Behind the Scenes of Chapter 2

Hindsight — Chapter 2 — February 2024 — Memory Lane

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Hindsight by Neil Shooter (photo by author)

In the thick of the transition from optimism to resilience, and between those two relative peaks lies the great trough of 2024. It is the darkest of times. Full of despair and disaster. Whatever we thought was bad in 2020 was a quaint notion, a walk in the park compared to what actually awaits us in 2024.

Even so, February is my favourite month. Not of the year, but of Hindsight. It is so filled with the love, life, and laughter between Will and Juss. It contains the core of who they are as a couple, and the time they spent together.

While Chapter 1 shows the depth and ease of Will and Juss’ relationship (and friendship), Chapter 2 jumps forward four years and a month, to a new reality.

Juss is dead, and Will is so bereft and broken that he stumbles through waking life, losing himself in various reveries in the form of flashbacks showing some key — even visceral — moments from their life together. The flashbacks are in present tense, and the parts of the main “current” (February 2024) scene are in past tense.

I think most writers put bits of themselves into each of their characters. Real places and events help to inspire our stories.

There are bits of me in Will and Juss. There are bits of me in Billy’s stupid uni friends, and in Juss’ new friend Maxwell.

I’ve been asked how much of Chapter 2 is based on my actual experience. I think my best answer is that the more dramatic the scene, the more fiction is in it.

We’ve all lost someone at some point. We’ve all felt loss, anger, grief, disbelief, and awe. I can feel Will’s grief and pain even though I haven’t lived his exact experience. And it’s gratifying for me to hear that YOU have felt his grief and pain too, by reading this story.

You already know that the novel has been gathering dust for three years, which allows me to see it now with new eyes? Well, it lets me feel things almost like a first-time reader too. I sat down to edit this chapter and I cried. Three separate times.

Even though I wrote the words, and know the key events of the story and its end, in each chapter there’s still a lot that surprises me, whether some few forgotten details, or even whole scenes that I don’t remember until I read them again. I guess it’s like rereading ANY story after enough time has passed. It just feels weird when it is your OWN story.

This chapter pulls on me so much, because of the things they have gone through together, the trials and tribulations, the love they share. It’s almost too good to be true, only it isn’t.

I ache for Will, for what he goes through here. It’s a tough day for him. There will be more tough days to come.

Some places or events are more closely based on my direct experience, in one way or another.

The university lecture hall is modeled on one I used to haunt, many moons ago. I used to sit high up at the back, like Billy, writing silly notes with my friends, but no one like Juss walked in to rock my world. Dr Furness is real, or rather, he is named after a real Dr Furness, but here the character has such a small part that it’s not more than an homage to him and my memories of the department.

Betrayal? It has happened, but not as depicted.

The Angel of Quebec City? I am happy to report that SHE is absolutely real. The person exists. The LADY is real. Her beatific smile. Her radiant glow, the closest I’ve seen to any real-life halo. And Quebec City is indeed beautiful and historic, and our Angel has every right to beam about it. Quebec City is like a little bit of Europe -- the only place in North America that’s made me feel this way.

The last grave I visited “with purpose” was my grandfather’s. Back in my hometown. I talked to him, but there were no tears, and no replies.

We have two feet of snow right now (late February 2025 as I am writing this), and I can see how rarely visited the local cemeteries are, even the main one in the village (which Bill would have visited) which seems to have been visited only by plow and snowblower. The blanket of snow I saw today is unmarred by footsteps.

The most entertaining part of this chapter, for me, is how I assumed (back in 2020/21) that the home speaker units would be much closer to functioning assistants by 2024. The “Computer” in 2024 is able to flip lights on and off, and to handle telephone calls deftly.

Alas, here in the real 2025, home speakers are still as stupid/intelligent as they were in 2017 when I first got one.

Unless all the real functionality is behind a paywall?

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