BoM/TWS Message Forum

So with the publication of "Wrapping the Present" , that brings this story to an ending; and not just an end for now but a definitive conclusion.

I had actually proposed months ago, maybe even some time last year, doing a round robin with Nostrum and Masktrix. There was tentative agreements and after lookig over possible places to do it, Nostrum and I really liked the idea of sharing the book with Eastman gossip Natalie Dawkins. Natalie was a character who, though she'd been around as a name in Alyssa's group going way back to Student Bodies, had never had even a speck of development or focus prior to that little appearance I gave her as far as I could tell. So there were a lot of ways to develop her and her position meant a lot of ways a story with her could go. Could it involve the RPG crew or Alyssa's gang? What if Will shared the book with Natalie and it somehow ended up making its way to Alyssa?

Unfortunately, Masktrix had to bow out but luckily that was also right after Seuzz had returned from his sabbatical and he thankfully agreed to substitute in. Unlike the previous large Round Robin—the one where Will gets a mask of Sarah White—we went into this one not quite with an outline but with a general seed and direction for a plot: Natalie, struggling with the feeling that her best friend may be drifting away from her, sees in Will an opportunity to bust up Gillian and her boyfriend.

And through that, we learn about her own insecurities regarding her maturity or lack thereof and the thought that she's being left behind by her friends. In a way, as we wrote, she wound up turning into almost a girl version of Will. Obviously they're not the same character but she struggles with a lot of the same worries about how others perceive her, she's immature and like Will she has a tendency to leap before she looks. But unlike Will, who tends to drift until things prod him into one direction or another, Natalie is very headstrong and impulsive. In a sense, she was almost as exhasting to write as I'm sure she was for Will to deal with at times.

But overall I think that made her a very fun character. She's the type of character who drags the plot along and ultimately it was nice trying to find a balance between making her seem exhausting and exasperating but not annoying or unlikable. Someone who could do some boneheaded and even, if you think about it, kind of shitty things (like the swap with Gillian) but you understand why she does it and know that it's not coming from a place of malice but because she tends to act in the moment and figures that it'll work itself out.

There were definite disagreements at times though nothing world ending. The biggest was in deciding how to end it. Originally, the two chapters that preceded "Wrapping the Present" were going to be it but Nostrum and myself thought it was a bit unfair to end things in such a dismal state for everyone and I know that at least the both of us (and maybe Seuzz too) had grown to like Natalie a lot. So Seuzz challenged us to come up with an ending that was 300 words or less. I decided to take that challenge and "300 words" turned into a few dozen characters short of the 10,000 character limit for chapters. But I felt like I needed to, well, wrap everything up nice and neat.

Will and Natalie are officially going out, Natalie's friendship with Gillian is mended over a period of time. Braydon and the book disappeared in confusing (to the characters but probably not to the readers) circumstances. And Will finally grew up a little. There is one kinda sorta loose end but, of couse, I was deliberately vague on just what Natalie wanted to show Will in her sketchbook. Could it be for a comic she's seriously working on that she wants to publish? Or could it be... something else? That's up to the reader.

So overall it was nice to write and I really enjoyed and like the story that was told. I liked being able to develop Natalie and like how she played off of Will. I also liked that we got to give Gillian a real character beyond "Braydon's girlfriend"; she wound up being surprisingly sly. But for anyone that read it, what did you think? I'd like to hear your own thoughts.