wherein Liz thinks about "Guardian"

[edenfalling]

"The Guardian in Spite of Herself" is now up on AO3 through ch. 14, and I've fixed ch. 15 to take care of the mysterious vanishing raven glitch (don't ask) so it is all nice and ready for posting Monday afternoon.

I have also done the initial scene-by-scene breakdown for ch. 17, in hopes of preventing myself from stalling out again. It is a much vaguer breakdown than I often use -- one or two sentences per scene rather than one or two paragraphs -- but since I end up ignoring at least a third of my breakdowns anyway, I don't think this is a great loss. As long as I hit the key points and keep my timeline in order, it's all good.

I really do need to make some decisions about the plot, though. At the moment, I have not even decided who lives and who dies (beyond the obvious survivors who have turned up in chronologically later ficlets: namely, Yukiko, Kakashi, Naga, Naruto, and Sasuke). I am also undecided about a couple character arcs. I mean, I know roughly where I'm going -- it is pretty obvious we are headed for an 'everybody crashes into everybody else' endgame in Tengai -- and clearly I need to resolve A) the hunt for Itachi, B) the mess with Eiji & Co., C) the involvement of Akatsuki, D) Sasuke's issues, E) Naga's guilt, and E) whatever may or may not be going on with Seichi. And while Yukiko doesn't have a driving character arc here like she did in "Apartment Manager," she does need to do some coming to terms with what a career as an active ninja entails, and also perhaps admit that there's a reason Sarutobi thought she was the right person to take care of Sasuke even though she likes to think of herself as a grumpy and misanthropic cynic. (Naruto may also need to come to terms with what ninja actually do, but he is again serving more as a catalyst than anything else.)

...

It is very strange to be actively thinking about this story again, you know?

Comments

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

Go you! :) You're being so awesome and productive.

I think the new way of laying out chapters is good. That way you feel like you're not wasting all of that time and energy, especially if the paragraphs either end up getting ignored or not used.

I am glad I am not not the one who is having to make all of the decisions you laid out and am able to just sit back and enjoy this wonderful story.

You can do it! :)

[edenfalling]

Thanks! My chapter layouts vary a lot, and the scene breakdowns are mostly to tell me who is doing what; the level of detail depends on how many people are on-page and how complicated the notes I need to hit are.