#anyway I'm on early season 4 now so :D I'm so fascinated with where this is going to go

[captain-hollis]

I have been watching MASH with a friend recently and, in a move unsurprisng to anyone familiar with my interests, have become fascinated with it

[mcalhenwrites]

Spoilers for Seasons ahead. I know it's not available to read anymore, but I am going to ramble about what changed in the story.

1: Originally, I wrote five names down for the children, but I was thinking of narrowing it down to three. By the time I had everyone's names available, I had already figured out a bit about each child. I already knew they were immortal, so I thought, "Well, I could keep all five of them, and two are grown up now." 2. Shannon was almost the youngest, but then I imagined him growing up on his own. I wonder if subconsciously, this is where I pulled Bee's dislike of Shannon from, since this meant competition for the youngest slot. :') 3. I didn't know they would be Seasons until I sat down and started pouring the first chapter out. I just knew I didn't want them to be vampires. I'd given that plenty of consideration, and as much as I can dig some vampire stories, it wasn't fitting for Seasons. 4. Vivian was the first character made for this story, although he didn't have a name for a long while. The story started to unravel months later, when I did name him. 5. Early on, like before I even had five chapters written, I had planned for Vivian to redeem himself a little faster. (His character had other plans in mind.) This included him doing things to help Sophie, who wouldn't forgive him for everything, but he would go out into his garden, make a child, and hand her over to Sophie with no strings attached. I quickly realized his character was far too controlling and possessive to ever do that, however, and for a long time, I wasn't sure who would birth Odessa for Sophie. 6. I almost made it someone random, because originally, I wasn't sure I wanted the character who gave Sophie a child to be Cole. That's the best fit, though, without inserting more characters into an already hefty story. 7. Seriously, Seasons wasn't supposed to get to 350k. (And now I'm adding chapters to smooth over some transitions and show other POVs, and it's going to be worrisome how long it is.) 8. The plans for a sixth Liddell child were actually pretty late in the story. I think I was nearly halfway through writing it when I said, "What if Vivian had another child, years and years later, and showed he could do better?" I wrote several more chapters before I finally started taking the idea seriously. It started off as a "what if" but eventually, I started rewriting the ending chapter and liked where it went. 9. Until he walked in the door at Phineas's orchard with an infant, I had no idea what gender the child would be. Surprise, it's a girl! 10. I had vague plans throughout the entire story as I wrote it, but a lot of them changed or altered in some way. Mostly, however, I wrote this as if the story were telling itself to me. That's usually how I do most stories. They surprise me during the writing. The characters seem to take over my brain and do their own thing. (This is how Hazel quit his job at the beginning of Rascal instead of getting fired over the plot events, and I had to figure out how to finagle the plot back into the fucking story...) 11. Also, Vivian was going to hit one of his adult children (likely Shannon) and cause a fiasco. I eventually omitted it. Someone would have murdered him at that point. Sophie, probably. Then my story would've been in shambles and stopped there. 12. Shannon's whole breakdown in the basement was planned somewhat in advance, but getting him into the house was hard and took a while to figure out. The original version of the chapter where he takes Howie home did not include their encounter with that stray dog that resembles Bailey. I added that for further pressure on his trauma. I'm a monster. :) Anyway, I thought that was fun to talk about. It's fascinating to think about what changed. :D