All About Elizabeth, act II chapter IV

Why do I do "Acts", you may wonder? This isn't actually what I was intending to write a post about but as I wrote the subject line I kind of thought that. It goes back to when I first started writing DWD fanfic and instead of writing in chapters I wrote in three acts. This was because I thought of the fics in terms of "scripts" (even though they weren't in script format) and I was trying to have good commercial break space. XD So all my first fics have three acts, and I used to get very frustrated when I had to break from that format. Then my fics just started getting longer and longer and I realized it was time to loosen up somewhat. (It's important to remember that I was fifteen when I started writing these fics; it explains a little bit more about my Idiot mindset. ^_~)

Anyway, I do like the idea of "acts" and though I do tend to separate them into chapters I still think of the acts themselves as having some kind of either unifying theme or unifying timeline. I also like to have as close as possible to an equal number of chapters in each act - HDF had 4 chapters per act and initially AAE was going to have either 2 or 3 chapters per act, but it's been growin' lately. Later maybe I'll write a post about longer fics and how I don't like them (er, writing them - love reading them, don't be fooled ^_~), it's rather confusing even for me.

ANYway. First of all this post was supposed to let anyone reading know that I've posted chapter 6 of All About Elizabeth on ff.net, which closes out Act II. This fic is pretty explicit about the themes in each act but Act II was Beth's early years at school. It's the "School" Act because it focuses specifically on her time there; it's not the only section that will deal with her childhood, nor is it the only section that will deal with her school life, which I know seems counterproductive but in this case the Act was about her school life, rather than just making use of it.

...Yeah.

So! The experiences Beth goes through in school. If you haven't read the chapter yet you might want to before you read the rest of this post. *G* As I was writing it I kind of wondered if I was being accurate. I, like a LOT of kids, did not have a great time in school (particularly elementary school which is what this time period covers); I was not one of the popular ones and was alternately ignored and/or made fun of. However I didn't really ever have an experience like Beth did... I never had a friend turn on me that way and I was never exactly a "group" target. So as I wrote the whole thing I tried for realism but worried constantly that I was overdoing it.

It was, and is, important to me not to give the impression that Beth has it worse than anyone else. Part of why Beth's shrink talks about Nicola being unhappy in the final part of the fic is because - well, first of all I think Beth needs to have that pointed out to her (even though she STILL doesn't get it), but also because I wanted to reinforce the fact that Nicola was not really *just* a jerk, not just a girl who turned mean for no reason. Similarly I think most kids who appear to be jerks are like that, because ANY kid can be mean. My daughter, sweetest kid you will ever meet if she's in the mood, is now two and she's at that stage where she'll just walk up and hit another kid, especially if he's smaller than she is. They're all like that at her daycare. It's weird to watch. XD Then they're like "whaaat? I didn't want to HURT him, I just wanted to kick him hard and see what he did!" 9_9 Point being: kids are just selfish, contrary, and on occasion mean-spirited little beings, even the good ones. Even Beth, who can be goaded into betraying a confidence and saying the most hurtful thing possible. If I had written this chapter from Nicola's POV we'd have had a very different story.

Well, there's me preaching. ^_~ I will say that I've had some very good feedback from a couple of people regarding Beth's experiences being something they can relate to, so I feel rather good about this section. I never want this story to be a "poor BETH, look what she's going through!" story even though I think it'll come across that way by necessity... growing up is HARD but this is an exploration of what has made Beth who she is now, not an excuse to look back at how hard she's had it. Everyone has had it hard. It's hard to get that across in a fic written almost exclusively from one POV, but I'm trying. :)

See the latest chapter here.