Gaaaaah, this story.
Okay, so. I have Established Normal, and Broken It. I have shot my protagonist in the chest. I have an outline right up to the Resolution.
And it has just now occurred to me, as I wrote these words, that I don't actually need this to be a Ben story and that the ending might be better if it's not. I can still do the "werewolf who has nightmares" plot, but I can end it differently--and in a way that makes it a more "horror" ending than a "dark fantasy."
I'm also thinking that it will be better and more immediate in first person than third, and interspersing it with Very Clinical Lab Notes will up the horror quotient as we realize that the people running this place do not see this guy whose eyes we're watching the story through as a person, but as a specimen.
And this way, I can leave him in the lab at the end, having triumphed over his nightmares--but still stuck in his own head. And... oh. Oh my.
MINE IS AN EVIL LAUGH. I am a terrible, terrible person, y'all.
And it has just now occurred to me, as I wrote these words, that I don't actually need this to be a Ben story and that the ending might be better if it's not. I can still do the "werewolf who has nightmares" plot, but I can end it differently--and in a way that makes it a more "horror" ending than a "dark fantasy."
I'm also thinking that it will be better and more immediate in first person than third, and interspersing it with Very Clinical Lab Notes will up the horror quotient as we realize that the people running this place do not see this guy whose eyes we're watching the story through as a person, but as a specimen.
And this way, I can leave him in the lab at the end, having triumphed over his nightmares--but still stuck in his own head. And... oh. Oh my.
MINE IS AN EVIL LAUGH. I am a terrible, terrible person, y'all.