Help! Help! Crisis!

Over the past few weeks I have realized that I’m not able to write any more with the book in its present form. There is a big hole in the centre of the novel, and it’s all because I haven’t followed the guidelines that I gave myself at the very beginning of this blog. Here’s what I said in October 2012 in my entry ‘Jamie's cordon-bleu guide to cooking a good thriller’:

1 genuine moral dilemma – the hero or heroine should have a certain amount of realistic doubt about the rightness of their course of action which the reader can identify with.  It’s also important that the hero / heroine is flawed but is able to overcome their deficiencies (unless it’s a tragedy, in which case they have to die). By the end of the novel the hero / heroine should have learnt something and become a better and stronger person.

My problem is that at the moment there is no moral dilemma. Celia just ploughs on getting closer and closer to the end of the book, but she’s not showing any development. She doesn’t seem to have any flaws which she needs to recognize and overcome. The result will be that the reader could get to the end of the book and say ‘So what?’.

This is very frustrating, because I now have to go right back to the beginning of the novel and decide if I can simply add stuff to make Celia a little less perfect or whether I need to start all over again.

Gaah!

I hope beginning all over again  won’t be necessary. I think there’s some good writing there but it’s missing the development element. But we shall see what needs to be done after a proper review.