annavere | Writing Update

I actually managed to post two different chapters this month, which makes me feel quite accomplished (one each for two WIPs). Since I'm now at the halfway mark with both stories, I thought I could wring a post out of it.

Counterclaims (Teen Wolf, 2/4 chapters):

I finally got the chance to explore my headcanon about Talia Hale being a deeply fucked up person, which the fandom mostly ignores. Talia is usually seen as the wise leader and supportive mother, with only a few people criticizing her handling of the Malia case, and nobody apparently taking issue with the fact that she was repeatedly erasing her younger brother's memories. Of course, I wasn't trying to give Peter a get out of jail free card regarding his later behavior (it is possible to be both victim and monster, and trying to use one aspect to cancel out the other is never interesting to me), nor to engage in tearing down all of Talia's better qualities. There's no evidence she was anything other than a supportive mother, but that doesn't automatically mean she was a good sister. I like that kind of complexity. So that was a fun thing to delve into (for a given definition of fun).

I had a final scene (Lydia and Allison in the car at the end of the episode), but I decided to make it the opening of the next chapter, because it fits better there and because Lydia walking out while Peter screams her name is a more impactful finish - and because (*sigh*) the next chapter is going to be the last one before Allison dies, and a quiet scene between the two of them belongs there.

The problem with a long series. I started it while living a much happier life than I now have. Writing Lydia's response to Allison's death may be cathartic, I don't know yet, but it's sure as hell not something I would choose to take on if this wasn't an ongoing project.

Sidelined (Jeremiah, 3/5 chapters):

This was a hard chapter to write, mostly because I knew where it was going, so I had to find a credible way to get Erin and Theo into the final scene, and threshing out the required contrivances of plot took much longer than I expected. I had an entire extra scene that I struggled with for weeks and which turned out to be unnecessary (literally the whole thing was turned into one paragraph of dialogue from my OC Elliot, which was a deeply satisfying solution). I also did foolish things like invent a whole gaggle of cute kids, who then needed to be corralled.

Thankfully, I am now out of the weeds of uncooperative OCs and back in the land of canon characters. One of the very first thoughts I had about this story was that Erin and Theo could spring a labor camp. That's one of the few heroic things Jeremiah and Kurdy never did on the show, so it felt like a natural development - and it let Erin kill a man to save Theo.

"And then they could run into Sims," I said to myself, in my first frantic run of note-taking. I actually jettisoned that idea immediately for the crime of being way too self-indulgent and improbable, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it seemed to make, so I added it back in. It also let me test out my shameless cliffhanger skills.

Of course, now I have to stick the landing.

* * *

So that's about it. Both chapters had a lot of plot to manage, and I'm taking a break before the next leg of these projects, but... Halfway through both? That's an accomplishment.