Read: Chapter Twelve | Lost Then Found

Chapter Twelve of Lost Then Found is LIVE

You can locate the chapter here: Lost Then Found: Chapter Twelve

Man oh man, what a pain in the ass. Shall I count the ways?

1. It was my first time writing in 3rd person POV in a very long time. It felt clunky and unnatural to me. I also tried to focus a bit more on describing the setting (since I feel like I tend to neglect the setting?)
2. I have a harder time getting into Alex’s head than Val’s, so this was challenging (especially because Alex isn’t her usual self for most of this chapter)
3. Val is barely in the chapter, which makes it a bit less fun for me to write (look, I have a favorite)
4. This chapter definitely slows things down a bit, which I actually found challenging as well. I’m use to… things happening? But instead I was kinda staring at my document like “Uh, ok, two rich girls go to New Jersey and… hang out.”
5. It went through a GRUELING edit process (shout out to my awesome betas) but I second-guessed several major decisions. Thankfully they were able to help me figure out the best route, even though I kept flip-flopping on them. Sorry guys!
6. It took 2 years to post, so I’m convinced half the audience I spent 10 years building is gone :’)

By the way if you haven’t read the chapter yet, then stop reading. I’m about to get spoilery.

The theme of this chapter was pretty simple:

“ALEX FIGURES HER SHIT OUT & MAKES A BIG DECISION”

Throughout the story, Alex has been extremely conflicted. And I don’t blame her, really, having to deal with Val constantly telling her (nicely) to fuck off, in-between glimpses of the ‘real’ Val. The ‘real’ Val that is still obsessed with Alex. The mixed signals are REAL.

Not to mention finding out that your family plotted to separate you from the love of your life, your best friend getting murdered right in front of you, and then finding out all the trauma said love of your life has gone through over the last few years…

And then of course, after they seemed to finally be getting somewhere, Alex was asked to leave at the city at the end of Chapter 11. So yeah, I would be sad and confused too. That’s why I wanted her to hit some type of ‘rock bottom’ this chapter, so she could be pulled out of it by the end.

I wanted this chapter to accomplish a few things:

1. First, let’s separate Val and Alex, and focus on Alex. I actually set out to focus this story more on her (hence Val’s POV missing for the first 4 chapters), but as the story continued I think the story became more balanced between them, with Val coming out on top the last few chapters (8-11).
2. I wanted to slowly, over the course of the chapter, address the Laurex situation–it’s not a good situation, especially for Laura.
3. I also wanted to humanize Laura a bit. We never delve into her backstory much, and I’ve done a terrible job of making her seem like much of a threat (something I plan to address in the rewrite). I wanted to give a glimpse of what it’s like to be Laura, and see if I could MAYBE, SOMEWHERE get a molecule of empathy from the readers towards her, since she is pretty much enemy #1 whenever she’s on the page.
4. Alex isn’t herself. Let’s bring in the folks who can reel her back to the strong Alexis Sterling we all know and love–her friends (+Cyn, who is also kind of a friend once you remove the awkward romantic history).

5. By the end of the chapter, Alex should have realized where she belongs, and who she belongs with and then, instead of letting someone else dictate her life, make a decision in her best interest.

I really thought people would hate this chapter. For three reasons:

1. The first reason I’ll talk about in my next blog post, when I post Chapter 13 (because it’ll make more sense then).
2. The second reason is because I tend to assume people reading on Wattpad are skipping anything that isn’t lesbian romance/valex, and not paying attention to the actual story or the plot. A lot of this chapter is focusing on Alex and Laura, while Val features very briefly in it, so I thought the readers would find it extremely boring, especially after waiting 2 years, and following a romance-heavy chapter like 11.
3. The third reason is because Alex is at an extremely low point, so I thought her fans might find this version of her whiny, or boring, or too ‘out of character’ (she’s not out of character, she’s just human, and grieving, damn it!)

So far it seems like I’m wrong! But then again, maybe the disappointed readers don’t bother commenting.

So what about Chapter 13?

The reason why Chapter 13 is almost done is because it was originally supposed to be the 2nd half of Chapter 12. During the editing process, I decided (with the input of my lovely betas) to split the chapter into two separate ones. Once they were separated it gave me more wiggle room to pad both of them with some extra stuff.

I actually almost left Chapter 12 on a cliff-hanger, but I can explain that a bit more in my next blog post when Chapter 13 has been posted since I’ll be able to provide more context then. This is also related to ‘reason #1 why I thought people would hate this chapter’.

At this rate, Chapter 13 could be posted fairly soon considering Chapter 12 has votes in the 400s as is likely to hit the 500 vote limit within another day or so. Next time I’m setting the limit to 1000 (if I feel confident that I can actually post Chapter 14 in the event of that vote goal being hit).

What’s next?

The story is almost done. Chapter 12 basically marks the beginning of the end. I imagine there should be 4ish chapters left, including 13, but we’ll see!

Moving forward, chapters may be shorter as I’m trying to finish the book this year. That being said, considering they’re usually quadruple the size of an average Wattpad chapter, even a ‘short’ chapter will still be longer than anything else on Wattpad.

I have the rest of the book outlined and ready to go. I’m feeling motivated. I want to finish the story so I can edit both Alex’s Girl & Lost Then Found and then self-publish to Kindle (I’d like to make physical copies available as well, since I’ve frequently been asked for that).

On a random note, you may have noticed I updated my website!

Hopefully it’s less ugly, but I am already having some struggs with it as you may have noticed from the ugly, cropped images and stuff. Oh well. When I actually get anywhere with my writing I’ll invest in a better website but until then, shitty website it is.

Finally, I leave you with the Chapter Song: Apocalypse by Cigarettes and Sex