Hi everyone!

I've decided that it's time to formally end this story. I haven't updated in nearly 9 months and I don't like having unresolved fics just laying around. This one in particular was rather close to my heart and it bothered me every time I see it incomplete on my story dashboard, So, yup, time to close the book!

This story had a number of serious things going wrong with it. Looking back I can see the mistakes I made and how uneven it was. I think there was a good premise in here, but the actual story itself wasn't very good, unfortunately. Sometimes that happens, though. I used to have a Rogue One fic I took down but before I did I made it also to ch5 that suffered from the same problem: good ideas, bad execution on my part. Live and learn though, right? I think that, now that I've studied the mistakes I made, hopefully my writing will come out stronger and more streamlined in the future.

Just like with Save Me From Myself, I'm going to close this story off in the best way I can. Here are my notes and outline bullet points and some annotations of what I had planned for this fic.

STORY NOTES

I haven't looked at my outlines and notes for this story in at least 8 months, so a lot of this may be news to me too! What I had planned was a huge, expansive 3 part series of around 150k words told over 3 novels of 50k each. Why 50k? That's the standard length of a shorter commercial novel. 50K gives you enough room to tell a good, full story that has all of the major beats. I absolutely swear by James Scott Bell's SuperStructure which contains 14 beats ranging from The Disturbance (the action that triggers the first event the character has to deal with) to the Final Battle and Transformation (the conclusion of the action, the capping off of the character arc). With Stranger to Blue Waters I had TWO outlines, the master outline with these 14 beats spread across the 3 books, and each book getting its own 14 beat narrative. (If you've ever read On Ben's Knee, this was pure SuperStructure plotting and right at the 50k mark, when it works, it works well). In my upcoming plot outline I also heavily mention 'Romancing the Beat' by Gwen Hayes (an author who figureliterally wrote the book on modern romance structure) as well as the good ol' classic Heroes Journey.

Now, one unfortunate thing about this is that I have lost a good number of my notes. I think they MAY be in my other house but that's on a different continent so let's just try and work with what I have! Pretty large swathes of this story I've forgotten, so I'm just going to give you my notes as I have them now:

General plot: (basically exactly as I wrote them, some of this doesn't make sense to me anymore)

In the distant past Luke had been investigating Snoke. Ben had been used as a strategic bait, but he was only meant to draw Snoke out of hiding and not become a pawn in Snoke's agenda. Then, on that night 10+ years ago, it all came crashing down. Snoke triggered Ben's powers, causing a massive and devastating fire. During this fire Han dies and Ben is blamed. Snoke then stripped out all memory of what really happened from Ben's mind, instead implanting in his own false memories instead. At this time Luke also disappeared, making it very easy for Snoke to convince a now brain damaged Ben that Luke was the one behind this all along. Ben was blames for this but, because of Leia's political connections, he was placed in an asylum instead of prison. Leia didn't realize that Ben's new psychologist was, of course, really Snoke.

(my next set of notes are rather incoherent at this point, this is what I think I meant):

Fast forward to 10 years later (now present time) and now-Kylo is a highly powerful pawn piece that Snoke controls through manipulation and psychological mastery. A trigger event (Rey's arrival into the country) causes Ben to have (some sort of revelation). He comes to believe that Snoke killed Luke. Kylo begins to have a complete change of heart since everything he thought was true had just been turned upside down. He goes behind Snoke's back and finds out information of Luke's last known coordinates.

"He wants to untangle the truth of his father's death and his uncle's disappearance" (direct quote from notes)

Kylo escapes from the asylum. He finds out (unclear if I meant before or after he escapes) that Rey exists. She's tied closely to those events 10 years ago, but he's not sure exactly how. He learns that she's going to be Snoke's next target, replacing Kylo's role. First his next pawn and then his next victim. Using their bond (which was formed during that night 10 years ago), he is lead right to Rey and also right in the direction where he believes Luke was buried.

(end of the backstory)

STORYARC and CHARACTER ARCs

Strangers was supposed to be an intensely character-centric story. This was my first time trying a character-driven plot (as opposed to an event based plot) and I think right there was the crux of my problems with it.

The character goals were important. Both Rey and Kylo had internal and external goals. Their external ones were what they told themselves they wanted, the internal was what was really driving them. For Rey, her internal was to find her place in the world and somewhere she could call home. That was too raw for her to admit, though, so her external was to have the adventure of a lifetime and lose herself in the desert hills.

Kylo's character arc was a strange one. His internal goal is to have someone all to himself that doesn't hate or fear him (yep, I went there). His external that he admits to himself was to clear his name and seek vengeance against Snoke while unraveling the mysteries that lead to his imprisonment. Oh yes, and he had some crazy mama's boy issues (pretty canon, right?)

The ROMANCE story arc? Attraction, affection, caution, flight, reunion, acceptance. (these are the fundamental steps of the majority of romance books).

Rey's transformation: she goes from being a naive child in her heart to a woman who's strong enough to believe in herself and willing to fight for love. She won't let Kylo abandon her.(At some point when Kylo tries to pull away) she won't let him pull back from her. She'll pursue him to save him even if it means putting herself at great risk.

Kylo transforms from a man in mourning over what could have been and believing he doesn't deserve happiness because of what he is TO someone who sees the future as a place of more than just absolute bleakness. He finally becomes willing to let himself have a family even if they could be taken away from him at any moment (this willingness is the direct opposite of having abandoned all hope, it shows that he has changed from absolute zero to thinking that change and hope are really possibilities for him).

Hmmm… okay, well those were my character goals. Take them for what you will.

Let's go onto the bullet point outlines. This is how I typically plot my stories, though books 2 and 3 were just rough footnotes since I had expected a lot of things to grow and change with this story as I wrote it. These are also more or less exactly as I had written them:

BOOK 1

Chapter 1 (I'm including the chapter's I've already written since… oh why the hell not, right?)

* (indicates structure notes) hero in his ordinary world, disturbance, introduce H1, H2 (heroine 1, heroine 2), 'meet cute'

Rey is alone in NM, feeling those gorgeous desert vibes

first sighting of Kylo

Kylo not acting like a hitchhiker

car problems, old beater car

Kylo mind controlls Rey 1

Chapter 2

*care package, no way 1

Snoke in Rey's dreams

Rey tries to flee from Kylo

Rey sees a hint of the Force in action

Kylo hates that Rey is so afraid of him

Rey asks Kylo what he wants (to have someone to talk to, Rey is speechless)

Kylo is dressed inappropriately for a hitchhiker

Care Package(the thing that grounds a character and gives them depth and keeps them from being generally selfish fucks)*

Rey is concerned about bringing others into her car and legal problems, even Kylo though he's a creepy weirdo

Argument Against Transformation (I'm not going to explain all of these, but this is the point when the hero(ine) thinks about rejecting the call to adventure)

Kylo and Rey argue about him leaving, possibly sees/signals police and Hux (direct quote, not totally sure what I meant by this)

Kylo mind controls Rey 2

Q factor hint 1 (SuperStructure beat hinting at how the final villain will ultimately be defeated)

Rey realizes that Kylo is mind controlling her

Kylo is shocked when Rey resists him

Kylo is paranoid about Hux (note taken out of sequence?)

Kylo hints at their fated destiny

Kylo asks Rey if she believes in fate

Kylo tries to be super nice to Rey, Rey wonders WTF has she gotten herself into

Chapter 3

adhesion, the call, argument against transformation (I think this one was the AAT for the whole trilogy while ch2's was just for book 1?)

adhesion (why the 2 characters can't just go away from each other)

Snoke appears in Rey's dreams again

Kylo disappears, hinting at paranormal elements

Rey goes through Kylo's belongings, finds Hux's phone number

Kylo tells Rey about their shared destiny (not sure what I meant here?)

1st shared attraction (this IS a romance, after all)

Trouble Brewing

police encounter 1

Kylo asks Rey what she truly wants

Rey and Kylo debate about destiny vs. choosing your own path through life

"go west young girl" (the theme of the first book!)

Rey hears of Snoke for the first time

Rey hears of the talisman that will defeat Snoke (I believe this talisman was actually Luke? Fuck me, I don't remember and I don't have that note anymore, sorry!)

Kylo blunders with his powers in public, Rey comes to his defense (signaling a subtle start of change within her)

Kylo shows Rey a display of the power of the Force

Chapter 5

Doorway One

Rey decides to stick with Kylo and "find her destiny"

answering the call (were my notes out of order here? Because I would NEVER have doorway 1 at the start of a chapter. I dunno…)

kick in the shins (a prompt into action)

Kylo and Rey share a nightmare about Snoke

Rey sees proof of what could happen if they lose (stakes are being established)

pretty landscape moment (I. Fucking. Love. The. Desert.)

Kylo and Rey start to get closer

Rey wonders how much Kylo is lying (he's not lying per se, but he's sure keeping a hell of a lot from her at this point)

encounter with Hux (umm… I guess I swapped Hux out with the undead Sheriff? My notes are progressively making less and less sense to me :(

Kylo: "have you ever done something unforgivable?" Rey: O.O

(beginning of understanding)

Dollar Tree scene (OKAY, yes, confirmed, these notes are out of sequence, I'm just going to keep going transcribing them to you as I have them though!)

Rey's fear of police

Rey feels protective of Kylo

Rey and Kylo get a new car

Chapter 5 (notes start getting shorter now)

*tools and challenges, Q factor hint, the MMM (magic middle moment, I've talked about this before but this is a crucial moment of inner reflection that happens right smack dab at the 50% mark)

cheap motel scene (from Under Skies You Could Drown In, which was an early now also defunct story Strangers was roughly based on)

police conflict

Rey discovers she has the Force (the MMM)

cliffhanger of Rey calling Hux with the number she found

Chapter 7

Q factor hint 2

Kylo teaches Rey the ways of the Force

Rey's attraction grows

Rey hears of Luke and Leia

Chapter 8

trouble brewing

Rey confronts Kylo about his earlier mind control

Hux and Rey talk on the phone

Rey find out her Kylo is Ben Solo, son of Senator Organa-Solo

problems with Rey's expired visa

Kylo gets them into more trouble by confronting local police hassling Rey

Rey's protect attachment to Kylo shows itself

chapter 9

no way 2, pet the dog (again SuperStructure, a selfless moment for a character)

fluff chapter to give a much needed break

Kylo pervs like a voyeur on Rey

Rey and Kylo sleep cuddle

encounter with Hux

Chapter 10

doorway 2

Rey worries about her future and how hard she's falling for Kylo

Rey secretly arranges to meet Hux

the watchtower (from Skies) and their first kiss

Chapter 11

mounting forces

major police conflict

Rey uses her new force powers to mind control an officer trying to arrest her (Rey's full force awakening)

lights out

Hux demands Rey come meet him in person, she slips away to go see him

Chapter 12

final battle

(also DOOR ONE of the trillogy, how about that?)

Face to face meeting with Hux

Hux says Kylo killed Han and Luke, offers compelling proof

Hux claims Kylo is trying to kill her too

big revelation moment

q factor

Rey flees from Hux, police

confrontation with Kylo

Kylo confesses to what he thinks is the truth (it isn't)

transformation

Rey chooses to stay with Kylo despite what just happened

BOOK 2

(this and book 3 weren't organized into chapters, just rougher story beats)

the tutor

Rey goes behind Kylo's back to contact Leia

kick in the shins, deepening desire, inkling of doubt (clearly many of these are beats for the trilogy as a whole)

Rey wonders about their future

police conflict 3

allies and opponents, Q factor hint, maybe this could work?

Fluff chapter 3

Snoke in Rey's dreams again

Rey and Kylo find out where Luke's "body" is buried

sexy bathing scene (sorry I missed out on writing that!)

The MMM midpoint of love

Gila Mountains love story

first sex

pet the dog

Hux encounter

Rey protects Kylo for a change

deepening doubt, doorway 2, retreat beat, shield's up

Rey thinks she's pregnant and runs away

Rey disappareas to confront Snoke (cliffhanger of book 2)

BOOK 3

mounting forces

MAJOR police confrontation

Hux plays his ace card

talisman, Q factor in action, wake up

Rey finds Luke

final test, final battle, grand gesture

Hux betrays Snoke to gain greater power for himself (yep)

truth of Han's death resolved

return, transformation, what whole hearted looks like, epilogue

Kylo and Rey return to Leia just as their troubles boil over

she helps them fake their own deaths and they run away together to across the Mexican border

and… the end.

My notes stop at this point. I know I must have had more because they don't match what I'd written too closely. Sort of, but also not really. Maybe these were an older set?

Anyhow that's what I had written as I had written it. The titles of the books were going to be

Book 1: Stranger to Blue Waters

Book 2: One the Run (and Above the Law)

Book 3: Under Skies You Could Drown In

I'm really, really sorry that this recap isn't nearly as helpful as I wanted it to be. With Save Me From Myself I had a much tighter storyline to offer you, here I just had an increasingly rambling an incoherent set of bullet points. Maybe someone here enjoyed reading them? I really hope so.

It's with a heavy heart I close off this story. Looking back I really was trying to go in too many directions, I think that was my problem. This story was terribly unpopular, it got just a small fraction of the views that I normally get, and with that I lost my motivation to keep going. Not that it would have saved me from failing under the scope of this, however.

I think, also, another problem is that most people probably don't like the desert homage setting as much as I do. I love the desert. Love it love it love. And I'm going to keep writing desert stories, but maybe I'll stick to shorter pieces and 1-shots?

Will I ever take this back up? Well, Strangers was try 2 with Under Skies You Could Drown in being try 1. I'm not up for a try 3 now, I've moved on from this concept, but I'm not going to say 'never' definitively. I think if I DO revisit this core concept it will be something dramatically different like a Bonnie and Clyde setting or maybe a desert survival after a paranormal plane crash maybe? Like Lost set out in the wilds of the New Mexican Desert? I don't know, just some brainstorming.

Hopefully these will give some much needed closure. If anyone has any more questions or feedback, feel free to comment /message or ask me on tumblr at lost-inthesunlight or on twitter at Ava_Avdal. I'd absolutely love to hear from anyone who enjoyed this story, flawed though it may have been!

So again a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to read the original story and this rather dreadful recap of it. Now I think I can finally put this story to rest. I hope you all will continue to give my writing a chance. I've learned a lot since I first started this (the original Under Skies You Could Drown in was my 4th fanfic ever and now I've written a total of over 50!). Sorry this non-update was kind of a downer, but I've got lots of good ideas and two major WIPs going on now so I hope you'll check them out when you get the chance! Thank you all very much! XOXO