According to Greek myth, the second labor of Heracles was to slay the many-headed hydra. When he sliced off one head, two grew back in its place.
I’m feeling like Heracles right now (well before he [or was it his cousin?] had the brilliant idea to sear the stumps after cutting off the heads so that new ones couldn’t grow back). I have a serious problem with too many plot threads. In my original conception of Til Death, I had all these sort of competing plot threads–intended to be red herrings, but that really just got out of hand. So I wrote through to a point, decided it needed trimming down and did some hacking. I simplified the plot, or so i thought. Well then I had these other ideas relating to the family history of the house, a ghost, a psychotic serial murdering ancestor…and yeah, you can see that it’s really gotten out of hand again. All the plot threads don’t really work together in concert the way they need to in order to remain. Right now I don’t know whether to cut these extraneous plot lines entirely, pick one and cut the rest, or find a way to make it work.
I’ve been feeling very ADD lately, unable to focus and pay attention to anything, and I think this is part of the reason why. My plot just isn’t hanging together the way that I need it to. Which means I really ought to probably go back to my plotboard and start with the framework–the skeleton of the story, which all centers around the series of murders and their repercussions, and go from there.
I think my hero and heroine may be too well-adjusted…