short-story fiction sawtooth furry
For RAWR, a prequel
Brief outline
- The slow formation of a crush
- Falling for anyone who’s the slightest bit nice to you
- Intolerable limerence
- Limerence as unwanted emotional attraction
- pining
- dreaming about just being close, casual affection, etc
- Not wanting to talk about it b/c afraid of coercion
- Just try to be the best person you can be for them
- Except that just makes it all the more intense
- Crisis point and denouement
- Bounce off each other at some point and the limerence starts to fade
- Picture what would have happened had they gotten together.
Told in the form of journal entries after long online conversations, complete with snippets
Goal: 40-50k words
(why leave seminary: with church heading toward tending only to the members of the church, Dee felt as though he was leaving behind large swaths of people) (why the sense of duty and control: old-fashioned family of blue-collar coyotes - domestic animals being royalty, remember - pushed hard to lift him up)
Epigraph: εκαρδίωσας ημάς ενί από οφθαλμών σου εν μία ενθέματι τραχήλου σου - you have ravished my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one bead of your necklace.
Characters
- Dewí “Dee” Kimana
- Coyote guy
- Psychologist
- Raised (and still is) very religious
- Has a crush on…
- Kay
- Coyote gal
- Music grad student at UI Boise
- Transferred after a year, met in the last few weeks of shared class
- Not religious, and that’s the thing that they bounce off each other on down the line
- Jeremy
- Dee’s therapist
- Encourages Dee to start journaling as a way to work through these new emotions
- Rev. Dr. Borenson
- Saint Bernard
- Dee’s old advisor at St John’s university
Story
Using romance beats
- Goal/agenda
- Meet cute (working backwards)
- No way #1
- Stuck together
- No way #2
- A: Limerence is egodystonic
- B: Reaffirm left, even if faith = very important
- Crowds + presentation — have to write presentation
- Notes — outlining presentation
- Essay + conversation with Kay abt it — presentation (also includes notes)
- Bone town
- A: Visit, finally acknowledge feelings may be real (okay but are they actually gonna bone (probably not))
- Seeds of doubt
- Wallow #1 - I knew better when…
- Retreat - soft spots exposed
- A: Back to hotel, then hike by himself, talking with god
- B: Discernment - talk with god, decide to go with it
- Choose fear - break up!
- Wallow #2
- Choose love
- A: Decide maybe it’s worth it as a way to move forward for once
- Plan
- A: Email boogaloo — Drafts email, sending a few before to build up the expectation of emails being a thing
- B: Ask God — Talks to god
- Grand gesture
- 90 — The Conversation™ (winds up not actually sending the email ha ha whoops, just starts conversation over text)
- Ends with “no”
- A: Kay had picked up on it, decides pretty firmly on her end that she wants to keep friendship. Sigh, ah well. (merged with above)
- Payoff (probably just one chapter of what-ifs)
- A: Limerence fades, settle back into new, more open friendship/what could have been
- B: Doubt fades, settle into lay life/what could have been
- Epilogue/hope (again, probably just one chapter)
- A: Plans another visit/okay being friends
- B: Starts volunteering MH counselling services at church. — Feast of St KT.
Old outline
- Act I
- Act II
- Act III
- Conclusion
- What would have happened
- Talking with God again
Todo
- Include more Job/Ecclesiastes-type thoughts
- Quote scripture?
- Integrate prequel in Dee’s words
- Flesh out between current chapters.
- Takes place around July 14, feast of St Kateri Tekakwitha
- Make Dee’s qualms about the church more in line with Discernment and less about doctrine of good works (because that’s actually totally the catholics’ thing)
- A few subplots!