And we're back! Due to apparent word count limitations, this chapter's discussion required it be split into separate posts, and today I bring you the second half, containing the oh so tumultuous resolution to Gallus and Grandpa Gruff's fued. Let's not waste anymore time and get right on into it!

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Ah, Ch.11(Closure). For a while, I considered this to be the best chapter of The Bonds of Love, even better than the Smolder and Mount Aris chapters. It’s not hard to see why—Ch.10(Home) did most of the setup concerning Gallus’ feelings toward Griffonstone, leaving Ch.11(Closure) to ride that setup and finally discuss his and Gruff’s relationship—something I’ve wanted to address since the very beginning with A Day for Family.

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Alternate Title: Griffonstone — For obvious reasons. I didn’t go with it since I still preferred naming the chapters after their main themes.

Ch.10(Home) is weird for me because even though it’s one of the best chapters of the story, I feel far more passionate for the next chapter. Though I suppose that’s only natural when this is clearly a glorified Part One to Ch.11(Closure)’s Part Two. And yes, that does mean this was another chapter split incident, as are the next four chapters.

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Alternate Titles: Fear, Part Two, Death —Since the last chapter wasn’t “Fear, Part One” I obviously couldn’t name this one “Part Two” but as you can tell, I did keep “Fear” as the title for thematic reasons.

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Alternate titles: Fear, Part One, Life — Didn’t go with the first one because I was still in “Name the chapter after its central theme” mode, and Ch.8(Tension) isn’t exactly about “fear” so much as the lingering awkwardness or dare I say…? Tension between Smolder, Gallus, and Silverstream.

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Alternate Title: Identity — I’ll explain why later.

Oh, this chapter… Ch.7(Pride) had the most radically alternate version of all the chapters after Ch.4(Optimism), thanks predominantly to it suffering the most from the personality issue getting axed. I’m not entirely satisfied with what I ultimately settled on, but I still think it’s a good chapter.

Let’s get into it!

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From one of my favorite chapters to my absolute least favorite…

I’m not gonna mix words here: I hate Ch.6(Stagnation). I have no qualms admitting Ch.1(Transition) and Ch.2(Reprieve) are worse written, but this chapter in particular was the one I had the worst time actually writing, and it was for one specific reason…

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Alternate title: Normalcy — Went with “Normality” since it sounded better at the time. I lean more toward Normalcy presently, but it doesn’t matter since they’re synonyms.

Ah, Ch.5(Normality), you will always stand out for being the only chapter to actually follow the original character-specific chapter plan.

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Alternate titles: Pessimism, Paranoia — Didn’t choose either, preferring to name it, not after Silver’s problem, but rather the solution to it.

Before I begin discussing this chapter properly, I just wanna say I feel so bad for Silverstream. I put her through so much crap in this story, it’s not even funny. But that begs the question why Silver’s story-line became what it is. To answer that we must first discuss what this chapter could have been.

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Ahh, Ch.3(Expression). Or as I like to call it: The chapter where I finally figured out what the heck I was doing.

Look, I was writing a story about Gallus receiving therapy for his trauma, his friends’ reactions to learning about his breakdown, and the blossoming romance between him and Silverstream who was going through her own breakdown, all while trying to work themes of identity, personal growth, paranoia, self-worth, family, and the classic “Coming of age” trope into the narrative.

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