Linda freaked me out a little last night.

"I'm not a fan of the wilderness stuff. Maybe the "lone survivor in the wilderness" is a guy thing. I like it more when the characters are interacting."

Here I've been trying to think of ways to extend the wilderness stuff because I felt it was the core of the book.

Have I  made a strategic mistake?

See, I trust Linda's opinion. I think she's almost always right. She tried backing away from it a little this morning, "No, I was just a little confused about what's going on." (That's been a problem too--the locations and times and logistics are always a problem with my books.)

"Honey, you don't do me any favors by backing away now. I need to know what you really think. Otherwise I can't make the necessary changes."

I immediately thought of one solution, which is for Hart to have a companion in the chase scenes. Maybe even a love interest. But I have 30K words written with Hart alone. Can I tack on another character to already written scenes?

Thing is, I think I can. I've done it before. And it seems more and more viable the more I think about it. It's a complication, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It ups the tension. It's not just Hart in danger--he has to think of someone else.  I'll have to be clever, but being clever is what it's all about.

One thing is for sure--it would make the book bigger, and I've been a little concerned about having enough material. So, yeah. I think it's a real possibility. It would also make the book more active--instead of interior dialogue, it would be conversation between two people, which is always more interesting.

But I won't attempt it until I'm finished. Let's see how it plays out first. (Though it will probably be in the back of my mind from now on...)

I'll write the entire book, then create a separate file and play with the addition of a new character. 

Weird though, how much I like the idea--which I never would have thought of on my own.  It will add a week or two to the rewrite, but if makes the book better, then so be it. I always like something new and meaty to add to a second draft, and this would do that.

So...yeah, I'm very enthused right now. But I probably need to finish the book and sleep on it before I do anything.