the last time a chapter gave me this much trouble i wrote 18k of genderfuck

I would say my roommate slept here last night, but alas, I cannot. You know why? Because she came in at quarter after seven this morning. Normally I would already be awake, but on Friday my earliest class is a ten o'clock, so I had my alarm set for a lovely eight o'clock, and she woke me up. *pouts* Although I, you know, stayed in bed until about ten to eight, so whatever.

In other news: You know, there's just something about getting 8500 words into a chapter, maybe a thousand or less than from the end, and abruptly realizing, "hey, this chapter makes no logical sense, it's going to have to go." I could either drop the whole thing or keep the earliest scenes, which I think I'm going to -- I have build-up that I need, because some of it was supposed to come earlier in the story and...didn't. The only part I'm keeping for sure is about the first 1K; I have a really cool fight scene, but I may discard it in favor of guerrilla!Edmund as soon as I figure out which of the two makes more sense.

Yes, apparently the way to make Dust 10 v.3.0 (this is the second time I've rewritten a major portion of this chapter, although major at that point was a 1K cut rather than a 5K-7K one), is to cut out a character, although on the bright side, now Dust 12 is not going to be a Peter-or-Tirian chapter; I was going to put them right after the other, which I didn't particularly want to do.

God, 8K. *still dismayed*

YET STILL. Okay, must figure out exactly what part this chapter plays in the Grand Scheme of Things; I need to go back to looking at the big picture, which I have been noticeably lax about doing lately. Which I think actually means written notes at this point; I'm having trouble keeping this in my head, because it's too big and I'm losing focus and concentrating on the crisis of the moment rather than the war and the plot and the relevant world-buidling.

statistics, on a friday

I just went through Dust 0-9 in order to do a bodycount, and the figures stand as follows, for definite kills:

Peter: 10 (1, 4)
Susan: 11 (1, 4, 8)
Edmund: 2 (1, 5)
Lucy: 1 (1)
Eustace: 2 ( 4, 9)
Jill: 0
Tirian: 0

That's onscreen kills, not ones that happen elsewhere. The numbers are actually much higher, but a lot of the time I didn't specifically say who got the kill or how many people died. (For example, Dust 1: it's implied that the Pevensies killed all the Calormene guards and sentries at the jail where Tirian, Eustace, and Jill are being held -- Peter has blood on his sword -- but it doesn't actually say so. Likewise, later on in that same chapter, the numbers are probably more around 15 than the ten that are numbered; it's said that Lucy, Susan, and Edmund shoot a number of the Calormenes, but it doesn't say who shot them or how many of them are killed. Likewise with the ambush in Dust 4, where a lot of the fighting happens offscreen.)

As well, the Pevensies tend to share kills, so sometimes it's hard to say who actually killed whoever it was, like Susan and Edmund tag-teaming the hippogriff in Dust 5, or the rusalka in Dust 1, which got stabbed by Peter, shot by Lucy and Susan, and finally beheaded by Edmund. None of the others share kills, although it may or may not be implied that Jill and Susan do in Dust 8.

We have a final bodycount of 30+, and probably at least a dozen or more higher than that. (This includes the minotaur sacrificed in Dust 0, as well as the fight scenes from Dust 1, Dust 4, and Dust 8.) Nobody dies in Dust 2, Dust 3, Dust 6, or Dust 7. (Dust 10 also would have had a substantial bodycount as it stands now, but obviously that's not being counted. For reference, Edmund's bodycount would have gone up by five and Susan's by one.)

Okay, who else is surprised that Susan has a higher bodycount than Peter?