Fic Talk > Featured Story of the Month

FS for January: Something Beautiful by Pengi

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mare:
This week let's read chapters 16 - 30.

Don't forget to post your questions and comments as you read along. :O)

Some more questions for you Hannah!

Because the story is taken from such a personal place, was there ever a time when you felt like it was too difficult to write? How important was it for you to finish this story and did you get some kind of sense of closure?

Set up this set of chapters for us, where they difficult to write? What was your favorite chapter out of this set and why? What about your favorite moment or scene?

Do any of the characters resemble your mom in any way?

Pengi:
Because the story is taken from such a personal place, was there ever a time when you felt like it was too difficult to write? How important was it for you to finish this story and did you get some kind of sense of closure?
I think the hardest part was writing the scene in the hospital when Amanda went to see Brian. There was a lot of that cut out, which I included in the companion story There's Us. That scene was hard because I had a similar one with my mom, where she was talking about wanting to go home instead of being in the hospital - when she went home, she ended up catching strep throat and that's what ended up being what killed her. I think something similar happened here, with Brian, but I never really put that much detail into what caused it to happen, just that it happened. I think I left that detail out because it was too personal/too difficult. This whole story is kind of what I wish I'd done with my Mom - helping her see all the things she wanted to see before she died.

Additionally, there was a scene that I cut out of the story that I'd written - mainly because it didn't really fit in with the rest of their adventures and because it was too hard to write it - where they went on a plane to Alaska. When they lost the rig, that was originally why- because they'd dropped it off and flown between those two stops. I ended up not doing that because like I said it didn't really fit with the rest of their adventures, and also because it was my mom's dream to see Alaska before she died. So it was just too hard writing about it, since she didn't end up getting to see it.

I was going to put Piper's eagle into the Alaskan scene as well, had it been included, rather than at the Grand Canyon.

Set up this set of chapters for us, where they difficult to write? What was your favorite chapter out of this set and why? What about your favorite moment or scene?
Let's see... hmm... Well, my favorite things about these chapters were definitely Nick's grilled pancakes (Chapter 18) and Brian finally telling Amanda what was going on (Chapter 20).
This is one of my favorite bits of any of my stories:

--- Quote ---Nick frowned, waving a spatula at Brian and standing by the grill, "It seemed like a good idea," he defended himself.

"What seemed like a good idea?" Amanda asked, inching toward Nick and the grill.

Brian held up a box of Bisquick.

"Oh Nick," Amanda said, peering into the grill, where a pile of pale goo was smoldering on the briquettes below the grate. "You didn't."

Nick's cheeks burned as Brian bust out in more laughing, dropping into one of the patio chairs and putting his head down to his knees. "It would've been cool if it'd worked," he said, his voice sounding deflated.
--- End quote ---
I just can SO picture Nick trying it and the look on his face in this scene. LOL.... It's so something I would do, too. I suck at cooking.

The way Brian tells Amanda was very carefully planned out, too. I couldn't just have him blurt it out, it had to be drawn out - yet he had to volunteer it, and she couldn't have suspected it. Brian, don't forget, was the one that Amanda "fell for" first, he was the one she'd opened up to and trusted and become closest to. His revelation was devastating. It also is what pushed her even more into depending on Nick. It was a key scene, probably the hinge of the entire story.

Do any of the characters resemble your mom in any way?
Brian's character in many ways was written to resemble my mom - his faith through the suffering and his bravery reflected hers 100% of the way. My mom was very strong the entire time she was in the hospital undergoing the treatment. If she'd had the chance, I know she would've had as much fun on an adventure like this as he did.

mare:
Thanks for all the honestly in your answers Hannah.

I know one of the hardest decisions for someone is whether or not to die at home or in the hospital one of my best friend's had that same dilemma with her husband and the same kind of thing happened to him as well. He caught an infection at home and died.

RokofAges75:
I loved the pancakes on the grill scene too, Hannah LOL.  That was hilarious and such a clueless Nick thing to do.

I remember when you first started the story, I could guess what the secret was, but I wasn't sure at first if it was Brian or Nick who was sick.  It seemed like it was Brian, but then there was that scene where Amanda went to Nick's apartment and saw the bottles of pills in his medicine cabinet that made me think for awhile it might be him.  I just wanted to say I'm glad you made it Brian because I think he fits that role in the story a lot better.  Because of his faith, I could see him reacting that way and just wanting to live out the rest of his life doing all the things he wants to do, knowing that when it's over, he'll be in a better place.  I think you did such a great job writing his character.  And Nick, wanting to deny it and avoid it and fight it all while showing Brian the time of his life, really fit, too.  The characterizati on was perfect.

Pengi:
Yeah, Nick's character definitely wouldn't have worked as the one who was ill. I did actually plant the medicine in that scene purposely, just in case anyone had caught on early what the secret might have been. I tried to leave everything very ambiguous about who the secret was about - Nick or Brian - throughout the entire first 20 chapters so that it would still be somewhat of a surprise when the secret did actually come out. Like when AJ, Howie and Kevin are talking after Kevin finds out that Frick & Frack left, I used a lot of male pronouns to keep anyone from knowing which of the two they were more worried about, etc.

Nick's character in this story very much reflected my role in the time spent with my mom. I very much denied anything was happening or that she could die. Even the day she DID die, I was still denying that it could happen -- as Nick was doing in the story. I wrote Nick's reactions from my own experience, I think that's why his responses were so realistic and so truly capable of being deep-seeded in denial - because I really was myself.

Amanda, I suppose, is the only character that wasn't particlarly based on anyone in my real life. She was entirely fictional, and perhaps that's why I had such a hard time developing her character in a way that everyone could like. It seems like a lot of readers didn't particularly like Amanda.

I will say though that in the original fiction version, I was planning on having the character that wolud be replacing Nick's character be the one that is dying. The OF would work differently than Something Beautiful did, though, to accomodate the change. The FF had to work this way because of the Boys' personalities, and... well, I dunno, the story just kind of came from some place other than where most stories come from. Something Beautiful certainly morphed itself out of my finger tips and took on a life of its own.. in every way.

I can't believe even now how much reaction it's gotten! Craaaaazy.

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