Behind the scenes writing: Episode 5 (4/6) (Patreon)

(Warning! This post may contain major spoilers for the story! Read further at your own risk.)

This is a behind the scenes look at the upcoming episode writing, which will cover what are called "events" during the episode. Episode 5 is looking to be around 35-40k word count, which is our biggest episode yet and added with the other content planned for v0.20 it'll be our biggest update yet in general.

If you haven't seen the the previous posts, you can check it out below.
(1/6) https://www.patreon.com/posts/behind-scenes-5-53807158
(2/6) https://www.patreon.com/posts/behind-scenes-5-54054794
(3/6) https://www.patreon.com/posts/behind-scenes-5-54924750

Continuing where we left off in our previous post... Brandon had taken off from the student council, leaving Juliet and Heather behind in hopes of meeting up with his buddies who are awaiting for him down at the courtyard before they head off to check other clubs out and catch up a little.

But before Brandon is able to reach the courtyard, he'll end up bumping into Zoey along the way who seems to be in a awkward situation taking place. Brandon decides to briefly help her out, but before he can take off, Lola appears and it would seem to help fill in the gap as to why Zoey was in the awkward position in the first place.

Of course now Brandon feels like he's in a spot, trying to make it clear he needs to get going, but Lola seems pretty tough to shake off his back. When a opportunity presents itself for him to make his escape, he does just that and makes a rush for the courtyard.

While at the courtyard, he and his buddies talk about some stuff since they split up a while back earlier. They're going on about some clubs they've checked out and how things seem to be going so far, any exciting stuff and the like.

As the guys take off in search of other clubs, along the way they bump into Nova, Allie and Rosa walking by. The two groups stop and it becomes a brief introductions all around for the two groups and some general chatting before Nova asks what what they're plans are. One thing leads to another and Nova mentions how they're heading to the track field to get some cardio exercise in and wonders if maybe the guys would like to come join them.

This of course gets Joey's mind racing and Nathan seems fine by the idea, so the guys decide to accept and spend some time hanging out with the girls. Brandon figured it'd be a good way to let his buddies get to know the kickboxing club, not that he believes any guys would be allowed to join their club.

With the group getting to the track field, they prepare themselves and the girls pair up with the guys to have a running partner to talk with while they do their 3 mile run. This would end up having Brandon and Nova as partners, Nathan and Rosa, Joey and Allie. It'd end up leading to some silly comedy interactions due to the groups pairing, with Joey and Allie probably causing more racket than anything.

Their run seems to be going okay at first, but after a mile in, the guys are really feeling it and decide to give up while the girls continue with their cardio. While the guys are resting on the sidelines, they chat for a bit about stuff and some teasing takes place naturally with Nathan and Joey.

Once the girls finish and join the guys sitting, Allie jokes asking if the guys were busy staring at her butt, which sparks some silly comedy moments out of the whole ordeal between the group.

With time passing before them and the sun having a little over an hour before setting completely, the guys decide to head off realizing their chances of checking out some other clubs won't last for too much longer for today as everyone will probably be gone from their clubs soon enough.

This works out well for everyone since the girls still have some other stuff to get done tonight and should go change out of their sweaty gym uniforms. This of course gives Joey a bright idea... One that might just get the guys in some deep trouble and giving Brandon some déjà vu from when he first met Nova...

~Writer notes~

-So this write up ends up covering what I like to call a mini event and the fifth event of episode 5. What makes a mini event? Well the little scene with Lola and Zoey as a example, where it doesn't quite feel like a full event taking place and doesn't last too long before moving on from it. I like to think of these as passing events, if you look back at episode 1 there's a good bit of little smaller moments like this.

-With the mini event I knew I wanted to ensure Lola gets a good bit of screen time and some exposure for her character within the episode. So it felt like a small fitting moment to add just a tiny bit more, while also getting to see Zoey pop up for a bit.

-With the fifth event, I mainly wanted to focus on bringing the guys altogether once again and have the main focus set around guy time, but also some more time with Nova and the girls. This felt like a fitting moment without trying to have things set around well... The kickboxing aspects, since I didn't quite want to do a similar repeat of ep 2 where Nova and the girls are practicing, but with the guys all around. (Would've felt too similar.)

Instead I decided to take a original event from long ago, which was similar in function. It was originally when the guys met the kickboxing club briefly before the guys ran off and then Brandon joined the girls in jogging at the track field. So I wanted to take this event and bring some new life to it and keep it feeling similar too.

Instead of having the guys run off before really getting to see too much interaction with them and the girls. I wanted to make it feel a bit more normal, having the guys get to know the kickboxing club a decent bit and playing off of the different character's. Joey and Allie are a little combo that instantly comes to mind.

I think this event should be pretty fitting though and offer some fun little moments involved. Some that are a bit more interesting than others for Brandon and Nova involved. :P

-As of this moment, there isn't any plans for a cg scene for this fifth event. Without spoilers, there's some figuring to do still for the final event of ep 5 to see which moment would really benefit the most from a cg scene. (Even if we had plans to get more cg scenes added in ep 5 later, we're trying to consider which one would have more impact on the episode as a whole.)

-I'm hopeful that fans of Nova and the girls will feel like things are picking up again with Nova. Clearly after the awkwardness that took place for some time after ep 2 with Nova kissing Brandon out of the blue and now knowing that in ep 4, that she's looking to move forward and beyond things. That we can really get to see them move forward and have fun again.

I think I'm pretty pumped to see how everyone will enjoy the interactions of Allie and Rosa vs Nathan and Joey. :P