Writer's Log #3 - Progress!
Hey guys, sorry it's been so long since the last one of these.
I originally planned to do one a week, I just got kinda discouraged from the lack of engagement.
But I wanted to let you know that I've finished the rough draft of my do-over on A Family Affair, which means all I need to do to finish the bundle once and for all is to proofread that as well as the rough draft of Inheritance. That one was specifically saved for last because it was pretty solid to begin with. :B
This one was an interesting story to work with, I'd never done one about a pair of siblings who had a Secret Relationship in the past, but broke it off before the story began. As such, it's got a number of short flashbacks in it to help flesh out their past together. It wasn't an intentional decision, but those flashbacks are the only times other characters appear in the story, the present-day stuff focuses entirely on Amanda and Will.
I'd toyed with flashbacks before, like in the openings to the first few I Love You Twice stories, but I feel like rather than just being flavour, they really add a lot of depth to this one.
A big focus of the story is the fact that after they broke things off, Will got himself a normal girlfriend who he eventually married. In this case, it was an intentional decision to make Will's wife Darla an unseen character, spoken of frequently but never personally present. Something like Niles' wife Maris from Frasier, if I might make a slightly dated reference. :B
EDIT: I forgot a detail I wanted to share. :c
It turned out to be surprisingly difficult to write Darla as a reasonable person. It was very, very tempting to write her as some kind of completely unsympathetic cartoon villain, since the story is from the perspective of Amanda, who doesn't much like her, but I had to keep in mind that if she was such an awful person, Will wouldn't have married her in the first place.
END EDIT
Now I just need to return to The Proofening, and push through to the end. Wish me luck. :3
JOURNAL OVER.