Overview #39: Kisses

Ah, but this was a difficult challenge for me, despite the fact that I picked it. I think I came up with a fairly solid arc, that began with The Mission and ended with The Mission as well. It felt like the posts I was more comfortable writing were the heartbreak posts, the ones that usually involved Clay feeling like he'd been punched in the gut. I wanted all four brothers to get in on the action without making poor Carolyn too Mary Sue and having all the boys like her, and I think I did all right. In some posts, the kiss was definitely the main point of the plot, and in others, sometimes a kiss was sort of there and just incident to the entire thing. (Drafting the "Wide-Eyed and Lovely" scene for Bob and Carolyn in the middle of Advanced Con Law was a serious study in awkwardness, by the way.) I liked getting Dan's perspective back in on things, since he's the only brother who's really aware (and only peripherally at that) that Carolyn's not a normal teenage girl. My sense of romance might have been improved, if I hadn't detracted from my romantic progression by throwing down some Clay-angst and a scene loaded with killing. Urgh. I wanted to stray from my comfort zone, but then I was afraid of getting too mushy on my readers, which really defies the purpose of this exercise, which is to write to improve.

NOTE: This week's winner is Madness! So, post a reply in the comments to this post and claim your prize. The rules have been altered thusly:

The winner shall be chosen by whoever issued a challenge in a given week (since it'd be lame if I picked myself as a winner one week when the challenge was not issued by me). Challenge issuers should take into account the creativity of the manner in which the challenge was answered, the timeliness of posts, and the helpfulness of feedback. Carry on writing, friends!