Rewrites, rewrites, REWRITES

Over the course of this draft of my book, I've prided myself on how organically I'd let the story develop. Now, stuck on chapter 16, I realized every time I go to write, I don't know what's supposed to happen. I know what happens in chapter 20, but how to get there.

I was flopping around like a god damn fish on a dock.

So I sat down, wrote three words.

Simplify
Clarify
Identify.

Under each of these three words I wrote what my problems were.

Simplify:
"Too many factions in the park, not enough time to develop them."

Clarify:
"Why the hell does MC even give a shit about his wife. What major turnaround happens at the end to make him spend the next 60 thousand words chasing after her?"

Identify:
"Who is doing what here? If rhodes is going to take over the shelter, why not just kill them all?"

Guess what happened?

As an author we sometimes have to make tough decisions and realize that our little baby changed as they became a toddler, and didn't turn out the way we wanted, and we have to take over and mold them the way we want.

The result?
1. I reduced it from 4 factions in the amusement park to 2. 1 isn't even really a faction, the others are the survivors.

2. Mitch and his wife are not on this vacation because their marriage is on the rocks. They're on an anniversary and love each other dearly. (This also solved the problem that my MC looked like a pussy and his wife was a bitch, which was remarked on by a critiquer.)

3. Conrad, the security guard who disappeared in chapter 3 comes back to save the shelter people from the survivors and negotiates their exile with clever use of a hunting rifle.

This meant rewriting chapters 1 and 2. It meant slight changes in 3 and 4. And I wrote some backstory to explain who rhodes and why he wanted to kill the people in the shelter.

I spit through all those changes and the last 4 chapters in 2 nights.

So, sometimes you have to take a step back, analyze the problem, and make those decisions.