Progress on "A Far Sun"

It looks like it was the end of February when I last mentioned where I was with my current writing project "A Far Sun." Back then I was about 86,000 words and working hard on getting to the end of act II.

Now I'm somewhere past 105,000 words and I haven't begun act III, yet. Act II is complete, and the crisis right at the end (of act II) is pretty good. So, what happened? Surely I didn't have 20,000 words left when I really thought I was almost there?

Well, in the process of trying to craft act III I was given a really good suggestion (thanks to teh Spork) that has forced me to go back and "slightly" alter things in the very beginning. I'm still not completely satisfied with how I've set things up, but suffice it to say I have written in a couple of (what were previously very minor) characters who will have significant roles to play in act III. My dilemma is how (or whether) to weave them into the greater story (you know, the 400 pages between the first couple scenes and act III).

Perhaps the audience should be in on what's happening. Maybe they should know what my heroes will discover when they get to the Library (yeah, the second half of act II is all about Adam and Jane--my heroes--traveling to this place called "the Library"). I'd like to keep it a surprise, except for the jarring disconnect I have at the moment.

What's this all about, you ask? I'm damned confused, you say? When a writer introduces a couple of characters in the beginning of the story you might reasonably think they have some role to play. Actually, you know they do, or the writer wouldn't be telling you about them. But in my story you aren't hearing about them at all until many pages later (in act III). I'd really like to link them in along the way so the readers aren't going "so that's why they're there!"

So, I'm deliberating and working through this (small) partial rewrite. If I write their actions into the story, which I can certainly do (because I've already sketched out their backstory), then the audience will certainly know what's going to happen. Somewhat. Maybe it enhances interest in the conflict I've set up, particularly if I make the "big bad guy" pretty ... er, big and bad. If so, then I've got about 30-50 pages to write and weave in. Not altogether bad, and it causes act III to be a little longer (because I want to keep the lengths of the acts balanced).

I don't know exactly how long this rewrite will take. My illustrator said the current semester/term was ending May 9, so by implication this means she'll have some time to work on character concepts. I sent her the latest character bios and second draft of the first two acts (about 440 pages in the fixed font, 380 pages in the nice proportional font, i.e., it's rather long). Needless to say I am all atwitter to see her ideas, and I am already priming myself for her ideas to completely not match mine. And that's fine with me.

Stay tuned.