A few people mentioned that they were surprised by the SH scene – how it was weird going from all smiles in the bra shop to urgent home fiasco.
Fair enough. There’s a few reasons why I did it like that, and maybe I was wrong to jump so viciously from one to the other, but I thought I’d share my thinking anyway:
(1) Mental states are often secrets, Charlie has a history of, and hints throughout the series at her struggles with, cutting. In comic 6 she’s even holding the knife in one scene, and hides it from Jack. She even says Karen’s actions make her want to hurt herself; a throwaway comment in an otherwise all-smiles conversation. This happens in real life; a seemingly nothing comment is actually crucial. I hid her thoughts from the reader in the same way she’s been hiding them from Jack. He responds so well because perhaps this is based on my own lived experience and perhaps that’s what I wanted to hear from someone, who knows eh we’re all different.
(2) Stuff bubbles up to the surface out of our control. It’s nice to have a gentle lead-in, but I think the reality is this just doesn’t happen in the real world. We often aren’t prepared for the way our turmoil affects us in great surprising explosions. Especially if we hide our true emotions; in doing so we build internal tensions that we simply can’t hold onto forever. This feels upsettingly unexpected in the comic! It jars slightly. It derails the story a little. Exactly. Yep.
(3) It was already always going to be a record-breakingly massive comic, and I just couldn’t be bothered to render the changing room scene. I opted instead to have Charlie verbally describe what she was planning to do with her brother, back when they were in the bath together. So I describe the sexy part of the scene rather than bothering to make it. Saves time, means the comic’s out sooner than it would be otherwise. And they don’t get to fool around anyway because Charlie starts to explode and has to rush home.
(4) Again, maybe I was wrong to do it like this. But I do think it’s ok to be surprised by plot sometimes; I do think human relationships are like this. They aren’t convenient, they aren’t always expected. They are a journey and sometimes that journey hurts. And is wonderful.
Cool? Cool. So I’m not really disagreeing with that feedback – it was indeed unexpected and jarring, I’m just hoping people understand why maybe I tried it like that, is all 🙂
