I guess what I'm really doing is purposely pushing that chapter back one entry. I should have rewritten it. I've learned a lot about writing over the last six years. Now I'm starting to feel that I should have gone back and rewritten Salvation to my satisfaction, rather than letting it go as it is. I'm seriously considering rewriting chapter two. It would be tricky, though. What happens in that chapter can't be changed; it would create a domino effect in knocking down all the chapters after it, which are written and waiting to be posted.

But then another part of me says to let it go, not to spend another six years worrying over this fic. There are worse ones posted online. True, I'm not proud of this one, but too much of it is written to abandon it. This part of me says to ignore the technicalities of the rules of writing and just tell the story.

In a constructive criticism, a friend pointed out that chapter two feels contrived, and I completely agree. That was one of my main problems with it (aside from not being able to manipulate the third person point of view to tell the story the way I wanted). But then I considered that, in the plot itself, DM is contriving the situation. He's picked his team, he's assigned them their weapons, and now he's calling the shots. All of part one is about the young pawns being deliberately moved about the board. Part of what gives my original character her inner anger is that she strongly suspects (to the point of believing) that that is precisely what's happening. She believes that DM is moving her around like a pawn, and she doesn't like it. She feels that she's forced to perform when he cracks his whip, and she has grown to hate him for it.

Part of me says scrap the whole fic. Part of me says leave it as is (bad beginner's writing and all), finish it, and be done with it. And then start concentrating on better fics I've written much, much more recently.

More inner turmoil. Just what I don't need. And over something so insignificant.

More self-analysis: If I think that something is a no-brainer for the reader to discover on her own, I don't spell it out. I've always felt I would be insulting the reader. Often when my husband is telling me a story, he repeats and reiterates and stops to define even common sense details and terms to the point that I struggle to pay attention. I don't want to do that in my writing. Thing is, being wordy seems to work for some writers.

Also, my point of view perceptions may need work. See, if there were an "official" classification of the kind of point of view I want to use, it would be suddenly OK. But as far as I know, there isn't. What I need is a point of view that sees what everyone is doing, but when it comes to thoughts and feelings, those remain known of only one character. Like, a third person omniscient, yet with focus. You can tell everything that's going on, but only the thoughts of your focal character. I guess I should have used third person omniscient, period.