Well, this poll/survey yielded very interesting results, as I hoped it would!
From my perspective, the key insight here is the fact that, once all the extra bonus votes were added up, the 'winner' was the idea about Shelly's return! Now, that was very helpful, in the sense that it dissolved any residual doubts I may have had about this scenario, which was already at the top of my own personal list.
So yeah, it's official: Shelly will be returning to AOHCR! I don't exactly how an why at the moment (although I do have a couple of scenes in mind...) but yeah, she'll be back!
Another helpful hint I got (and a very clear one, in fact) was the almost unanimous rejection of the 'Grandpa' option. Alright, message received: I won't mention this scenario again, and Mike will remain the only male lead in the story!
Also the bit about where exactly Mike should go to college got more or less resolved, or at least it seems clear that the overall preference is for a college close to home, and therefore closer to Julia and Jennifer. I guess I can work with that, although I was leaning more toward Mike going away with Lyla and Lori, only for all three of them to then transfer back to a more local college soon after. But yeah, this is still a workable scenario.
So, having collected all this info, I've already started planning out the next 'season' of AOHCR, in the sense that I'm sort of piecing all this stuff together and trying to imagine how to have it play out over the course of a few chapters. I'm not really trying to come up with a full storyboard spanning a bunch of episodes, but I'd like to have a clearer sense of what I'm getting into before I start writing the next chapter, which, at this point, will have to already contain some plot elements and/or hints relating it to the following chapters, I guess.
So yeah, the new AOHCR chapter is still very much in the planning phase, and I don't think that forcing it onto the page right away or rushing the process in any way would be a good idea. It's gonna happen and it's the next canon story in line, yes, but I'll only write it in due time, meaning, when it's ready.
Meanwhile, I have half a mind of picking up the Nancy spin off vignette and going straight into its second Chapter, since that one was already planned out and good to go when I wrote Chapter 1 down, a couple of months back. It could be a nice diversion before I tackle AOHCR... But I don't know yet.
Anyway, while I'm figuring these things out, I want to thank you all for your participation in the survey: your insights were very helpful in pointing me in the right direction! Thanks!
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