Choreographing the action

In my rewrite of my novel I have a main plot, with one main character going around the planet solving a riddle quest.  I also have a sub-plot with the main character's brother trying to get re-integrated into the family he ran away from.  Most of the time the two storylines take place independently of each other.  Often the characters are on opposite sides of the planet.  But on a few occasions they meet, and then I have to mesh their storylines together.

To make things a little harder for myself, I've rearranged the order of the chapters from the previous version of the novel.  It makes sense to do that, because it means I can alternate the two storylines more effectively. It's also allowed me to add in some new cliffhangers, and to leave some chapters with a question to be answered.

But that rearrangement gave me a problem.  When I picked up the latest batch of chapters, I found that the two storylines' timelines didn't match up.  In the sister's timeline I have her meeting up with her brother, but being cool towards him.  Then in the next chapter I have the brother, and I'm flicking back in time to action which took place a week ago.

Clearly, some new choreography was needed.  The solution turned out to be complex.  It involved tacking a section of one of the brother's chapters onto an earlier one.  Then I discarded a complete chapter of his.  I realised it was full of his reflections, and while it deepened his character, it wasn't actually going anywhere.  When I deleted the chapter I found that I didn't need to add any of its information anywhere else.  That's the perfect description of a useless chapter.

I'm also changing the brother's story.  I've decided to have him coming out as gay, so part of the rewrite deals with his growing realisation that he's attracted to another man.  This book is the first of a trilogy, and I have a completed draft of book two, but that too will need a fair bit of rearranging of the action.  The second book is also a quest book, but this time the riddles refer to clues in paintings.  The brother is an artist, so he'll lead the search for clues.

But in book two I want him to get together with the man he's attracted to. I've already had some thoughts about that, but I suspect that, when I come to re-write it, there'll be a lot of choreographing of new action to be done.