I'm working my way through the 3rd act of my current writing project- The military unit my OC is a part of has rescued a kidnapped girl from a minefield, the video got them pulled for a classified mission, they've gone through training, traveled to another planet by way of a mysterious place called the Nexus, had a diplomat kidnapped out from under their nose, the diplomat has been rescued, they blocaded the planet's nexus gate on behalf of the nominal ruler of the planet, and now they're about to start on a mission to discover the location of a device that needs to be destroyed. I'm in the middle of writing a war room/ planning scene. And... there's where I'm currently stuck. I'm using a squad of marines for the military unit, and 12 men just cannot carry out a search on the scale I'm planning. That's ok, there’s other, local, soldiers that can be trained. I've introduced a sub-plot- girl has been poisoned- for the larger group (military, diplomats and scientists) to solve. I know pretty much everything I need to do to get to the end of the story. Except I'm stuck. It feels like I'm missing something, but what I'm not sure. I'd skip over the issue, and continue on, but I've never finished a story where I've done that. This is a military/sci-fi/fantasy story with a current working theme of "getting help to solve problems is good" Does anyone have suggestions or ideas?
Don't know your whole story, but off the cuff I'd say you're missing an escalation of opposition/stakes towards the end.
I’m not seeing the ticking clock here; related to the rising stakes concept. Consider pitting the poisoned girl against destroying your device. Ie; there can only be one, they can’t both save the girl and destroy the device. It may require the girl be more important than just a sub plot.
Escalation is exactly the piece I was missing, thank you. But as this is focused more on military actions, opposition intended to prevent the destruction of the device feels like it would would be the best option. Oh, it's all clicking into place now! Thanks so much!