Untitled (Patreon)

I always like to upload my outlines, too, just in case anyone likes to know a little more about the writing process, but there's not much to the outline this time! This chapter ended up being very seat-of-the-pants. I'll still upload it, but I guess I'll do a little bit of author commentary. This chapter was a lot of fun to write, I think that after a chapter that focused mostly on Laurie and then one focused mainly on Jen, it was nice to have one that looks at al three of them. Again, I ended up postponing Jen and Laurie's eventual reconciliation for dramatic purposes. I like the idea that Jen is actually becoming more independent, even if still remaining pretty dim, while Laurie is finding that she's really the one who needs Jen and not the other way around. I think that comes across kind of nicely in the scene where Laurie is spying on Jen in the gym; I wanted to give the impression that Laurie is being really catty because she secretly misses Jen. The earlier scene with Tyler and Alice was inspired by some of the additions to the Alice story on Writing.com and it's one of my favorite things to write, an extended scene of eating or growing or weight gain that just goes on and on and on far beyond where you'd expect it to stop. I think that sort of thing is pretty hot, because it's got all the false alarms where you think it will end but it just doesn't. At least, that's the way I think of it! Sophia is another in a long string of casual background characters like Maggie or Mallory who appear for a chapter to never be referenced again. She might come back eventually, but I'm expecting to see Abida scenes in the upcoming chapters...