Fragments | 13: A Shot in the Dark

[luxken27]

Read it at: LJ | MM.org | FF.net | dA

Pairing: Miroku/Sango
Rating: T
Based upon: “Sometime Around Midnight” © 2008 Mikel Jollett [The Airborne Toxic Event]

Uh, hooray for "light days" at work? :P

I've been mulling over the conclusion of this story, and each of the remaining parts, pretty heavily since my last post (mostly because I have that "nice" problem of having many story muses fighting over my attention all at the same time, and I'm not sure which one to pay attention to first, haha). I'm really excited about this fic, not only because of the direction its taking as it winds down, but also because its nearly finished. Its hard to believe its been almost two years since I completed a multichapter fic o.O

When I had that burst of inspiration and ideas a few weeks ago, I jotted it all down in my writing notebook, and one thing that emerged was this idea of "keywords" for each chapter. These are kinda the themes I'm writing about, like if I was using a prompt table or something. They've also helped me on my mission to find appropriate summary quotes, and sometimes with the titles. (As an aside, I'm having a hard time coming up with these proverbial/pretentious titles. If anybody wants to contribute, feel free, LOL!!)

This chapter didn't really have a keyword, even though I knew what I wanted to do with it...that is, until yesterday. I was mulling over this on my drive home from work, and this song happened to play on the radio. "Impossible," I thought to myself. "That fits." So, this morning I sat here and outlined and dibbled and dabbled, and decided to search for potential summary quotes...and its like it all came together in a magical moment :) I love it when that happens!

This is exactly where Sango is - unsure that her resolute decision is the right one, and yet unwilling to change course because she isn't sure if there's anything else out there waiting for her. I had originally intended to write this installment as a very short piece (less than 500 words), but as I began it, I realized that I liked the exploration of the girls' friendship, and I thought it was important to display some of that, especially since Akiko has taken it upon herself to play matchmaker between the erstwhile lovers. If I was going to thrust her into such a role, it was important to understand why and how Sango related to her, in a happier time than previously shown.

The other, secondary storyline is that of Kohaku's murder. I'm sorta experimenting with the way I'm writing this, as a completely indirect and yet parallel part of the storyline. I really like the way its turned out so far, and hope the plan for the last two chapters goes just as well :) This fic has been a lot of different things to me, but it is basically a traditional serial, so I'm glad I could bring a bit of the experimental spirit of Fleeting into it.

Since aamalie inquired before - yes, Kohaku's murderer will be revealed by the end of the piece.

The only other note of any interest is that I had the pleasure of looking up Japanese train schedules, after initially giving Sango an off-the-cuff remark about catching the train. I'm familiar with the European (continental) system, specifically the Dutch system, and it occurred to me that the Japanese system is probably different, so I should look that up :P I did, and found out some interesting things about their famous bullet trains. So, its always a bonus when the impromptu research is fun as well, LOL!!