This phrasing does suggest that something about his encounter with Lili aggravated his situation:
Alex’s first date with Lili pushed his unwanted thoughts into overdrive. I suspect that's not what you meant - unless it was the stress of a hook-up date with a stranger that was aggravating?
You're right! It took me a while to get to this, but I've tweaked the wording to say "During his first date…" It's not that the date doesn't contribute, but I don't want to imply that's the primary catalyst.
It's hard to re-contextualize this thing chapter by chapter, with titles and recaps! Make the titles appropriate and hopefully intriguing, make the recaps refresh readers' memories without handholding—and we're technically 60 pages in, so what are the important points to catch up on for this particular chapter? It's kind of fun for a change in perspective, though.
I hear you! But I have full confidence you’ll hit the right spots with your recaps as you go along. His reflections on being in a post-Armageddon isolated room, luckily, don’t need to go into the recap! You can think of it like this: the reader only needs enough to make sense of the chapter they are about to read, maybe with some rails to make the events in the chapter matter feel more poignant. If they have that and they proceed to read, then their curiosity may take them back to the beginning or maybe to the online bookstore. So every recap, going deeper into the story, doesn’t have to be a more extended version of the last one.
The first time I read this, I thought it was real commentary from the observers in the queue, which makes sense because you want your readers to be experiencing it as if we're 'in his head':
The fragile bubble of the store would burst—the bubble wherein we agree that purchases belong in the baskets and the baskets aren’t helmets or slippers, we don’t climb the shelves, we don’t shout, we handle everything with care to avoid spills, we keep our clothes on, and we don’t vomit on the merchandise or other customers.
This phrasing does suggest that something about his encounter with Lili aggravated his situation:
Alex’s first date with Lili pushed his unwanted thoughts into overdrive. I suspect that's not what you meant - unless it was the stress of a hook-up date with a stranger that was aggravating?
You're right! It took me a while to get to this, but I've tweaked the wording to say "During his first date…" It's not that the date doesn't contribute, but I don't want to imply that's the primary catalyst.
It's hard to re-contextualize this thing chapter by chapter, with titles and recaps! Make the titles appropriate and hopefully intriguing, make the recaps refresh readers' memories without handholding—and we're technically 60 pages in, so what are the important points to catch up on for this particular chapter? It's kind of fun for a change in perspective, though.
I hear you! But I have full confidence you’ll hit the right spots with your recaps as you go along. His reflections on being in a post-Armageddon isolated room, luckily, don’t need to go into the recap! You can think of it like this: the reader only needs enough to make sense of the chapter they are about to read, maybe with some rails to make the events in the chapter matter feel more poignant. If they have that and they proceed to read, then their curiosity may take them back to the beginning or maybe to the online bookstore. So every recap, going deeper into the story, doesn’t have to be a more extended version of the last one.
The first time I read this, I thought it was real commentary from the observers in the queue, which makes sense because you want your readers to be experiencing it as if we're 'in his head':
“He’s gonna throw up.”
“Please, oh god, that would be the fucking best.”
The fragile bubble of the store would burst—the bubble wherein we agree that purchases belong in the baskets and the baskets aren’t helmets or slippers, we don’t climb the shelves, we don’t shout, we handle everything with care to avoid spills, we keep our clothes on, and we don’t vomit on the merchandise or other customers.
Right!?