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a not-so-little reds snippet i cut from the last chapter and too much background on it
At this point I assume most folks have read the most recent chapter, so this is probably good to share now!
Some background first (and I don't recall if I mentioned this in the past, but) - originally there was no party scene at all. It opened on a completely different scene, a day or two after the party (that will either get moved to another chapter or cut completely; depends on if I find an organic place to slot it in in the coming chapters). It wasn't until a reader (off the previous chapter I posted, almost two years ago) mentioned their excitement for a party scene that I realized: Oh shit. They're right. I set the stage for a party in the last chapter and it would be shitty of me not to deliver on that.
Not just shitty, but also, it wouldn't have made sense. Why spend any time talking about a party at all if the party isn't going to happen? There was room to do that, and besides, while they do involve a good amount of work and sometimes tricky navigation, I tend to like scenes with lots of people because it gives me a lot of room to play with different voices (beach chapter is probably the biggest example of this). While they can be a lot of work to write, they can also be a lot of fun in the process.
So I committed to writing a party scene as it's what the story naturally called for. And, because I'm constantly in my Reds feels, the first scene I wrote was for them.
I was really, really in love with this idea of them sitting at a table across from each other as the clock struck midnight and a bunch of couples around them kissed while they just stared and fantasized about kissing each other. Here's my first (more or less) attempt at it.
--
Their eyes met as the clock struck twelve.
It seemed everyone else left in the room had someone to kiss. Most were tame, a mixture of chaste pecks exchanged as soon as the gonging of the grandfather clock started. Others went a little overboard; one couple behind Blossom in particular was really going at it, so much so that Brick couldn’t help but stare in semi-awed disbelief. He noticed Blossom making a quizzical face at him (Cute, entrancing) and flicked his eyes behind her, sending a silent message with his gaze.
She turned and almost immediately turned back, eyes wide and mouth dropping open in shock, before covering her mouth with her hand and stifling a little laugh. He couldn’t help but quirk the corner of his mouth back at her, watching how her hand brushed across her lips as it pulled away from her face.
It was a nice moment, a little exchange of expression, a small, inconsequential shared secret laugh. To be surrounded by other coupled teens in a room at a party and observe them all, together. A sort of slow motion intimacy.
She shook her head, still smiling. Brick felt his own fade from his face as their eyes met again.
The clock chimed on.
It felt like being alone, for a minute. With nobody else paying attention to them, too wrapped up in their own moments, their own lives, their own girlfriends and boyfriends and friend-friends to look on.
Brick felt that unwelcome thing, forever present now, pulling inside him as he stared at Blossom, savoring this moment of shared quiet with her, tucking it away somewhere secret, deep down. Across the table, Blossom was carving this sliver of time into her memory, memorializing it in high-relief on her heart.
Whoever else was in the room faded away, nothing more than charcoal smears. The details of the people, the room, the party, all smudged, indiscernible. But each, for the other, always stood in stark relief.
The clock continued to chime in the background.
Brick thought of getting up, of walking towards her, of touching her face, of leaning down and closing his eyes. Completely oblivious to the fact that in that same moment, Blossom thought of lifting away from her chair, of floating closer, of sliding her hand into his hair, of pulling him close and parting her mouth.
Nobody would notice, they thought in unison, unbeknownst to each other, some deep, anguished part of them desperately wanting to believe it true. Nobody would see. Nobody’s looking.
The grandfather clock chimed, a bell ringing in their heads.
Kiss him.
Kiss her.
Kiss him.
Kiss her.
Neither Blossom nor Brick moved. They just sat across the table, watching each other in silence in a room full of couples as the clock chimed twelve to ring in the New Year.
And then the room was cheering, laughing, celebrating, and it was over. Another year gone. Nothing more than another memory of a missed opportunity.
--
So, uh. I really hate this scene now, actually 😬 Which pains me a little to say! Because this was originally what made me most excited about writing the party scene. I thought it was going to be a big moment, and it played so nicely in my head against a very particular song about a doomed romance (which I'll get around to posting later this week), and then I wrote it, and... I just could not get it to read as pretty as it did in my head. Getting it down on paper absolutely destroyed most of the magic in the scene for me, and sure, I probably could've really rolled up my sleeves and tried to brute force my way into making it work given enough time, but, well, I had another problem that wouldn't make itself known until later.
I wrote this and then tabled it to go write other scenes, figuring I'd come back to it and see if I changed my mind (because that happens sometimes - I write something, hate it, then come back in a few days and realize I was being too hard on myself, it's fine). But when I did, it hadn't gotten any better. And when I tried to read it in context, that's when the second problem reared its head: tonally, the scene just didn't fit.
More than a pretty Reds scene, the scene that I absolutely knew needed to be here (once I committed to writing a party scene, that is) was Boomer's. And once that was in the story (and behaving, unlike the Reds), it just didn't make any sense to switch from what's essentially a slow horror scene to... whatever this Reds scene was. I couldn't get it right, and now I couldn't get it to fit. So I cut it. And the whole thing worked a lot better and I was much, much happier with it.
Anyway! Chilling in rb's stream now, at least for a bit. Also trying to figure out another old fic to port over to ao3. Maybe something from the old hub contest days.
AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi
Some background first (and I don't recall if I mentioned this in the past, but) - originally there was no party scene at all. It opened on a completely different scene, a day or two after the party (that will either get moved to another chapter or cut completely; depends on if I find an organic place to slot it in in the coming chapters). It wasn't until a reader (off the previous chapter I posted, almost two years ago) mentioned their excitement for a party scene that I realized: Oh shit. They're right. I set the stage for a party in the last chapter and it would be shitty of me not to deliver on that.
Not just shitty, but also, it wouldn't have made sense. Why spend any time talking about a party at all if the party isn't going to happen? There was room to do that, and besides, while they do involve a good amount of work and sometimes tricky navigation, I tend to like scenes with lots of people because it gives me a lot of room to play with different voices (beach chapter is probably the biggest example of this). While they can be a lot of work to write, they can also be a lot of fun in the process.
So I committed to writing a party scene as it's what the story naturally called for. And, because I'm constantly in my Reds feels, the first scene I wrote was for them.
I was really, really in love with this idea of them sitting at a table across from each other as the clock struck midnight and a bunch of couples around them kissed while they just stared and fantasized about kissing each other. Here's my first (more or less) attempt at it.
--
Their eyes met as the clock struck twelve.
It seemed everyone else left in the room had someone to kiss. Most were tame, a mixture of chaste pecks exchanged as soon as the gonging of the grandfather clock started. Others went a little overboard; one couple behind Blossom in particular was really going at it, so much so that Brick couldn’t help but stare in semi-awed disbelief. He noticed Blossom making a quizzical face at him (Cute, entrancing) and flicked his eyes behind her, sending a silent message with his gaze.
She turned and almost immediately turned back, eyes wide and mouth dropping open in shock, before covering her mouth with her hand and stifling a little laugh. He couldn’t help but quirk the corner of his mouth back at her, watching how her hand brushed across her lips as it pulled away from her face.
It was a nice moment, a little exchange of expression, a small, inconsequential shared secret laugh. To be surrounded by other coupled teens in a room at a party and observe them all, together. A sort of slow motion intimacy.
She shook her head, still smiling. Brick felt his own fade from his face as their eyes met again.
The clock chimed on.
It felt like being alone, for a minute. With nobody else paying attention to them, too wrapped up in their own moments, their own lives, their own girlfriends and boyfriends and friend-friends to look on.
Brick felt that unwelcome thing, forever present now, pulling inside him as he stared at Blossom, savoring this moment of shared quiet with her, tucking it away somewhere secret, deep down. Across the table, Blossom was carving this sliver of time into her memory, memorializing it in high-relief on her heart.
Whoever else was in the room faded away, nothing more than charcoal smears. The details of the people, the room, the party, all smudged, indiscernible. But each, for the other, always stood in stark relief.
The clock continued to chime in the background.
Brick thought of getting up, of walking towards her, of touching her face, of leaning down and closing his eyes. Completely oblivious to the fact that in that same moment, Blossom thought of lifting away from her chair, of floating closer, of sliding her hand into his hair, of pulling him close and parting her mouth.
Nobody would notice, they thought in unison, unbeknownst to each other, some deep, anguished part of them desperately wanting to believe it true. Nobody would see. Nobody’s looking.
The grandfather clock chimed, a bell ringing in their heads.
Kiss him.
Kiss her.
Kiss him.
Kiss her.
Neither Blossom nor Brick moved. They just sat across the table, watching each other in silence in a room full of couples as the clock chimed twelve to ring in the New Year.
And then the room was cheering, laughing, celebrating, and it was over. Another year gone. Nothing more than another memory of a missed opportunity.
--
So, uh. I really hate this scene now, actually 😬 Which pains me a little to say! Because this was originally what made me most excited about writing the party scene. I thought it was going to be a big moment, and it played so nicely in my head against a very particular song about a doomed romance (which I'll get around to posting later this week), and then I wrote it, and... I just could not get it to read as pretty as it did in my head. Getting it down on paper absolutely destroyed most of the magic in the scene for me, and sure, I probably could've really rolled up my sleeves and tried to brute force my way into making it work given enough time, but, well, I had another problem that wouldn't make itself known until later.
I wrote this and then tabled it to go write other scenes, figuring I'd come back to it and see if I changed my mind (because that happens sometimes - I write something, hate it, then come back in a few days and realize I was being too hard on myself, it's fine). But when I did, it hadn't gotten any better. And when I tried to read it in context, that's when the second problem reared its head: tonally, the scene just didn't fit.
More than a pretty Reds scene, the scene that I absolutely knew needed to be here (once I committed to writing a party scene, that is) was Boomer's. And once that was in the story (and behaving, unlike the Reds), it just didn't make any sense to switch from what's essentially a slow horror scene to... whatever this Reds scene was. I couldn't get it right, and now I couldn't get it to fit. So I cut it. And the whole thing worked a lot better and I was much, much happier with it.
Anyway! Chilling in rb's stream now, at least for a bit. Also trying to figure out another old fic to port over to ao3. Maybe something from the old hub contest days.
AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi