ktula

So, you may or may not be aware that I did a series of behind-the-scenes entries for my last longfic, Dollars to Donuts--kind of like DVD commentary, basically! I enjoyed the process of doing them--it helped me work out a lot of my process for the craft of writing, which I hadn't really been thinking about in much detail, and it also helped curb my desire to stick stuff into the narrative that didn't really need to be in there, because I knew that I could just drop easter eggs into the entries, and they'd be canonized that way.

Anyways, I figured better late than never on Fifth Chance, the clydeland fic I published the other day. If you haven't read Fifth Chance, spoilers abound in the read more....

Story Development:

The concept for this story came out of what was originally the first line: "I don't suppose you smoke pot", because, I mean, Stensland is a pothead. Of course that's going to be his opener--especially since I headcanon that he doesn't have a particularly vast experience with men, because I think he's spent his entire life hitting on women. (Queerness masked by societally-assumed heterosexuality is a thing I explore a lot in my work, because it's very much my own experience--my own attraction to men masked my attraction to women until into my twenties, when I suddenly clued in.)

So that was my starting concept for Stensland--he's moved to Boone County, likely for a job and/or to reconstruct his life, preferably after he's had some character development since Crash Pad, and he keeps awkwardly hitting on Clyde, and Clyde just keeps missing it.

So then the follow-up question becomes--why did Clyde miss it?

I mentioned that I started the story knowing the opening line for Stensland. I also started the story knowing that the ending of the chapter was going to be the fireworks scene with Clyde's PTSD, and Stensland's ability to be comforting and supportive for Clyde in that time. Clyde strikes me as the kind of man that's generally very conscientious and careful--so for him to have messed up the timing and stayed too long at the fairgrounds, something must have distracted him.

And then, as I started writing, I started to wonder...what if it's depression? Specifically, what if it's depression brought on by the aftermath of Logan Lucky, when everybody around him is making positive changes to their lives, and using the money to make their lives better, and Clyde just...doesn't know where to start?

Story Construction:

So, that's where I started. Bridging the gap between the first line, and the final scene of the chapter. And you'll notice a couple of things in the final version of the story that diverge from what I've been talking about here--first of all, that the first line isn't the first line anymore, and second of all, that the final scene of the chapter is actually the final scene of the entire fic. Also, it's a T-rated fic, and I don't often write those.

But as the story was developing, and the depression subplot was strengthened, I started realizing there were some issues with the way I'd originally conceptualized the fic. Originally, I was looking at a two-chapter one shot--the first chapter would be essentially Fifth Chance, and the second chapter would involve all the explicit sex they're going to have after Fifth Chance. But the harder I leaned into the depression subplot, especially once the metaphor of mental-illness-as-bomb started to rise to the surface, the less sense that structure began to make.

Explicit sex isn't what Clyde needs right now. What Clyde needs right now is to feel like he's not going to explode. He needs to feel like he's a safe person to be around. He needs to feel like he doesn't have to sequester himself. He needs to feel comforted, and supported, and safe. This is exactly where the first scene of the fic came from--because we need to place Clyde in his current mindset, pre-Stensland--in order to be able to see why the post-Stensland scene at the end is so important. So we can see that Clyde isn't just going full circle...he's taking a step forward, out of the circle he's been stuck in, and into something different.

So, with all that in mind...I bumped the sex to the next installment. It's not needed here--this version of Clyde isn't there yet, and this version of Stensland is very conscious of all the times he hasn't quite connected with Clyde, and the connection with Clyde is what he's been pursuing the entire fic--so this ending scene closes off Stensland's arc for this story too.

Challenges:

I don't know how many times I watched Logan Lucky in the course of writing this fic just trying to get the rhythm of everything down, but it was a lot of times. That's usually what I do when I'm trying to get something--I watch it over and over and over again, trying to let all the information sink into my brain until it lives there.

But I still had a rough time with this one! It's the first adjacent I've published, and the first time I've ever written Clyde and Stensland both. My challenges were two-fold--I had a rough time with Clyde's POV, and I had a rough time with Stensland's dialogue. (Oddly enough, Clyde's dialogue worked itself out over time, based on studying other people's fics, and rewatching the movie over and over and over again.) Clyde's POV issues were mostly characterization-based, I think--and I have to give a shout-out to

forautumn for recognizing the places where my Kylo was starting to leak into my Clyde. Excising Kylo out of things solved most of the problems I was having with the POV, though I won't lie...there were numerous occasions where I just sat at my laptop going 'why, why, why, didn't I write Stensland POV'.

(But, let's be serious. Considering how much hell Stensland's dialogue gave me, it's for the best that this wasn't a Stensland POV piece. It's not a Stensland-centered arc, anyways...this one really needed to be Clyde, and I just needed to sit with it until I was happy with it.)

Stensland's dialogue was a thing, also. Oddly, where my Clyde kept having Kylo creep in when I wasn't paying attention--it was Techie that kept creeping into Stensland. Luckily, Deadsy came over and watched Crash Pad with me, and then we did an edit of the fic that was solely focused on every single word coming out of Stensland's mouth, just smoothing that out and removing all the Techie-isms. I'm hoping that this is one of those things that will get easier with time, but I guess I'll know by the next installment!

(I don't think the slough joke I crowbarred in there is regionally accurate, but it's regionally accurate for me and I found it funny, so I kept it. Sorry, anybody that was in this for accuracy purposes. This is definitely more of a "close enough" fic.)

Where Do We Go From Here:

Well, there's another installment coming! I don't know yet whether it'll be Stensland-POV or Clyde-POV, but I'll figure that out throughout the process of working on it. I have a general idea of the concept as well, which I don't want to spoiler in full, because I think it'll be better developed throughout the course of the entire fic, but I can tell you that the fic very likely starts out in Duck Tape.

Picture a nearly-empty bar, outside of Clyde, who is working, and Stensland, who is sitting at the other end of the bar looking casual, drinking some kind of fancy pink drink that's been lovingly crafted by Clyde.

Picture, then, Mellie, sauntering into the bar wearing some kind of Mellie-esque getup--high heels, short shorts, low-cut shirt, hair all done up. Picture Mellie, scanning the bar making sure they're alone.

Picture Clyde, greeting her.

And then picture Mellie, approaching the bar and holding up her hand.

Clyde looks at her quizzically.

"First kiss!" Mellie announces delightedly.

Clyde gives her a quick smile, and then high-fives her. "First kiss," he rumbles.

At the other end of the bar, Stensland chokes on his drink.