Okay, then. Time to panic.
One week until this year's het_bigbang submission deadline, and I now know that I have eight chapters to write to finish it. Eight chapters in seven days. I usually need three to four days for one chapter. I am thoroughly fucked. Theoretically, I could still make it but yeah, theoretically. I mean, I mapped out the path to the epilogue and I really just have to write it down but this story is really kicking my ass. It's the first time I can't really get a grasp on the whole Lorne/Cadman chemistry thing and it feels like they don't really have chemistry in this story (which is kind of unfortunate, considering it's a Lorne/Cadman story...) and it's driving me crazy.
I think this whole lack of chemistry thing is mostly because usually, I write Lorne/Cadman with an already established rapport between the two, i.e. they already know each other, often for a couple of years. They know each other's pet peeves, they have inside jokes and running gags, they know each other's MO, tactics, strengths and weaknesses and, at least in my version of them, they had enough time for an underlying, possibly subconscious attraction to each other to develop. And apparently, a courtship based on years of friendship, trust and underlying mutual attraction (or even based on years of bickering, competing with and antagonizing each other) is way easier for me to write than a courtship between people who don't actually know each other (which might be due to my personal belief that "love at first sight" is very, very unlikely to happen and that it's much more realistic that actual love develops between people who have known each other for a certain time in one or the other capacity) at the begin of the story. Like... I started to write a one-shot missing scene taking place between the last chapter and the epilogue, between Lorne and the Western!AU version of my original characters Thomas Moore and Maureen Reece and Lorne has tons more chemistry with Maureen in this one-shot (despite Maureen being married to Tom in this and me definitely not doing any cheating stories. But. OT3. No. Bad author. Bad author!) than with Laura Cadman in the entire main story (or at least that's what it feels like) and I think that might be due to the fact that I started this one-shot with Lorne having known both Tom and Maureen for a number of years at the point it takes place*. Ugh.
So yeah, Lorne and Cadman kind of know each other because they meet in the prologue, five ears before the start of the actual story, but I'm really having difficulties basing an attraction on just that one meeting. It always feels forced and I'm not sure how to change that. So far, in nine chapters I had maybe two or three scenes in which something at least akin to chemistry started to develop between the two and it actually felt exactly how it always feels when I write the two of them. I'm not sure if that's enough and the entire thing is really getting to me. Which is also why I'm procrastinating by whining about it in an LJ post instead of err writing. AAAAAAAAARGH.
Anyway. Back to it. Ugh.
*additional fun fact: now I want to write a prequel to my Big Bang story about Tom and Maureen's story because that would definitely be one of my classic slow burn "have known each other and have gotten on each other's nerves for a while already" story and it would involve spies and subterfuge and danger and maybe a bit of the Fake Married trope and OMG, I really want to write that story now *head desks
I think this whole lack of chemistry thing is mostly because usually, I write Lorne/Cadman with an already established rapport between the two, i.e. they already know each other, often for a couple of years. They know each other's pet peeves, they have inside jokes and running gags, they know each other's MO, tactics, strengths and weaknesses and, at least in my version of them, they had enough time for an underlying, possibly subconscious attraction to each other to develop. And apparently, a courtship based on years of friendship, trust and underlying mutual attraction (or even based on years of bickering, competing with and antagonizing each other) is way easier for me to write than a courtship between people who don't actually know each other (which might be due to my personal belief that "love at first sight" is very, very unlikely to happen and that it's much more realistic that actual love develops between people who have known each other for a certain time in one or the other capacity) at the begin of the story. Like... I started to write a one-shot missing scene taking place between the last chapter and the epilogue, between Lorne and the Western!AU version of my original characters Thomas Moore and Maureen Reece and Lorne has tons more chemistry with Maureen in this one-shot (despite Maureen being married to Tom in this and me definitely not doing any cheating stories. But. OT3. No. Bad author. Bad author!) than with Laura Cadman in the entire main story (or at least that's what it feels like) and I think that might be due to the fact that I started this one-shot with Lorne having known both Tom and Maureen for a number of years at the point it takes place*. Ugh.
So yeah, Lorne and Cadman kind of know each other because they meet in the prologue, five ears before the start of the actual story, but I'm really having difficulties basing an attraction on just that one meeting. It always feels forced and I'm not sure how to change that. So far, in nine chapters I had maybe two or three scenes in which something at least akin to chemistry started to develop between the two and it actually felt exactly how it always feels when I write the two of them. I'm not sure if that's enough and the entire thing is really getting to me. Which is also why I'm procrastinating by whining about it in an LJ post instead of err writing. AAAAAAAAARGH.
Anyway. Back to it. Ugh.
*additional fun fact: now I want to write a prequel to my Big Bang story about Tom and Maureen's story because that would definitely be one of my classic slow burn "have known each other and have gotten on each other's nerves for a while already" story and it would involve spies and subterfuge and danger and maybe a bit of the Fake Married trope and OMG, I really want to write that story now *head desks