I’m going too fast. I can feel it in my veins. Seven thousand, three hundred and fifty words in. Around thirty pages. The whole damn thing is a train wreck splattered and shrapnelled across the entirety of the story.

My question is, is that OK? I’ve given a synopsis to a few people, and let a couple “ideal readers” (to quote Stephen King) check it out, which of course is the cardinal sin of the first draft, but I can’t get the nagging feeling out of my head that I’m going too fast. Even the long sentences and narrative unrelated to action seems to carry a vibration of suspense.

For a guy who writes things that are mostly designed to scare folks, I think this is OK. But I’ve got sixty two thousand words to go here, and I’m stuck wondering if the damn story is a whirling dervish throughout the whole show.

I’ve got to slow it down.

So here’s what I came up with: a subplot. Two subplots.

Rereading what I’ve got so far–in addition to the next ring of Hell for this second cardinal sin of first drafting–and hearing my readers and synopsis-ees speak their minds, I see that there are two characters that intrigue folks almost as much, if not more, than the main character, the inevitable Jack Chandler. Two subplots, ready-made for broadening the pace of the story, and providing yet more urgency to the initial story.

Murtag, a shape-shifting Demon-thing known as a “Walker,” has developed an odd sort of friendship with Jack. Well, he will shortly.

Isabella, Jack’s wife, carries a secret when Jack visits her by the Devil’s hand.

These two keys have unlocked enough other story to keep me busy and to relieve some of the tension that my original plotline has quivered to life in its taughtness. Right now, the seventy-five hundred words are a story in existence, and a novel in the making, unlocked by these bits of information.

My advice, fellow writers, is simple: Keep an eye on your characters; you never know what they’re going to do.

Besides. I can always fix it in the second draft, right?

Anyone else have advice? Please feel free to share.