Different Directions?

I spent a lot of the last week or so of working on that book wanting to finish that draft so I could work on something else. And then I finished the draft and started working on something else and found myself sidetracked by thinking about the book. I ended up spending a lot of Saturday brainstorming things I can do in the next draft.

I’m still wrestling with the approach to take. My dilemma is that the concept is fun and quirky, but in trying to give some serious stakes to what’s going on, I may have taken it to a darker place than I really wanted to go, and that seems to sap a lot of the potential fun out of it. So I started brainstorming other things I could do with this concept, and I haven’t been able to come up with anything totally different. I don’t know if I’m too set in what I’ve already written or if I really have done the best thing for this concept.

Next, I tried brainstorming other things I could do with the plot I have. Is there a way to keep the stakes high but make it less dark and gloomy? I think I may have found a compromise that takes things in a different direction that might be interesting. It doesn’t necessarily change the main plot, but it changes the emotions surrounding it and changes the outcome.

Obviously, more thinking is required.