By far the hardest thing about this chapter is the fact that Rukia has six major concerns, maybe seven, at least two of which have a 1a and a 1b. If that sounds like too many concerns, I agree, from a storytelling perspective. But from a character perspective I'm like, welp, this is her reality, though. From a craft perspective, I feel like there's a limit to how much you can pre-map or outline all of that in any way that matters; like, meticulously deciding how all that comes into each other, I don't think, is ever going to come out honest. It would get too top-down, and the relationships would feel imposed upon rather than emergent from. It all has to come up and together all at once. But it's difficult to keep hold of the entire structure while also having to write, you know, individual sequential words. I don't think all six or seven major concerns need to come out equally, and they certainly don't need to be fully articulated/apprehended here, very certainly not resolved, but that then becomes a question of what happens here vs. in chapter 11 or 12 or 15 or 17 and--
Probably my job right now is to write all the scenes on this list so that some version of a tent-raising against exists, so that I can delete it and then repeat ad nauseam until the right version exists, but oh my god. This chapter has been back to 15k like four different times after I've cut it down to 11 or so. In my ideal world it's like 8k tops but that's apparently just not Part II's style.
And then!! lol!!! There are things I haven't wanted to be part of this fic since the very very very very very beginning, and that I have known this entire time that I didn't want. And what is 100% of one of the scenes that I wrote yesterday in an attempt at the aforementioned tent-raising? That exact thing.
Why. Why is that what came out.
Why am I even doing any of this at all!! The part that I like about writing fanfic is getting to learn things about the characters as they breathe into and unfold scenes and you get to see, like, where the bullet point is really going to go and how the character responds and carries themselves through things. There's probably more of that on tap through the rest of this process, or at least in finding whatever final versions of these moments that actually work. But I also think that every part of this up to that point is going to be very much not that, because I've already had this flavor before, this is like Take 57, I'm not learning that many interesting things relative to time/effort, and we all just want to go home.
So there's actually two hardest things about this chapter--1) it's structurally complex (thanks, Rukia) and 2) I've gotten mine, but the chapter hasn't gotten its yet. Yeah there's still gold in them hills for me, but AT WHAT COST. NOT ONE IT MAKES SENSE TO PAY
Maybe it will be helpful to frame it as like, everything I am doing *now* isn't for me, and if it doesn't feel like it is that's because isn't meant to be. It's only kind of for the characters at this point, even if I wish it were. But it's for the chapter; and as the writer I'm responsible to him, too.