i'd be cheating Jasmine out of her piece. Suggestions? I definitely want to keep the sunday night crafts because that's going to play into another story i'm writing.
Hmm, kind of a tricky one. If you think it flows nicely, then is it worth backtracking and messing it around, trying to find the perfect balance? Sometimes all you really need to do is just leave it, come back in a day or two, think about it a bit and then suddenly you have it. That's what works for me, more often than not (this trick works on most things as well; school assignments can usually be allowed to sit for a few days, and then when you come back you know how to pick up, or fix up a bit you weren't too sure on). That's all I've got though. Hopefully someone else with more experience than me could give you some better advice
I definitely see your issue here. I really like your division of the characters - giving them each their own chapter while also developing the main plot line. The problem, though, is that the climax of your story (the defeat of the enemy) comes in Chapter 4, and there is still another character to bring to the table (Jasmine). I would suggest that you add Jasmine into the story earlier so that the climax is in chapter 5. The ending of your story (with each character finding comfort in their various ways) can either happen at the end of chapter 5, or you could add a sixth chapter (either from an omniscient POV or the POV of one of your characters) that wraps it all up for us.
