ONLY A KISS: Sky's Content

For those of you who don’t know what Sky’s Content is, it’s the Shikamaru fan fiction I am currently writing. I wanted to write something about Sky’s Content behind the scenes because I think it’s rather interesting. Plus I want to go more into detail about somethings that I think you guys should know.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

First off, I started the first chapter of Sky’s Content sort of randomly. I didn’t have a plot planned and I didn’t really think that flowers for Yuri was going to be SO important. I remember sitting in my grade 11 English class coming up with the original plot of the story, writing out everything that happens chapter by chapter.

Then as I started to write the chapters I found that I wanted some stuff to happen later, and that I should add in something random to fill in the space. And so far that’s been almost every chapter of Sky’s Content. Ironically enough, as I wrote these ‘filler’ chapters the story molded into something completely different. I started to think of new ways the story could progress and now the plot is completely different than what I wrote on that piece of paper all those years ago.

The first ‘filler’ was the whole Mitsuyu thing. She was never supposed to be there, but I used that to help Shikamaru and Yuri realize that they like each other. Then the next ‘filler’ was the trip to Suna. THAT came out of nowhere. I was like ‘Ok. Chapter 7. Shikamaru’s POV. GO. “It had been about a week now since Yuri left to visit her father in Suna.” WTF. SUNA?!’

Ok, so it wasn’t really like that. But it did come out of nowhere.

I originally had wanted Yuri’s neck to be slashed in chapter 8, but I thought that I should expand on the Suna trip some more. And since I always liked the idea of characters getting sick, and using that as a bonding experience, I used that for chapter 8.

Little tidbit: In chapter 8 when Shikamaru was leaning in, his intention was actually to kiss her. Yuri can judge Shikamaru’s actions pretty well; she’s very observant. Then after that attempt to kiss her failed, he decided not to try it again until Yuri stopped being so embarrassed.

Then chapter 9 was the first real plot thing that was PLANNED to happen. It took me a while to get through that chapter, but I’m glad I did. The entire series at that point had nothing to do with ninjas or fighting, and I really felt like it needed some sort of ninja aspect. It was then that I realized what was the biggest factor getting in between Yuri and Shikamaru: he’s a ninja and she’s not.

I know, I know. I pointed that out in chapter 7 with Shikamaru. But I didn’t realize the gravity of it until the end of chapter 9.

Then chapter 10 came out very easily (It might have been because I procrastinating on studying exams…), but I knew every emotion that Yuri would be feeling, I knew that she was crack and break into a million pieces, and I knew that her father was going to forbid her from seeing Shikamaru. What was harder for me to grasp was how Shikamaru was feeling. I knew he would feel guilty but I didn’t really know HOW he would deal with it.

So I took the opportunity before working on chapter 11 to watch the Naruto Shippuuden episodes where Asuma dies and Shikamaru takes down Hidan. I LEARNED A LOT about him from those episodes. I realized that in my head I was making him out to be more indifferent and lazy than he actually was at that point. I thought that he would probably end up keeping his feelings to himself. But I realized, if it will make things easier for him, he’ll do anything. Including staying with Yuri.

And then when I wrote chapter 11.5 I really just wanted to show the contrast between Yuri and Shikamaru. If you notice, Shikamaru concentrates more on the fact that he needs to make a decision. He knows how he feels and he weighs the options of what he can do. He doesn’t go into much detail about kissing, or feelings.

Yuri on the other hand, everything for her is feelings. The constant feeling of the hole getting bigger. She already knows how deeply she cares for Shikamaru and she knows that she should get over him. But she doesn’t. She tries to cling to him because she loves him and if Shikamaru hadn’t ultimately decided to stay with her, she would have gone insane. She wouldn’t have recovered like Shikamaru thought she would, but that’s because he didn’t realize at the time the gravity of her feelings.

But then again, there are some things that I purposely made the same for them. For example, their dislike of sand as noted in the Suna saga of the story. I purposely made the wording almost exactly the same. Although some things that were similar I didn’t even realize I put in.

Lastly, chapter 12. What you have to realize is that usually between each chapter, weeks or even months go by. Yuri and Shikamaru have TONS of normal conversations, and spend time together normally. Everything in the chapters were usually things that related to their relationship progressing. So chapter 12 was a chapter to show those normal conversations, and to show those normal hang outs. They’re best friends, not just boyfriend and girlfriend.

Not to mention, the whole waking Shikamaru up thing was so cute :p

So now the story will continue to deal with their relationship and how they deal with him being a ninja. Not to mention it will deal with the aftermath of what happened in chapter 9, and how both Yuri and Shikamaru grow from it.

I hope you guys enjoy reading the series as much as I love writing it. It’s the one story I have put the MOST effort in.

Here are some goodies. They are drawings of Yuri and Shikamaru I did from like, last summer. It’s weird how easily it was to draw them together: