And much as I enjoy and respect Cinisajoy's input to these discussions, for the moment I would say to ignore it. I would say it is too soon to panic over such details. (Yes, there is much in there that needs smoothing out, but there are also aspects that could be okay depending on a larger context - what you have set up beforehand and so on.)
What attracted my attention was in your introduction: "
When I reached the end of the 20K words I'd written, I felt so frustrated that I couldn't read the rest of the book. Although the plot is slight, the main character had driven it along."
This is what I get. I can relate more to this than your comments about outlines because this is how I work; it is what I meant about telling myself the story. I get a scene like this in my head and I have to tell myself how it works out; who are these people and how did it come about and what does it mean? I write lots (that is never intended to see the light of day) about who the people are and where they've come from so that I get to know them well. My writing time is a mix of stuff intended for the book and stuff intended only for me, details I need so that I can know who these people are and how they react, and I trust that the background that the reader never sees will show through in how I write the characters.
Of course, I'm no famous writer, so my advice may not be worth a lot. But, whatever, I recommend you try to use your frustration as a driver to see this through to an end. Don't worry about the quality of the writing yet, that can be worked on. Just write.
