Hello, friends.
Two Friends first came to me as an idea while in the middle of writing 'Brand New Day' (BND). It then attacked me relentlessly until I finally sat down to write an outline for it in order to prepare for writing it after I finish BND.
As is typical with me getting plot ideas versus actually writing it out, the story goes through many changes. Originally, I had intended for Two Friends to show support for the foundations of a future relationship between Max and Chloe that occurs in the game, and to fit more within the canon.
Once the story began to take on life and the characters grew, though, their characterization moved into an area which naturally seem to fit them better. In the canon, I don't think Max is capable of playing the piano, I do not think Joyce and William are that intensely busy (at least not at that time in Chloe's life), and I don't think Ryan/Vanessa employs such authoritarian parenting styles.
In fact, the parents (Prices and Caulfields) weren't originally supposed to be featured so prominently at all nor have their personalities so expanded. However, I ended up growing their importance because they served as a great catalyst for understanding the nuances of Maxine's/Chloe's character.
I find I really like how they turned out too. The Prices' personalities came largely from the game combined with my personal touch, but for the Caulfields, particularly Vanessa, I turned to a book for help. That book is Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. It was an immense help in getting an understanding of and a method for forming Ryan/Vanessa and, ultimately, Maxine.
That is a method I haven't really used previously for creating a character. A lot of this story entailed me going out of my comfort zone in terms of how I write. Not only is it a different narrative style than I'm used to and prefer using, but it involved several subjects I wasn't confident I could conveyed as well as I would like to.
Trying to write in a way that conveys the personal feelings, personality, circumstances, and world of both Maxine and Chloe was particularly difficult for me. I did it partially in chapter 02, but then slowly ramped it up with the following chapters.
Incidentally, chapter 03 was when the story became dramatically more difficult to write. Chapter 03 went through several edits before I became satisfied. Chapter 04 went through several major edits that actually changed the entirety of the chapter.
Chapter 05 was a terrible beast. It went through numerous extensive overhauls before I became satisfied with it and each overhaul took an immense amount of time to write. To give some idea of what occurred, here is how it was written: I wrote chapter 05, completely rewrote it, combined it with chapter 06, then completely rewrote the whole thing again. The word count jump from 5K to 9K to 8K to finally settling at around 7K. Writing it took so much time and effort that it derailed my normal update schedule.
By comparison, chapter 06 was a breeze. It also went through edits and overhauls, but it was simple compared to prior chapters.
After all is said and done, I'm generally satisfied with how the story went but I definitely felt it could have used improvements in areas.
In particular, while I was happy with how Chloe and her family came out, I was less satisfied with how Maxine and hers did. I especially felt that I didn't give Vanessa the development she should have received and that Maxine's life/world wasn't appropriately conveyed. This took away from the story as she and Chloe were supposed to serve as a sort of foil to each other, but Maxine's lack of development diluted this aspect.
Furthermore, I also think Chloe's school life deserved more attention.
In the end, Two Friends turned into another lesson in writing and another pillar in the foundation to which I will improve future writings. Hopefully, my future writing efforts will reflect this.