Pacing a part that could be stretched or shrunk

[Feo Takahari]

This question's going to require a lot of context, so I'll start with a brief outline of my story.

Beginning: Patty and Daisy are stranded in an alternate universe. Equivalence finds and mentors Patty. Excess finds and brainwashes Daisy.

Middle: Patty and Daisy work towards their mentors' goals. In Patty's case, she desynchronizes the universes--slaying undead* that match to living people in another universe; destroying a bridge that's still standing in another universe, etc. (There's also Daisy's arc, and subplots with other characters.)

Big freaking event the middle builds towards: Patty fights Daisy and wins, but refuses to kill her.

Ending: Patty and Daisy work together to try to get home.

I'm having a very hard time figuring out how much stuff I need to put in Patty's part of the middle. I need to have events that show her becoming more ruthless and more obedient to Equivalence, hopefully unnerving the reader and raising the question of whether Patty is still Patty. I also need to have at least one event that shakes her obedience, foreshadowing that she'll ultimately cling to her humanity and spare Daisy. But it definitely wouldn't serve the story to, say, individually show all the undead she kills as she depopulates the town. How do I know what to show and what to timeskip? At what point is her arc established such that further scenes become repetitive--and conversely, how do I know if I've cut too much and her arc isn't clear?

* The terminology's a little tricky--their closest equivalent is chaos spawn. The longer they're controlled, the less is left of their bodies and minds. Daisy can be saved, but the old ones literally don't have brains anymore.

 

[buyjupiter]

As a reader, you need to guide me and show me that she changes from her initial appearance (unless of course she's already well down the path to becoming evil, in which case you're work's already half done).

That said, there a couple of scenes that I might expect to show that transition from fully human to slaughterer of undead things. The first would be the first time she has to do it. You can probably go with either showing her completely squicked out, or showing her really getting into it, depending on how you eventually want her to end up.

If you choose the first option, the following scenes I'd expect to see would be along the lines of what would really stick out as a bad day. Eventually--if one does anything long enough--one gets so used to it that one doesn't notice how strange it is anymore. So you'd have to amp up what would be considered a "bad day" for her. Maybe it's a quantity thing. Maybe it's who she has to eliminate (her alternate mother? Sister? Best Friend from college? Old boyfriend?)

If you wanted her to really get into it the first time she has to do it under Equivalence's tutelage, then the aspects you'd need to focus on in the above scenes would be different. Maybe foreshadow that she still has her humanity by her refusal to kill one of the alternates?

Basically, when you show her doing the now everyday stuff of her existence, you have to pick and choose what shows the most about her character and her growth. With that much killing, you'll probably really need to focus on details. I'm not sure if it'd be better to focus on how she behaves in the process of killing, what she does before or after, or if she focuses on a button while she's doing the killing (or something else in the environment). Try it out, see what works. Also, how can you make her "normal" worse? If you can make it worse, do it. (The Things They Carried by Timothy O'Brien, while not being fantasy, might make for an interesting study of people who've been in combat situations. Be warned, it is not light reading.)

My rule of thumb about what to describe and what to skip is: what am I interested in writing? What am I interested in figuring out about the characters at this moment in time? If I'm bored writing it and I can't motivate to write it, it probably doesn't need to be as written out as I thought.

I also go by repetitions of three. If I see an idea more than three times, it looks like an author only focused on that and is treating the reader as if they're not bright enough to get it. If I see it twice, I look for the third repetition. (Not going to be disappointed if I don't find it, but I am focused on figuring out where it might be rather than what the author intends me to focus on). If I only see a great idea once, I might be disappointed that the author didn't develop that further.

I would presume that the majority of the events that you're going to write about in the middle will not be focused on slaying undead critters. You might want to think about subplots and how you're breaking up the Patty and Daisy narratives. I am assuming that you're mostly focused on Patty's story and Daisy's storyline just interrupts that narrative from time to time. Maybe you could try flipping it, and focus on Daisy with Patty's story going on in the background to see if that clarifies matters any?

 

[Caged Maiden]

Okay, I'm going to equate this to something else, just because I can't possibly create enough details for your story in my head right now.

Let's equate it to Skyrim... enough people are playing it and I think the civil war is a perfect example of what you're doing here.

Okay, so you have Daisy and Patty split off at some point and you follow each individually. I think in each section, you should probably focus on two things, events which show them personally changing (probably delivered in humorous or some other "disguised" way, rather than simply hitting the reader in the face with it. I gathered from your post that you want the reader to question whether they are truly changed or are still themselves). The other thing you want to probably show are the events that directly relate to each other.

So, In Skyrim, we wouldn't see every battle the Stormcloaks and Imperials fight, but we see some key ones. So, if we join the Stormcloaks, we might have to rescue an important prisoner from Cidnha Mine. If we join the Imperials, we might have to rescue an imperial general from a dungeon.

If we play as Imperials, we have to destroy a Stormcloak camp, if we're Stormcloaks, we have to kill a camp of Imperials.

If we're Stormcloaks, we defend our captured castle and if we're Imperials, we're storming the castle to take it back for the empire!

In fact, when you have random encounters with either side, you can look at a map and it's "updated" with the happenings of the war. So, could you find a way to do something similar? some sort of progress report that let's the reader know the goals are being met though we aren't (thankfully) having to view each bashed in skull? I'd think of a sort of way to allow the transfer of information without being too cheesy (I'm terrible at that so my suggestions will probably be the cheap, cheesy ones): a captain who reports, "We've taken Dragon Bridge but my men can't hold the Forsworn off long. They have archers and we're suffering heavy casualties. If the Forsworn drive us back, the Stormcloaks will have the bridge by nightfall. We need you there at the front lines..." I mean... something like that gives a whole chapter of play-by-play in a great little paragraph.

I'd pick a few key moments in the "journey" of these two characters and their development and consider showing them from both (if it's not too long then) POV. It would be an interesting ride for the reader to see Daisy working to protect the bridge and then Patty go and destroy it. Or alternating, maybe one event from one, one event from another. OR if Patty is your MC and Daisy is literally, a mental zombie (I couldn't tell how active a player she is), then show each major movement from Patty and let us see how each one steals a bit more of her humanity.

If she's kiling undead... I'd try to think of maybe a secondary goal? In Skyrim, I might be sent to a dungeon to kill a bandit leader... but it just so happens there's a treasure I need in there, too. That would make for easier reading i think. Personally, I hate fight scenes that are pages of: "She punched the guy with the axe in the face and he dropped his axe. After picking it up, she whipped it overhand and it sunk into a bearded guy's skull. A sickening sound and he dropped to the dirt." For me, a fight scene has to be interspersed with personal thoughts. The character's goals and fears certainly spice up a fight scene and giving the POV a secondary goal to reach would really help if the scene feels a touch like random killing.

I know how hard it is to explain a whole book in a small post, so please, if I've guessed or filled in details way off base, don't feel like you did a poor job explaining. I'm just talking theories and of course I could give more detailed advice with more information, but I feel the concept of said advice would be the same. Show the events from the POV of the person who has the most to lose/ gain, show the events like they do in Skyrim (game-changing moments, while the lesser events are mentioned but not shown), and make the events you choose to show pack a punch (by either giving a scene multiple goals, having a profound effect on the character, or simply creating a big challenge).

Best wishes.

 

[Feo Takahari]

As a side note, I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm doing with Daisy. Excess doesn't want to completely break her, since mindless zombies aren't as useful as minions who can think, so her arc is about him gradually pushing her to do worse and worse things, trying to find the sweet spot where she's intelligent but pliable.

I didn't want to exactly mirror that with Equivalence because Equivalence isn't that evil--she wants an ally, not a subject, and she thinks she's teaching Patty to be strong. But the more I think about it, the more I think that having the two arcs parallel each other would create a strong framework to work off of.

I guess I was dishonest with myself. I wanted to create an arc in which Patty rejected Equivalence's morality, but I was afraid of making Equivalence a "bad person," so I kept shying away from the damage Equivalence did to Patty's psyche. That left the section somewhat aimless.

Though come to think of it, maybe I could give Equivalence more of an arc here, having her slowly recognizing what she's doing to Patty. I could probably pace that pretty well, and it would give a little more direction to Patty's arc. I'll need to think about this more.