Tendrils to the Moon's plot problems, big and small

There are some plot problems with Tendrils to the Moon that were kind of baked into the cake as I was writing it. One is that Sheridan, the bad guy, is more interesting than Ames, the hero. (One reader told me he thought Ames was the bad guy for a good portion of the book.) Sheridan has a deep back story, and his decisions under stress drive the plot. While I was writing, I feared his actions would be unconvincing in the context of the story, so I devoted quite a bit of narrative space to developing his thought processes so his actions wouldn't come off as ridiculous. (I had a lot of fun writing these scenes, and I couldn't help but compare the output to that of Stephen King, who has a gift for turning his characters inside out, laying bare their fears and insecurities.)

Another small problem is a middle section where the plot does not really advance. This is because the 80,000-word novel I wanted to write turned into 113,000 words and change. Most of that extra length came in the middle of the story, because I wanted to show off the Moon setting, which I believe most readers sign up for when they open my book. I did several things to maintain dramatic tension in these middle chapters so they wouldn't feel slow.

The biggest plot problem occurs in chapter 10. I won't go into details, but after a dramatic scene where the hero and the bad guy confront each other, the hero does something surprising in order to gain minor characters' sympathy. The surprising act also entails lying to the very people whose sympathy he is seeking, which two readers told me felt off. I agree. It is off. It's Tendrils' biggest plot problem, and may be the biggest problem in the whole book.

Let this be a cautionary tale about writing chapters out of order. When you skip a chapter because you don't know how to execute the story, the chapter you skipped takes on the burden of connecting the dots between the end of the previous chapter and the start of the next one.

I wrote the last two chapters of Tendrils, chapters 11 and 12, before I wrote chapter 10. Chapter 11 kicks off with a fun action scene, but a month later, when writing chapter 10, I could think of few ways of putting the pieces in the right places and setting them in motion without jumping the shark. My initial solution was worse than what ended up in the book, so much worse that when I settled on the current solution, I was satisfied, even though I still felt it was the weakest part of the story.

Key takeaway: Don't skip writing crucial scenes.  

Let me know what you think in the comments. I'll reply to you as soon as I can. I invite you to read the first 3 chapters of Tendrils to the Moon for free, and see if the last 9 chapters are worth your time. The paperback version is on sale at Amazon for $8.99. The ebook is still a mere 99 cents, and is available in a variety of formats via Smashwords.