Ship busy sinking

Only three days later, and I've actually completed two chapters of my first-person 'Sink Your Favourite Ship" fiction (provisionally entitled "The Debts We Owe", although this may end up being the title of the first chapter, the second being -- inevitably -- "All I Ask of You", a title which surprisingly enough I don't seem to have used previously).

This is obviously not going to be quite the 'one-shot' project that I'd initially planned; but I'm assuming that the third scene is going to consist of another single chapter (2,000 words or so), after which the story will be satisfactorily finished. I might even get it done -- albeit probably not posted and/or finalised -- by the end of the week I had so optimistically estimated for a one-shot fiction!

Re-reading what I originally intended, I seem to have ended up with rather more emphasis on the practical rationale of the split (Raoul's impending bankruptcy), rather than the purely generous impulse to make one another happier. But I think that was because I'd used the idea that they were actually in an unhealthy relationship (in modern jargon I suppose Christine is 'facilitating' her husband's destructive unhappiness) rather heavily in the first chapter, and didn't want to repeat it too much for the second. I did manage to get it in for the finale as a Memorable Ending, but I probably still do need to get the "I was saving you from me" idea over again more explicitly in the third chapter.

(And, as usual, I've probably made Raoul implausibly reformed implausibly quickly; I did try to intimate that he hasn't given up drinking (yet) in this one, and to indicate from the start that this Christine isn't really 'in love with' him any more... although she does waver nostalgically occasionally.)

• First chapter: rescuing the characters from one another (and the Phantom).
  
• Second chapter: proposing an affectionate (no cheating with tragedies) and civilised break-up.
  
• Third chapter: demonstrating that the characters have fulfilled the remit of 'happy, whole, and very single'
  

"Dear Old Friend"

Another half(?) chapter done on the new story, and lots of dialogue ideas for the rest; I just hope I can remember them all tomorrow. Struggling to keep my eyes open at the moment after about three hours' sleep last night...

The main problem with this one is that the characters seem to be constantly struggling to 'ship' themselves, however swiftly I keep telling them they're supposed to be just friends! I need to keep quite a close eye on it to make sure I actually meet the terms of the challenge, because quite frankly the natural trend of this final scene is for the mother and father of the groom to meet again at the wedding, discover that they're both happier now that they've grown beyond the problems of their youth, and... fall in love all over again :-) The way Christine is looking at Raoul is not altogether impartial at the moment, even if the original intent was only to show that he has got older.

The story now has a provisional full title of "Dear Old Friend" (what, after all, could be more appropriate to the intended plot-line?) with chapters named as "The Debts we Owe", "All I Ask of You" and "So Glad You're Here".