- Read A Day of Faces for free here.
- Read this specific chapter here.
- Read all the writing notes here.
Pacing in Arc 3 is proving to be a fiddly thing. In the first two arcs pacing was definitely flexible, but on the whole I stuck to the initial chapter breakdowns. With Arc 3 I’m constantly restructuring the story, adding and removing chapters and adjusting the overall pace.
I have no idea whether this is a good thing or not. Hopefully it means that I’m becoming more confident as a writer and am able to better arrange the story and character beats to make for a satisfying read. It’s meant that Kay and Marv’s journey east took a couple of chapters more than I’d expected.
And with ‘Reflex’ I’ve got another chapter that didn’t quite turn out as planned. It was meant to be more talky than actiony, but when I got down to the writing it made no sense for Kay to sit down and have a chat with Simons. She was outta there the moment she saw him. And thus ‘Reflex’ ended up being a rather more fun caper of Kay and Marv trying to escape and proving to be entirely inept.
It does a few things. First up, it reinforces Kay and Marv’s relationship, and gives us a chance to see them in action without being shepherded about by Furey or Cal. Secondly, we get to see Furey doing her thing in a slightly more overt way. Third, it simultaneously reminds us that Kay is a force to be reckoned with while at the same time emphasising that she is not an action hero, and never will be. She has skills, but in the end she’s still a high school kid.
Next chapter might be the final Interlude of the arc. Stay tuned.
Soundtrack: Ant-Man. Because I wanted a heisty, fight-or-flight kinda feel.
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