One of my main goals for the current revision of SoR is to give my protagonist, Jhayni, more agency. In previous versions, bad things just happened to her. She tumbled willy-nilly from bad to worse. Her reactions were instinctive, not volitional. This time around, I want Jhayni to dig her heels in and make choices and deal with the consequences. Instead of sitting around waiting for the Bad Guys to come get her, I want her to go breach their stronghold for what she wants. Instead of spending most of Part One refusing to acknowledge the magical nature of her artifact, I want her to use it–with terrible results. I want her to do things, and make mistakes, and live with them.
I need to import the go-getter Jhayni from Part Two (or at least her younger self :D) into Part One. Which means all of the scenes I have left to revise need massive restructuring. I’m at a point in the story where Jhayni is without work, without a home, has been betrayed by a friend, and is being hunted by two different groups of Baddies. In the previous version, she goes hides in the library until someone finds her and drags her off to the palace.
My improved Jhayni wouldn’t do anything so lame.
So, What Would Jhayni Do?
I’m off to ponder that some more.