Much to my surprise, the treatment is complete. Despite the fear of moving on to stage two, I knew it was now or never. I could have delayed wrapping up matters until I forgot about the project altogether. Only this time, I’m being stubborn. I’m tired of flapping my wings, only to back down the moment I start to take flight. I need to push through. I need to keep going with this project.

So, here I am. I’ve a finished a comprehensive outline of Synthetic Empires, the novel. I know where Quinn and Michelle are going. Their journeys have an end point. After many years of only knowing the start of this story, to now have a final moment in my mind’s eye is kind of surreal.

It’s also terrifying the life out of me, largely in part because the journey between the start and the end is a right old shambles. Look, I’m not trying to beat myself up. It’s not that the story is necessarily bad, per say. What I mean is, there’s a lot of work to make it effective. Casting my eye over the five and a half thousand outline I’ve scribbled out shows a whole heap of issues that need addressing before I can dive deep into hashing out actual chapters.

For one thing, my story appears to be lacking a tangible antagonist throughout. Sure, the Neo British Empire are the true baddies lurking in the shadow of the plot. There’s the Xenophobic Sovereign-General, Wilfred Ashworth, looming large over this fable. Yet he isn’t a typical baddie. For one thing, he’s not actually in this story. He’s a figurehead that overshadows the toxic world that Quinn and Michelle belong to. While I’d like to bring him to the forefront in future instalments (if this thing ever takes off), we are not ready to bring out heroes face-to-face with this guy just yet.

None of which is to say there isn’t a bad guy physically present in this story. There is one individual who takes up this spot. I wrote him in largely by accident. I thought he’d only be a transient character. Turns out, he’s a right nasty chap, making him quite the compelling foe.

The only issue is, he doesn’t enter the narrative until the final third of the story! He literally falls into Michelle’s life right at the tail end of the novel. How on earth this problem didn’t set off my radar sooner is beyond me.

On the surface, the solution to this issue is simple. I need to reposition his entry into the story closer to the start. He needs to be more integrated into this story. His ascent tot villainous status needs time to grow alongside Michelle and Quinn’s development as heroes. There’s one problem with this note, however, and that’s the scene he’s currently in completely collapses if he’s taken out of it. The moment in which Michelle meets this particular baddie triggers the third and final portion of the book. To remove him makes that entire scene void. To make it redundant makes me wonder how on earth I’m going to trigger the endgame of this plot.

Of course it’s possible to resolve this. Every plot update can be fixed with some work arounds. I know this from the many screenplays and short stories I’ve put together in the past. It’s just on a novel of this scale, the whole prospect is daunting.

I remember once listening to an interview with Charlie Brooker. During said interview, Brooker likened writing to programming. He talked about how scripts can develop bugs when you update certain parts. A tweak here and the can cause other portions of the script to slip out of context. You then have to go through and “re-code”, so that they work. It might be quite a mechanical way of looking at the writing process, yet I can’t help but relate to that right now. By repositioning this character, my outline risks not making sense.

My main concern is, I’ve never finished a project of this size before. Adjusting a 60-minute screenplay or 3000-word short story is a little different to a novel that will likely exceed the 100,000 word count. Moving a single segment from a pivotal moment feels like the entire plot is going to come crushing down upon me. I’m not sure I can take the weight.

Still, it needs to be done. Having an antagonist not enter the picture until the moment right before he’s needed isn’t how to tell a story. Plus it just makes him kind of boring. At the moment, he’s just there to serve a purpose. He doesn’t have any backstory. There’s not insight into what makes him tick. Why is someone who comes from a similar background to Michelle so invested in his authoritarian government’s cause? Such a character is fertile ground for a fascinating insight into why people sign up to such historically repugnant causes. Having him come in earlier will give his character more room to breathe. I can make him more interesting.

Another issue I’ve noticed with this particular foe is he’s not that integrated into Michelle’s life. In actual fact, during this draft, she only stumbles upon him by chance. It’s far too coincidental for my liking. If she’d happened to interact with another individual on that day, the final part of Synthetic Empires would technically never happen. The randomness of this moment makes the entire plot feel way too contrived. You can practically see me triggering the endgame in my writing.

I need to make this character a significant part of Michelle’s life. Perhaps they’ve grown up together. Maybe they were even friends, once upon a time. Long ago, back before the toxification of the Neo Empire pickled his mind. After all, that would tie into the themes of innocence and corruption that appear to have made themselves apparent throughout the duration of this treatment.

This also presents itself with an opportunity to make Synthetic Empire’s antagonist a polar opposite to that of Michelle. They are mirror images. Both want similar outcomes from life. They want to be free. They want to grow up into adults who feel safe, loved, and valued. Michelle wants that outside of the bigoted society that essentially rejects her, whilst our villain wishes to do so within its framework. One believes the Empire is a hindrance to happiness, the other believes it is imperative. Both are victims of the state murder machine, only they interact with it in remarkable dissimilar ways.

All of which is my way of saying this project isn’t doomed. There’s something interesting in here. It’s just the way I’ve currently laid it down is preventing it from exploring these ideas and letting its deeper themes take flight.

The rewrites may scare me, yet the realisation that they hold untapped potential excites me. The key now is to not let the fear outweigh the elation. Lean into the latter, and perhaps I can fight the urge to neglect this project once again.