Re: A Scene
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Mrs. Roger Collins <span style="color:red;">[Our protagonist]</span> stood in the visiting room of her home. <span style="color:red;">[I'm trying to show an upscale life, also that this is a woman who's taken her husband's name. It shows a social relationship, and a social class.]</span> "Mansion" would have been a better word. <span style="color:red;">[A bit of countersinking there for the benefit of the deaf old lady in the back row. Perhaps this was unnecessary. I might cut this from another draft, or I might not.]</span> The sun shone in through a bay window flanked by French doors. <span style="color:red;">[Simple description, to contrast with the fancier description that's coming in the next sentence. I'm trying to build a picture of the room.]</span> Filmy drapes kept the sun from bleaching the delicate cloth on the circular table in the center of the room.<span style="color:red;">[Lots of adjectives in that sentence, eh? The sun -- our scene is set in California, and our theme is bringing light to dark places (revealing secrets). Filmy drapes are ones that can be seen through. A mystery is obscured, but will be revealed. A character will later walk through those French doors. The table is the location of the seance that's being planned; its shape represents unity. Bleaching the tablecloth suggests that revealing the truth may not be a good thing. That the tablecloth can be bleached shows that it is not white -- it's not pure. That's the secret again, the mystery that will be revealed by the end.]</span> Spiced air from the gardens gently wafted in.<span style="color:red;">[That garden is the location of the climax. The secret is indeed a "spicy" one. It involves adultery, amongst other things. This room is an important location; other rooms in the house are described far less fully. Here the room must stand for the others -- the picture the reader gets will form a template for the rest of the house.]</span>
Mrs. Collins was expecting her friend Mrs. Frederick Baxter.<span style="color:red;">[Straight narrative, introduces a second major (but not main) character.]</span> She had something she wanted to talk to Shirley about.<span style="color:red;">[Lets us know that Mrs. Baxter also is her husband's property, that we're in a certain social millieu. Tells us the character's name (by which we'll know her for the rest of the story). I say "talk to" rather than "talk with" to show what the power relationship is between these two characters.]</span> Last night the strangest thing happened. <span style="color:red;">[Straight narrative, introduces the plot.]</span> Mary Collins had known for years that the house was haunted, because there was a window on the second floor that would not stay closed if it wasn't locked. <span style="color:red;">[Setting the genre. This is a ghost story, in addition to being a mystery. The window is a red herring, by the way, but it will give our characters something to think about and something to do while the rest of the plot works out. It will also motivate our characters to stand where they need to be standing for certain crucial developments later.]</span> But last night, in the misty dark of twilight,<span style="color:red;">[Hammering home the darkness/obscurity imagery; contrast with the sunny day (though the sun is obscured as well).]</span> while entering the upstairs guest bedroom,<span style="color:red;">[Another important location, used in the run-up to the climax]</span> she saw the translucent<span style="color:red;">[The clarity imagery again.]</span> shape of a young lady, and the apparition looked at her and she felt --<span style="color:red;">[Oh, yes, indeed. Her feelings are very important in what is to come. But we aren't told just yet what those feelings were, because she thinks she knows them, but she really doesn't. I use the em-dash to show that the narrative is broken abruptly by the next bit of dialog. We're in third person limited, here, showing Mary's thoughts. The rest of the story will be in third person limited from the point of view of another character, who will be introduced in the next scene. This is the only time we'll be able to see our protagonist this clearly. We need to build up sympathy for her now.]</span>
"Mary, dear!"<span style="color:red;">[Dialog, breaking in on, and breaking up, that rather long narrative block we just had. Reinforces our protagonist's name. Reveals the charcter of the speaker.]</span>
It was Shirley, being shown in by Mr. Collins.<span style="color:red;">[Generally, it was is a weak opening for a paragraph. Shirley and Mr. Collins are major characters, but not protagonists. I don't want to take the focus off Mary Collins.]</span> Mr. Collins had retired at the end of the war, and he had been very helpful during his wife's recent illness.<span style="color:red;">[If I were doing this again, I'd have said the Great War rather than the recent war, in order to more firmly establish the time. That "recent illness" is very important, but I want to slip it by the readers. Sure, the clue's there, and it's on the very first page, but I don't want them to pick up on it yet. So, I put it in a weak paragraph that's also introducing Mr. Collins (the villain of the piece, as it happens).]</span>
Mary had the tea things ready, and the tea itself, a nice oolong with a great deal of milk and sugar, occupied their time along with the small talk of doings in the town.<span style="color:red;">[A busy, fussy sentence to show the frivolous nature of our main characters, and to contrast with what worse is to come. Reveals character, too -- these are tea drinkers (affected), who artificially sweeten their lives. The milk makes the tea very light and cool -- again the darkness/light secrets/truth theme.]</span> Mr. Collins removed himself to his study.<span style="color:red;">[Get him off stage, so we can get the rest of the plot rolling. "Removed himself" is affected -- we're putting on airs here. The sentence is otherwise quite plain, in contrast to the preceding one.]</span> He had always played the stock market, and played it well. The war had left him wealthy, still quite young, for munitions had been greatly in demand. The prosperity that the whole nation now experienced made his investments more valuable by the day, while the contacts that he had across the nation gave him insights that perhaps other men didn't have.<span style="color:red;">[More of Mr. Collins' character: "insights...other men didn't have" suggests secrecy (and he has a secret, oh my, yes). We talk more about the money he has ... he's nouveau riche. Perhaps he's a poser? I missed another opportunity to plant the timeframe here: Writing "greatly in demand in Flanders" would have done the trick. Someone who has made his money as a war profiteer is not exactly an admirable man. I'm trying to imply that he's not what he really seems, and is not a good person.]</span>
Now was the time for Mary to tell the story, for that delightful frisson, in the bright afternoon.<span style="color:red;">[Short paragraph, simple style, for contrast. The light imagery again. "Frisson" to show the class and style, and affected manner, of the characters. A weak opening on this paragraph, to contrast with the strong one that's coming, and perhaps make that one stronger than it otherwise would be by comparison.]</span>
"I'm sure you'll think I'm being silly," Mary said, "but I felt such a feeling of sadness coming from that woman.<span style="color:red;">"That woman" is traditionally the name that wives give to their husbands' sweeties. Sadness, grief, woe -- yeah, we'll have that in spades before the end. Being silly? Yes, that's how Mary thinks of herself.]</span> It was like a palpable wave.<span style="color:red;">[Mary speaks in cliche. This to reveal character. She's shallow.]</span> I gasped and took a step backward. Then I switched on the light, and she was gone!"<span style="color:red;">[I'm hitting the light/dark truth/secrets theme again. Also moving the plot right along.]</span>
"You're so brave," Shirley said. "I'm sure I would have screamed and run."<span style="color:red;">[An ironic comment, when we learn what really happened, and see what will happen. Sets up the climax for the reader. Also reveals character.]</span>
"I was too surprised," Mary said. <span style="color:red;">[You can say that again, sweetie.]</span> "And it wasn't until the light was on that I realized it wasn't a real woman at all; she was gone.<span style="color:red;">[Truth/reality light/dark knowledge/secrets. And a hint of the ultimate secret here. This sentence pulls a lot of freight.]</span> She would have had to come past me to leave the room, you know. I looked under the bed and in the closet, and in the bathroom, but she was gone completely.<span style="color:red;">[Yes, she's gone. If we want to talk about the young woman as being a character, no, she doesn't act in this story. But she's very important, as we'll see. It's important to me to show that she isn't really here, physically.]</span> It was only then that I realize I'd been able to see through her."<span style="color:red;">[The mystery will be revealed. I'm promising the reader that all will be made clear in the end. Making a deal with the reader -- go along with me, believe in ghosts for a minute, and I'll tell you what the reality is.]</span>
"You could? What are you going to do now?"<span style="color:red;">[Good questions. Get the plot moving.]</span>
Mary's eyes sparkled, and she sipped her tea. "I thought it would such great fun to have a seance."<span style="color:red;">[Good innocent fun. But toying with dark powers. All while holding that light, sweet tea. The sparkling eyes are for innocence. Innocence is one of the things that we'll lose when the revelation comes, when the light reaches the dark places.]</span>
"Are you quite certain? I mean, if you felt this sadness ... that can't be good."<span style="color:red;">[Listen to Shirley, Mary! Shirley is the reader's voice here. And she's right. It isn't good. But, if Mary doesn't have her seance this is going to be a very short story. So, holding the seance isn't such a very bad idea (waking the spirits of the dead, and possibly unholy things, isn't such a bad idea?) that we devolve into an idiot plot.]</span>
"She wants help, the poor thing," Mary said. "This is an old house. After all these years of opening the window, she's finally gotten to trust me enough to appear and ask for my help."<span style="color:red;">[Hoo boy is Mary wrong. That red-herring window shows up again. The rest of the story depends from this paragraph. It reinforces what's gone before, and sets up the rest. Very simple style, straightforward sentence construction. I want the readers to understand this one.]</span>
"What does Roger say about your plan?"<span style="color:red;">[Social construct: Mary is controlled by Roger.]</span>
"Oh, I haven't told him. You know what a stick-in-the-mud he is."<span style="color:red;">[But not that controlled. A deeply ironic statement, here, given what will be the final image of the climax. (Yes, mud is involved, and long thin things found in mud. Long, thin things that had been put there (stuck there, one could say) by Roger.]</span>
<span style="color:red;">[At this point we go to a linebreak. We never do see this promised seance, though we'll be told about it several times, and we will see a second seance in the same location with the same characters. The story resumes after the linebreak some weeks later and three thousand miles away, with a whole new character being introduced. Mary has a problem, a mild one. She wants to find out about the ghost. Working out that knowledge will take the rest of the story. We'll learn along the way that what she thought was her problem is nothing compared to what her problem really is.]</span>
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