So I spent the past couple of days at work reading a couple of multiple personality autobiographies ("Broken Child" by Marcia Cameron, and "The Flock" by Joan Frances Casey) instead of starting the books on my reading list. But these were interesting. Not quite as good as "Sybil," but useful and worthy in their own way. They got me thinking that maybe I should give Orossy an angry alter. There's two or three times I could use an angry one. Might be interesting. And all of the MPD books seem to have a child alter that never grows up, despite the fact that the body ages. I don't know where I'd put a child alter at this point, or if there's even room. I could probably make this a much longer book by adding more stuff to Orossy, but then I don't know what to do with Lerryn (my autistic character.)

That's what I could use a few outside opinions on; I had one comment that I have two different books in one. One for Orossy, one for Lerryn. They come together a little ways in, and they need to, because Lerryn's the one that saves Orossy in the end. But should I use less Lerryn and more Orossy? I don't know how much time to spend on Lerryn learning to communicate and function and all that. Arrrggh. I suppose I have to figure out a way to add more tension to those scenes; I feel like they lag a little bit, or that there's no apparent reason.

One way to add tension would be to give Maddren (caretaker/Lord Governor) a higher emotional stake, and perhaps regret taking Lerryn in and having to deal with all his difficulties, and having Lerryn brings up all his buried memories of the grief of losing his son.

I think I've mentioned before the metaphor of this book is communication; Orossy trying to communicate with himself, Lerryn with the world, Maddren his grief, and Tommasin (the bad guy) his love for Orossy. I've been tweaking Tommasin's reactions a little; have to do it enough so that he has a significant change by the end just like everyone else. Orossy (and Rossa) and Lerryn are obviously changing. Maddren's my fourth major character, and he probably needs a little work. I need a better "before" to set up the "after." I don't have a good intro for him, and I need a scene where we see him struggling with his daily life before he meets Lerryn.

Yes, this is rambling, but sometimes it does help to ramble out loud, because now I have more stuff I can work on.