Sometimes surprise is overrated. Sometimes you just have to let the reader know that the train wreck is coming and trust that it’ll be more riveting to watch it in slo-mo, with no last-minute twists.

We could have sketched Ferris in a little bit more to make you feel for him: what was his pet-owning history? But that was a conscious choice, in the end: his simplicity makes it easier for you to enter his shoes.

We also considered simplifying even further and leaving Carol’s narrative out of it, particularly since we couldn’t rely on differently-colored-or-typefaced captions to denote the switch between narrators. But you get it, and setting up her state of mind clearly here will make you understand her better in later scenes in this chapter, where narrative silence will be more important.