Extra Scenes and Explanation
READ ONLY IF YOU'VE FINISHED MEET ME WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN
EXTRA SCENES
When I started writing Meet Me When The Sun Goes Down, I had an outline. The first thing I did before I started writing was write an outline for the story and an outline for each chapter. That's how I decided in the beginning that the story was going have 19 chapters. Then, I ignored the outline.
As I wrote the story, it seemed to gain life and I started ignoring my outline: I left scenes for later, switched them for other scenes, put scenes earlier than planned, or discarded scenes completely. That came to bite me in the ass later...
I had ideas for scenes that, to my understanding, would make the story more interesting but, as the big climax of the story started approaching, those scenes gave place to other more important scenes for not only the development of the story but also Max's.
At the end, those scenes became extras and I had to descard them completely. Still, I like them and I would like to share a little about those scenes that never saw the light of day. Maybe one day I'll come back to Meet Me When The Sun Goes Down and add those scenes. But that day won't be today or in the near future. So, here's some extra scenes for the people who liked the story and want a little bit more.
KELLY
Kelly didn't appear a lot in the story besides chapters 6 and 7 (that chapter was from her POV). She was mentioned a couple of times but, from her chapter, she seemed to be a more important character.
Kelly's goal in the story was to provide Max with information from the Hamilton Family. Since the story is told from Max's POV, it would've been a little weird if he knew all of those precious informations about a Family that he's not even part of. Kelly served to expand Max's knowledge of the world around him (the story would've been really boring if Max only had dirt on the Binotto/Leclerc Family).
There was going to be some scenes where we would see Max get those informations from Kelly, for example: them in bed together talking, or secret meetings, things like that.
In the end, I decided to descard those scenes because of lack of time. They weren't exactly necessary because Max could just say that he got that information from Kelly.
CHARLES CONFESSING TO THE MURDER OF THE VERSTAPPENS
In chapter 14 (Charles' POV), there was going to be a scene where Charles told Max the story of his first mission. Charles first mission was the murder of the Verstappens on Christmas Eve, in 1921.
That scene would serve to show how that first mission affected Charles', it would make Max more unstable, and it would make Charles start to suspect Max when he would start to pressure Charles to tell him the names of the people who were with him during that mission.
That scene was instead exchanged by the one where Charles sees his life flash before his eyes after almost being killed by Nikita Mazepin and he mentions the murder of the Verstappens.
There isn't a lot to say about this scene besides the fact that I would've liked to add it to make Charles suspect Max a little bit but that scene will probably never be added because then I would have to change some things in the story (more than I'm willing to).
CHARLES' MYSTERIOUS DRUG
In chapter 16, Max accuses Charles of being on drugs when he goes to confront him after executing Nyck. Max says that it's cocaine but Charles denies it.
That mysterious drug was, non other than, laudanum. The same drug that Sebastian gave Charles in chapter 14 to help him sleep. At the end of chapter 14, there was going to be a scene where Charles goes to Sebastian's room and steals the laudanum so he's able to sleep without Mattia haunting him.
I descarded that scene because of a lack of time and because I wanted the chapter to end with Charles asking Arthur to fetch him "Dastard". The stealing of the laudanum scene wouldn't fit nicely before or after that scene because it would ruin the cliffhanger.
SOPHIE'S MYSTERIOUS DRUG
Max, during the first chapter, says that his mother used to take medication and that, one day, he found that medication hidden in one of the cabinets in the bathroom but Sophie caught him and hid the medicine. Because Max was very little at the time, he couldn't read what was written on the bottle.
It was laudanum too.
There was going to be a scene where Max would discover that Charles was using laudanum not only to help him sleep and they would fight. Max would remember his mother's medicine and how she looked dead inside and would try to convince Charles to stop taking laudanum. It wouldn't work.
MICK SCHUMACHER
Mick was supposed to have been introduced a little earlier (in chapter 15, not 17). That would make him more relevant to the story and give time for Max and Mick to talk without it being in the restroom of the Playhouse on the night that everything would go to shit.
I didn't introduce him in chapter 15 because that chapter would be from Nyck's POV and I wanted Mick's reintrodution to be from Max's POV, so I had to postpone it to chapter 16.
But I didn't do it in chapter 16 either. In that chapter, Max was almost uncovered because of a note with his real name and he tries to not make people suspect him (again). That scene wasn't planned (more in the next point), so I had to postpone it again to the next chapter.
Mick is only reintroduced in chapter 17 and, at that point, I thought that it was too late for him to appear and I thought of getting rid of that idea but 1. in the previous chapter, I had already mentioned that the Steiners were now Schumachers and Max suspected that Mick was the Don; 2. I wanted them to reunite while Max was still, more or less, sane but after a while I realised that it would be quite interesting for Mick to find Max when Max had already lost everything; and 3. Mick's eventual reappearance is foreshadowed in chapter 9 when Daniel asks Max to describe his perfect wedding and Max asks himself if his childhood friends changed a lot, Max from the present answers "they did like you wouldn't imagine". He's refering to the fact that shy Mick became the Don of a Mafia Family.
Mick is reintroduced too late to have any real impact on the story but I decided to keep him as a guest appearance, almost.
KEVIN MAGNUSSEN AND MAX'S REAL NAME
In my head, when I started writing the story, Magnussen was already finished with his revenge and nothing bothered him anymore. He lived quietly and just did his work when asked to.
In chapter 8, when he was introduced, Max tells him his real name. I didn't really think about that scene because, in my head, Magnussen wouldn't care. It wasn't his problem that this bloodthirsty kid was a little dumb. Magnussen didn't care at all about Max's real name.
But, aparently, it wasn't that clear that the Danish Knight didn't give two shits about Max and even less about his real name but the readers cared. So after that, I had to add a scene where Max's real name and Magnussen are connected. In the end, I think that it was a good improvise and made things more tense and reminded the readers about the existence of the fifth man.
The reality is that Kevin Magnussen didn't care enough about Max to throw him under the bus. The only moment when he did was, in chapter 12, when he warned Antonio that there was a traitor among them. The reason he did so was pettiness only: he was about to die, the only people there with him were Max (a traitor) and Antonio (who was oblivious), he deduced that Antonio was going to die with him.
BOTTOM! MAX
In Meet Me When The Sun Goes Down, there are only 2 smut scenes but in the beginning there were going to be 3.
The smut scenes (weirdly enough) were supposed to have symbolism: in the first (chapter 10), Max kneels down behind The Rogue and gives Charles a blowjob, this would serve to show that Max had finally given into his desire to worship Charles but show at the same time that he was the one in control; in the second (chapter 13), Charles is on top, this served to show that, although it seemed like Max was giving Charles control, he is still the one in charge and he had Charles in the palm of his hand. The third one would take place somewhere between chapters 14 and 16 and Max would be the bottom to show how he had lost control of the situation and now Charles was in charge.
That last scene was descarded because I figured that, after Nyck's death, a smut scene wouldn't be really appreciated. Max was in mourning and losing his sanity little by little and Charles was becoming more and more paranoic and wasn't also completly sane.
That Bottom! Max scene won't be added in the future simply because I don't know where to put it. If I were to add that scene, I would want it to retain it's symbolism (again, super bizarre that a sex scene has symbolism, I have no idea what was going through my head) so it could only be added in between chapters 14 and 16. Without knowing, I checkmated myself.
OSCAR PIASTRI
Oscar Piastri (alongside Nico Hulkenberg) isn't a very relevant character to the story itself, only being Max's childhood friend from St Calvin's. In my initial outline, Oscar was going to be a little more relevant, he would still not "appear" (he was still going to be just a character from Max's childhood, unlike Nyck and Mick that came back) but Max would remember moments with Oscar (and sometimes Nico H) and would connect those moments with things that were happening at the time.
Few scenes survived but two that ended up in the story are both in chapter 13: when Max mentions that Oscar taught him how to light a bonefire and when Max mentions that, besides Charles, the closest he has ever been to being with another guy was when he and Oscar kissed to know what it felt like.
There were going to be a lot more scenes like these ones but they ended up being cut.
2. EXPLANATION
I'm not sure if the story was clear so I decided to offer an explanation for the people that perhaps didn't understand.
The foundation of the story is the saying "life flashing before one's eyes". It is mentioned some times in the story that someone is watching their life flash before their eyes. The goal of this was to serve as foreshadow to what would be the big secret of the story.
Max is about to die by Charles hands and his life is flashing before his eyes. Everything we see in the story is Max's memories while he relives all the moments that brought him to that beach.
Throughout the story, we come across sentences in italic. Usually, sentences in italy are used to show the characters thoughts but since the story is told in first person, there is no need for that. The sentences in italic are, actually, Max's thoughts to what he's seeing. They're comments, we could say. Max from the present talking. The Max from the beach who is about to die. That is why, in the last chapter, there is a mix of sentences in the past written normally and sentences in the present written in italic. We've reached the present. That is why, as the story reaches its end, the sentences in italic become longer and more recurring. Not only are the memories fresher but Max is also watching as he loses control of the situation and is reliving his mistakes and what he lost.
It isn't a big explanation, it isn't something really unusual, but I thought that maybe it wasn't clear enough and some readers wouldn't catch on it. I just wanted to explain because, even though its something small and maybe not too obvious, I am still proud of this story.
Thank you everyone that followed this journey and thank you all that liked the story enough to read this post.