Honesty

Okay as I am writing this I have not read any of the comments on my last post because I want to address a few things.

IVB
Did this web serial seem a little unfinished to you ? It did to me as well like it was missing something. I realized this as I came closer and closer to the end. The thing is this web serial was more like an IVB abridged because there were so many events that I mentioned but never explained because they were in the past. In a way this serial was kind of the last chapter in a longer anthology. It would have been better if I started where Darcy's excerpt began. I would have shown his diagnosis, how the boys met, Slate's intervention, Nick's surgery and a couple things about Elias. So, I will go on to the comments now, I have a lot of other things to say so I will only answer some and hopefully my blogging answers the others. I realize this story may be lacking content wise but, I am going to focus on the context :
Aym--squeeee! an UL update this looks like it is going to be amazing is this what you were hinting at ?

Yes, it was
I don't really believe that Slate is completely over Emily. So is Slate and His dad the "other two Bennetts

No, it was actually Slate's stepmother. In my mind Slate and his dad still don't get along.

I guess we should start shortening it to RGGS already ! I was clicking on it hoping the pic was a link. LOL

I was thinking of something to shorten it to like RoGaGoSa or something, IDK !
Darcy's Death

Darcy was the very first IVB character I wrote all those years ago and I knew he was going to die. As I wrote the others I imagined they would die later but, I decided not to. For those of you who know my previous work you know that I was inspired to write the short story that became Terminal Heartbreaker's Club because I was at a breast cancer awareness walk and felt very inspired by all the hope but also by all the loss. I wanted to create something where people like myself who knew very little about breast cancer (except that I was at risk) could not only see those people but, also relate.

In short, my goal for having Darcy die was so that if you were to ever go to any kind of cancer awareness events you remember the names on the back of those shirts are people and you will think of this story

In a comment someone thought Darcy not being in the kitchen during Thanksgiving was foreshadowing his death but it wasn't really. For a while there I was going to write this really dramatic death scene but, then I thought the last chapter would have lost some impact. Then I consulted Joel and we considered writing the death scene after the relay for life chapter but together what we did was we took what Slate would have done and said at Darcy's death and put it in at the last chapter when they are in Slate's room. Does that make sense ?

In the end I tried the LL fakeout, when I originally wasn't going to but, it was so much fun.

I did however foreshadow Darcy's death here :

Darcy and I were not good at being real and serious or atleast I wasn't good at being that way with him. I walked into the room, it looked just as it had since I was like 11. The walls were still covered with superhero posters and Darcy was laying on my bed that still had Captain Marvel bedsheets.

For those of you who don't know Captain Marvel was a superhero who died of cancer and unlike most superhero deaths they never brought him back.

In my head Darcy died of complications from having the cancer in his digestive system and there was nothing Slate could have done to really save him. He did live long enough for Noah and Sadie's wedding though.


I actually feel bad about 'killing him off' I have no idea how Mrs.Rowling does it. It actually makes me sad to talk about it.
Nicholas

Somewhere along the way this became a story about family as much as it did about friends. I'm sure Nicholas's story seemed a little all over the place but, I have my reasons. The reason I introduced Mason was because I didn't want Nicholas to be an asexual character and I wanted this possibility of a relationship to give him a reason to reach out to other people. The main goal for Nicholas was the coming of age and growing up theme and for him growing up meant learning how to let go. In the beginning Nicholas was not Catholic but when I remembered he had 5 older siblings and I was trying to name them in chapter 7 I believe I thought it would be easier to come up with names if I used a theme. I knew Nicholas was the name of a Catholic saint so that became my theme and consequently his mother became a devout Catholic. I tried to use unique (like Roderic) or obvious ones (like Frances) to see if anyone would catch on. Nicholas's voice has it's own unique stlye like all the others. Nick is the only character who notices colors when describing things. For instance :

A woman dressed casually in light blue jeans and a loose-fitting beige polo came walking towards us . . . . . . Slate walked in from outside wearing only a pair of jeans, sneakers and a red knit shirt. . . .
. . . his eyes lined with black and the tips of his dark hair dyed blue probably with some kind of specialty expensive organic dye. He was wearing a bright green BROOKLYN graphic shirt embellished with metal pieces with bleach damaged black pants.


Slate
Slate does kind of do a total 360 in this chapter as someone mentioned. He came around the medication after talking with Diana and he came around to seeing his family when he realized that when Emily goes to see her family he will be alone. I also think at a point Slate wasn't really upset anymore and he is learning to not just run away from his problems. Do Emily and Slate get back together ? Sadly, no. Mostly because as Emily states they were never back together. They were just Friends With Benefits. Emily is not the kind of girl who would throw away her principles and what she wants for a boy. Emily and Slate have a destructive relationship and she knows it's not good for her. In my mind Emily is not the girl in a romance story--she is every girl and stands on her own two feet. Writing Slate's voice was almost the exact opposite of Darcy and Nick's. Whenver Darcy is the POV he knows the names of everyone from the delivery food person to the receptionist and that is because he asks and likes to talk. Slate on the other hand doesn't see color or know anyone's names and he spaces out when people are talking so instead of getting dialogue you get summaries most notably here :

Emily quickly stood up and keeping my hand clasped in hers we walked back to the doctor’s office.

“This is Slate,” Emily introduced

The doctor seemed like a nice guy and went into his usual doctor speech that I barely tuned into and then handed Emily the prescriptions.
There was definatley more story with Slate that did not get told and I kind of regret it but so much of it was backstory and I knew I wasn't going to show him doing drugs because that was his past.

Elias

The biggest thing with Elias was people wondering what his relationship with his biological dad and Tessa would be. I think the real answer is there would not be one. As it is shown Elias easily pushes people out of his life so for him the worse thing would be letting more people in. Again not a perfect ending but one that the character can live with. His parent's gave him away so he would have a better chance and he is doing that.

At first Be My Escape was going to be Elias's song in the beginning but I wanted it to be at a part that had all the characters in it. This is actually one of my favorite songs by RK except for another that did not really fit into this serial but hopefully I will get to use it at some point.


I probably have a lot more to say about IVB because I did not do a lot of blogging in between postings but that's all I got for now


Rose Garlands and Golden Stars

I haven't figured out how I want to shorten that just yet, I'm not sure how long it will take me to finish this and start posting so, I may go on a little hiatus or not I honestly don't know. I will make sure these stories are very "plot rich". I already know what the general focus will be and why I chose the specific characters. Here is the original image before I added the title to it and had to distort it. I'm no computer genius so I'm a little proud of it.




For LL :

Although Pandora can be a pain sometimes it is my new favorite tool and it gave me a song I (ahem, we) wanted to give LL. I don't know if she's heard or used it but, I think it is perfect for her previous web series.

Calling All Angels (Album Vers...