mhalachai | The lack of Inevitability (Reply)

So: It's almost done. I spent most of today working on it. I even asked someone to read it and she offered a few comments on it, helpful stuff as always. It's a transitional chapter, which I thought was why I was feeling uneasy. It's a necessary chapter to explain what will happen in the chapter I really *want* to write, chapter 12, in which we meet ********* and Anita gets ****** **** ****** *** ** *********. There will be plot! Angst! Woe!

But I had to write chapter 11 first.

And it's not bad, other than I have Anita saying something that kinda makes it seem like she just blanked on the past fifteen minutes.

But as I was driving home tonight from Glow-in-the-dark bowling, as I desperately thought of ways to make the chapter "spark," I realized something:

This chapter wasn't an AB/HP crossover. It just was a chapter.

There's no real sense of what Jean-Claude was doing, or why. Richard? Window-dressing. Anita? Her motivations weren't clear. And Harry? He was kind of there, but distracted. Like he knew how the story was going to end and so he wasn't worried.

Crap.

So, back to the drawing board and do what I should have done before I spent my day writing this chapter. Ask, and answer, the following:

What are my main characters thinking? (You can stop reading now, the rest is just me rambling and stuff. No, really)

At the end of chapter 10, we have Harry, Anita, Richard, Jean-Claude, Jason and the Lamia in the living room of the Circus. So, what are the motivations of the characters at the beginning of the chapter?

Harry just found out that Voldemort might be in town. Harry should be quietly freaking out, while trying to plan five ways to save his ass and not get anyone else hurt. Harry should also be making plans to flee, flee my pretties!

Jean-Claude is worrying how this will affect his power base, i.e. Richard and Anita. Jean-Claude wasn't exactly happy that Anita was all, "I'll protect you, Harry!" in previous chapters. Jean-Claude is also annoyed that Richard is overcome with guilt (at infecting our dear Harry with lyncathropy). Like always.

Richard is of course feeling guilty that Harry was clawed up, worried that he might have brought in a threat to the pack, and still lusting after Anita's body. Like always.

Anita... I'm not sure what Anita is feeling here, and since this is her voice in the chapter, I think this leads to the problems I'm having. What I do know is that Anita does not like the lamia (from when the lamia tried to kill Anita in CotD. Small thing, that). Anita is still convinced that Voldemort is a normal bad guy who plays by normal AB bad guy rules. Anita is happy she made up with Richard, a bit frustrated that she didn't get it on with Jean-Claude, freaked that she almost blew Jean-Claude's head off, wondering where Byron is when he was supposed to hang out with Harry and Jason, wondering how the hell she's supposed to protect Harry, plus her nose is starting to itch. Anita's head is a very confusing place to be. I need to nail her down (pardon the pun) to get this chapter right.

Jason is background in this scene and so I need to put him down and make him stay put. He doesn't like snakes, and so he avoids the lamia.

Melanie (lamia) does not like Jean-Claude or Anita, since they killed Mr. Oliver (CotD). So she's all not wanting to help them. BUT she also does not want to help the main focal point of the first part of this chapter, and so she will be grudging at best. Plus she's lusting after Harry, which is kind of freaky, although not as freaky as some of the stuff I saw about 11-year-old Daniel Radcliff after HP-PS came out.

So I need to this planned out, then I can finish the first part of the chapter. The second part is okay, because it's Harry and Damian talking about Lily and that's all easy stuff.

To make a long story short (TOO LATE!), I think I can fix this muddle by Sunday.

Oh, and I have a great idea for a mystery story. Original work. I'm going to write a book, you know :)