What's behind Door Number Three?

Damn…

Okay, so, here's the thing. In the past, I've been told places where my characters and story arcs were lagging. Now, I've done enough research into story crafting that I feel like I'm doing well with my current narrative.

But, I've hit a snag.

It felt like I was leaving out too much detail when I was crunching words to fit within my 'midpoint' word limit cap.

Now I'm working on the 'crisis' chapters and I’m fluffing the hell out of it just to bump the words up to the cap.

In other words, my midpoint feels too short, and my crisis doesn't feel long enough.

Suddenly this thing is struggling to fit within the confines of the suggested pacing guide.

I can do one of two things:

1. Continue to follow the pacing guide. Put my trust in the WAY MORE EXPERIENCED author who generated said pacing guide.
2. Throw caution to the wind. Fuck the pacing guide. Extend my midpoint and let my crisis flow naturally.

I know what you're going to say.

It's my story, I should do what I want, right?

Well… are we sure about that? I mean, really?

The potential backlash of fucking the pacing guide sideways is that the work will 'drag' in the middle and my readers will lose interest.

So, we're going with what's behind door #3…

Write both.

Yes… more work… (fuck)

But the only way I can see this going the best way is to do both and then trust the critiques of my beta readers when it comes to deciding which layout the final project will take.

*grumble*

And I was doing so well…