Original Plot to CMW Generation 2

Unlike Generation One, I had a much more defined idea of what I would be doing for Generation Two as well as how to end it. I knew the world I was working in much better, and because of that planning for the future generations became even easier. That, in turn, helped me plant the seeds I needed for proper progression in Gen Two. However, many things still changed. Most major plot points remained the same, although a few did shift. The routes to get there were simply different. Here is the general idea I wrote for Coal's story back when I first started putting it all together back when I was still working with Ethereal:

   "Amaranth disappears while grocery shopping, and Ethereal gives birth to a girl in the years while he's gone. Coal, through eavesdropping and a bit of hacking, learns that Amaranth was trying to find out about a deep secret. Amaranth returns when Coal is twenty, but Ethereal is diagnosed with a deadly cancer. Coal attempts to find out the secret for Amaranth since he is distracted with her, and he ends up getting caught and captured too. He eventually finds out the secret that he and his sister's namesakes, Amaranth's parents- Coal and Desire, are alive. They faked their own deaths to prevent Amaranth from getting tangled up in the 'family business'- another secret organization that generally remains a neutral party in conflicts between groups like The Company and The Community. They warn him that TC still has their eye on his family before letting him go. Ethereal escapes death. Mimosa disguises herself as Hollyhock in order to sleep with Coal. Holly forgives Coal after a while, and they adopt the child Mimosa has after she decides she no longer wants it if Coal still refuses to be with her. She runs away soon after the birth. It is then revealed that Bay (green hair and eyes/yellow skin) is Mantis' son who was kidnapped, beaten, and then deserted. The two are reunited. Coal and Holly marry and find a quiet sort of peace."

Clearly, there are few things in there that differ drastically. The generation was originally going to spend much more time with Coal in his young adult years as he actively worked and got caught up in the mess of the secret organizations. It didn't take long, however, when starting the generation that I saw that more of the focus needed to be on the impact of Amaranth's disappearance and how that would actually lead to Coal understanding to not get involved in the web.

The other big difference revolves around Mimosa. She was meant to be much more unstable than she turned out. The line Coal narrated in Chapter Two about him wanting there to be more of a defined line between his boundaries and what he was told to let her get away with originally alluded to the bigger issues that would have arisen. He would have been told more by the adults to essentially let her tiptoe over those boundaries so she could be kept happy and under control. Despite writing that narration, I already began to think by then that Mimosa's part in the story was changing. I liked her better than anticipated, and something about how her intended portrayal would turn out didn't sit right with me.

I went back and forth with how much of my original ideas would pan out though. For example:

Notice someone? You'll most likely have to enlarge the picture by clicking on it to have a chance, and even then I'd been surprised if you found her. I'll help:

Mimosa was supposed to start out very well hidden at the beginning, and her sneaking around in the background would have slowly become more apparent. The grabbiness she threw at Coal would have started during the teen years, and it would have gotten bad enough to the point where Coal would have started thinking about a restraining order at that point. I tossed the idea and didn't sneak Mimosa in any more shots because I realized that was simply repeating the plan for the ending of the generation.

Mimosa, honestly, had I stuck with the original idea for her, would have pretty much turned into a complete loose cannon at the end of Generation Two and actually an antagonist for Generation Three. I naturally can't tell you more about what that would have entailed given that it will spoil many of the big things for Gen Three, but Mimosa would have been a danger to the upcoming heir. Obviously though, she got herself under control to become her sweet self again helping Coal to raise their daughter on equal ground.

Besides that, the only changes left to make note of are Coal and Holly not getting married at the time of the ending and me changing the name of Mantis' son from Bay to Malachite.