Chapter 2: Thoughts and Struggles
This is just a small little bonus bit going into more detail about my mindset and general planning when writing this thing. Hopefully it proves interesting, as I absolutely love doing these kind of write-ups.
First things first, let's discuss that "original ending". The original plan was to have Jaune be reading one of those things in front of his face with a bunch of letters on it. The bottom lines would have spelled "GO OUT WITH ME JAUNE" and then she would have yelled it after seeing Jaune's initial confusion. The thing that sunk this ending was tension. I wanted to build up the tension throughout the exam until this ending moment, but I realized that revealing Pyrrha "pops" the tension too early. Building it up again would have seemed forced, and having Jaune recognize Pyrrha instantly would have cut the tension out entirely, which I didn't want. The other option, having Jaune not recognize her until the very end, was a little too far for my mind to justify.
So, the ending had to be scrapped. I replaced it with Pyrrha asking him out as they got back from the bullhead after her shift, because it was the first thing I thought of. I guess it also helps tie the first and second major "pieces" of this fic together better, so that might be a good thing…? I dunno.
Another thing I'm thinking about is that this fic kinda feels "disjointed" for lack of a better word. I get that, but the two options that my not-so-literary brain could think of were:
* Remove, them which would shrink this fic to around 2k words at best, and make it look even worse
* Fully expand them out in a completionist sort of way, would would push this up way past 10k, or, more likely, leave me not wanting to write it at all.
I guess it's just part of practicing to eventually get that right "balance" that people like Mallobaude can get. It doesn't help that I'm a bit of a shorter writer by nature...
I had to give Pyrrha a jolt to make the "replacing the eye card" that I was building towards at the time be a little less "out of thin air", but it was SO HARD to avoid the Yang/Nora intervention bit being just cliché stacked on cliché. I still don't think I completely got away from it.
It was hard to put where Jaune would recognize Pyrrha, I knew it had to be early, otherwise it would be a bit… odd, but I didn't know if I wanted it immediately to set the tone, or most of the way through the initial tests, to make it more sudden for her. Both could have probably worked, but in the end I went with the second option.
I had to come up with some of the weirdest euphemisms to not just keep saying "jolt of electricity". They probably don't work too well but I had to do something,
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Yes, I know that this entire premise is a little unrealistic. No sane person would let a recent hire with no degree be an eye checker for a day. But let me live a little, alright?! I like being unique, as I am sure you can tell if you have read my other stuff [which you totally should, BTW ;)].
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Now some grammar stuff. The number one thing I had trouble with was repeating the same word twice or sometimes more in a row. Having to come up with replacements that meant the same thing was hard, even with the occasional consultation of .
Another one was putting down "You" when I really should be putting down "One". It just flows better, I think.
Last one I'm gonna say is about how I specifically write. I have a really hard time writing "_ said". I hate those words, and think it doesn't make sense at all to use, ever. The only way I could avert this and not make it a confusing mess was to pair it with "action scenes" {not a good name, but it's all I got}, like in this example:
"Pyrrha! Please, let me go! You don't want to miss the bullhead, right?" He can barely get it out without choking.
That was me specifically avoiding saying a variation of "Jaune said". Instead, I wrote the second sentence to be descriptive, in this case descriptive of his situation, although usually I do a related action. This way I can ascribe who says and does what without using those two words I don't like. I think I only did that once or twice in the whole fic out of like 50 that could have been, which makes me happy.
That's all for the extra thoughts. See y'all in the future!
Started: 4-19-2021
Completed: 4-24-2021 (Xtra completed 4/28)