Pruning a Kudzu plot.

AB!Beowulf is heading in this direction thanks to the fact that it has the largest cast of any story I have written.

The main plot, lifted almost straight from the original Beowulf with some changes to suit the altered protagonist:

1. King of Geatland sends our wimpy little Beowulf to Grendel in Denmark so that he can die and get a free ticket to Valhalla.
2. Beowulf tries to bluff and boast his way out of having to fight Grendel by suggesting one man fight him unarmed, ends up being that one man.
   • Pisses off Unferth after owning him in a scop/thyle showdown, and gets challenged to a holmgang. (Borghild fights this for him)
3. Crazy Valkyrie called Borghild gives him a strength ring, which he uses to kill Grendel and live to tell the tale. Loses strength ring and pisses Borghild off this way.
4. Borghild gets on his case about the ring and sends him to Valhalla to do Valkyrie work for her and make another one.
5. Disguised as a Valkyrie, he tries (and fails) to rescue his deceased father from Valhalla.
6. Beowulf gets found out and he returns to Denmark.
7. Grendel's mother (who is human) shows up, kills some people, captures Beowulf alive
8. Grendel's mother basically tortures him for a few days
9. Beowulf somehow bareaks through this and manages to kill her, though nearly killed himself. Unferth rescues Beowulf and brings him back to Denmark.
10. After being restored to health, he's returned to Geatland to find the King on his death bed (he was mortally wounded in a raid on the Frisians). The two essentially accept each other for what they are, and he dies.
11. Heardred (the King's son, and the same age) offers Beowulf the crown, and he is crowned King! The end.

And that's only the main plot (with some other arcs tied in), the minimum I need to have a complete story. There's a bunch of other character arcs involving Unferth, Borghild, Beowulf's family, and one of Hrothgar's ancestors, which I will go into greater detail later.

TBC!

Well, if your problem is too many aborted Character Arcs, trim down the cast a bit.

I don't really understand the question here.

Just one question to ask yourself before you prune anything off your plot:

"Is this part really necessary? Does the story fall apart without it?"

The answer helps determine what can be kept and what can be tossed without causing Story Existence Failure.