Another thought on Carnival today. The plan, for a while now, has been for John to save Dean. A big part of this is because we've seen so little of John as a hunter in canon - I want to give him a hero-moment.

But the demon turning into Sam for Dean took me by surprise. Now suddenly, if I write John's arrival the way it's always played in my head, I'm faced with having John shoot/kill what will look like his son.

Hell. If I were writing a script I'd have no qualms about doing it that way, 'cause you'd get a reaction shot and that would tell you everything. But in prose, it's more complicated. If I do this, I can't not deal with the fallout. And I'm not sure whether that won't detract from the story. Angst is good, but it's got to be the right angst.

The evil part of me wants to make John do that - especially as it effectively foreshadows the canon of S2. But I need to figure out a way to deal with the consequences. Otherwise...

I don't know. There are alternatives. If I write that scene in John's POV I can make it clear that he knows it's not really Sam. Or I can have him not recognise demon!Sam - shoot him in the back or somesuch. Don't know. Must think about this.

I did it. A whole chapter written (first, second and third drafts) in one day.

Surprised me, too. Most of it, I knew was going to happen but the demon becoming Sam? Totally not the plan.

How am I gonna get Dean out of this one?

Nah, wrong question. I know it's gonna be John to the rescue. I'm not about to change my plan that much. I guess the real question is just how far can I/must I take the Dean-hurt before the cavalry shows up? That part of the sequence - John's arrival - is very clear in my mind. But before I can get there I need to figure out just how bad it's gonna get for Dean.

Okay. This is all about illusion and misdirection. So what if, when Sam and Dean ride to the rescue, they see what they expect to see, and not what is? What if they're actually saving the wrong thing?

Oh, I need to think about this. It's good, it'll get me past my writer's block on this action part, but it's gonna complicate things a lot.

ETA: Hell, that piece of inspiration didn't just break the block, it shattered it into a million pieces. 1,500 words written since I got home from work - that is, I think the whole of Ch 7. I'm back on track!

Now to type it up. And I guess sleep on it for a while 'cause I need to figure out John's entrance next. I'm leaning more and more toward having him find Sam first - it's logical, in the sequence of events, but if I do that, I'm going to have to revise my ending for Sam. Which is...well, I don't wanna!!! Wah!

Needs of the plot, Morgan. Needs of the plot.

Links for sexy Latin:

http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin/Texts/06_Medieval_period/Poetry-Religious/Missa_pro_defunctis.html

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lmass/ord.htm

And once again I'm faced with my characters flatly refusing to follow my rules. I shouldn't be surprised, should I?

This time it's John and Sam. The plan for this fic was for them never to meet. Maybe talk on the phone, but not actually come face to face. Because that's the canon: when John finally showed up in Shadow that was the first time in nearly five years that they'd met.

Yesterday this scene came into my head with John showing up and finding Sam first, while Dean gets into trouble. When a scene is this clear, I know I've got to write it that way. But it's either gonna take some fancy finagling to do that and keep it canon-consistent, or I'm gonna have to label the story as AU. Which I don't want to do.

Well, we'll see. Back to the old drawing board.

I always knew the amount of time I've allocated to John's journey was somewhat unrealistic. My problem is I've got no freaking idea of scale: Britain is a relatively small island. I know intellectually that the US is like, way bigger, but that doesn't translate into actually understanding it, and it never will. It doesn't help that on TV, people make a journey from one side of the states to another in mere moments. Anyhow, I'd got John making the trip in maybe 17 hours. I knew that was way too quick, but it was the best timing from a dramatic point of view.

There's a neat website that'll tell me exacty how long a journey should take...but it ain't in my bookmarks (idiot) and I couldn't find the damned thing. Until today.

So now just how dumb my fic looks. This is okay - it's a minor detail and I can fix it in edit by placing him in a different state. I already fixed a similar issue with Dean's journey - and that one didn't matter because I hadn't specified where he was initially.

Characterisation in this fic:

There are a few things I've included in this story which might be read as out of character, but which I've done intentionally.

1. Dean calls Sam "Sammy" a lot, and Sam doesn't object.
My impression from canon is this nickname thing wasn't much of an issue before he left his family for Stanford. John almost never calls him Sam, and Sam hasn't once objected to that. He makes an issue of it with Dean in the pilot, once more in season one that I recall, and after that only with Gordon and that's symbolic of something else entirely.

But what he says to Dean in the pilot is words to the effect that "Sammy" is a child's name. It's an assertion of his adulthood and equality with Dean. And that is the reason I've intentionally not had him object to the nickname in this story. Because Sam in this story isn't quite in the place where he's seeing himself that way. He's 20 years old, he's a student, he's doing well as an independent adult. But calling his family is very much an admission that he needs help. This places him in a subordinate position and while it wouldn't be in character for Sam to stay in that mindset for long, for the duration of this fic it feels right.

2. Dean seems willing to John's order to wait for him.
The "good soldier" thing comes very much from Sam, who is not exactly a reliable narrator when it comes to Dean and John. The notion that Dean always blindly followed orders is at odds with the character I see on screen. He does obey John's orders: it means a lot to him that he does so. But he doesn't do so blindly. Sam sees it as blind obedience because he doesn't trust John. Dean does.

The way I see it, when they're together on a hunt, Dean would be exactly what Sam describes - obedient, a soldier obeying his captain. Nothing wrong with that. But that's not the situation in this story and in the timeline of this fic, Dean has been hunting on his own for at least a year. He's used to trusting his own judgement, and taking the consequences. Is he as good as John? Of course not. But he knows what he's doing and is an adult capable of independent thought.

As I'm writing it, Dean won't actually disobey John (that surprised me, actually - I'd expected John to be less flexible), but he's prepared to do so. He's even assuming that he'll have to as he gets ready for the hunt. My feeling is that Dean knows the situation on the ground. He recognises there's a deadline and knows that John won't arrive in time. He uses his own judgement.

The part I'm not sure about in all this is Sam failing to remark on Dean's willingness to disobey. Here, I'm on the fence, because he does make a big deal of what he sees as Dean's blind obedience. In canon, this is a major source of conflict between the brothers; I think the reason I haven't properly addressed it in this story is Sam's conflict is mostly internal - and it's about John, not Dean. This much I'm happy with; what I'm not certain about is how far this is in character for Sam.

That said, we know almost nothing about young Sam from canon. We know Dean's perception of their childhood; we know Sam's perception. We don't have flashbacks for Sam the way we do for Dean (In the Something Wicked flashbacks Sam is too young for these to be a reliable source of who he was at 17 or 18.) There's a very strong fanon characterisation of Sam as a teenager but I prefer to go with my own vision. But with Sammy my vision's a tad myopic.

John surprised me.

I was working on Ch6 last night - the last of my phone call scenes before John will finally arrive in town. It was one of those chanelling things - I just let the pen do what felt right. Sometimes when I write that way I end up trashing the lot; sometimes I discover things I'd never planned. That's what happened this time. Not only did Dean tell John the truth about his plans; I found myself writing John accepting his argument. I'm honestly not sure about that, characterisation-wise. Weighing the safety of strangers against the safety of his sons...where would John come down, really? My instinct from canon is no one matters more to him than his boys. But this is a tough call - for him and for me.

But now Dean is going into the final fight with full knowledge, and that wasn't my original plan. I think this is going to go very badly for him now. Sam will be okay; my plans for him haven't changed and it definitely involves him being unhurt at the end of the fight. But Dean...

Now comes the hard part. I need to figure out the exact sequence of the action. Sam's exit, and the biggie is John's entrance. I want to give him a hero's role; the man deserves it. But I don't know if that will fit with the way things have to go.

That's a job for later in the week: I've got two pics and two short fics to finish before then.

Still struggling with this Bobby/John phone call. Gods, I miss having Rae to brainstorm with. She'd get me straightened out on this scene in no time.

Problems:

a) It's a phone call. So there's no interaction other than by voice. If it were face to face, Bobby would show up at John's door and deck him one...but he can't.

b) I suck at fear. That's what this scene needs from John: his realisation of what he's let Dean get into, that he's too far away to help. But I'm not great at showing that.

ETA: On the bright side, Bobby's home now has a canon location: South Dakota, which fits in with previous speculation. Doesn't answer the time-zone question, but it's something.

ETA2: Okay, my fourth draft of the phone call isn't too bad. It's restrained, but I feel that fits the characters. Of course subtlety doesn't always work for the reader. This is a big problem with me - because I know the score, I feel I'm being subtle as a brick, but I know from feedback that sometimes my subtext is too subtle. It's no bloody good if the reader doesn't even see the nuances.

John Winchester is much misunderstood, perhaps, but subtle he ain't. Fingers crossed this scene will work. (And a tenner says I get not one piece of feedback about it so I'll never know.)

( links )

Posting part three now. My revised Ch 4 is looking better, but I'm still not there. I'm leaving in Dean's little sex scene even though it's largely irrelevant to the fic. I think it sharpens the contrast between Sam's two worlds, the way the pieces of his life just won't fit together. Sam's notion of an hour's relaxation is a beer with his friends; Dean's is sex in a toilet stall with a girl who might as well be a hooker for all he cares.

Meantime adding a personal dimension to the case helps make sense of Dean taking his 3am drive without Sam, but I'm still not getting the sense of fear that this chapter needs. It's getting there, but...oh, well. I'll print a copy and see what happens when I edit.

Part five is either going to be easy after this, or it'll stall me. This conversation between Bobby and John...I've got to get that exactly right. It's not just about telling John what's going on; I need to at least keep in mind the canon, John's death. I like my fics seamless.

Chapter four is in the trash. Let's try this again.

I think my brain forced another serial-killer fic on me because of the real life horror in Ipswich before Christmas. I'm trying to make Sam go through the same things I did, but at the same time I'm shying away from it because it's too damned real for me. I always kill children or men in my stories, partly because women are always the victims, in fiction or in real life, and partly because my fears, my losses come from childhood. Death doesn't bother me any more. I don't cry. Everyone else does it for me. Except Claire. She was the last one.

My head keeps coming back to Claire's murder, the way everyone reacted when we found out she was dead, that interview Sis made me sit through (I'm fucking selfish. It had to be way harder for her than it was for me.)... I thought I'd exorcised that particular ghost with Predator. But here I go again.

So. Morgan, you can either admit defeat and ditch the story for more lollipops and candy canes, or you can fucking get over yourself and do what the story needs. Make it personal. Make it real, because even fictional victims deserve that much.

Bobby seems to live in South Dakota (at least, that's the plate on his car), which, according to WorldTimeServer, is in two time zones.

Okay...so if I put Bobby's place in the eastern zone, that would put him in the same time zone as John (he's in Louisiana), and two hours ahead of Dean. That works on my episode map, too.