Episode #6.07 – Author Commentary (spoilers through 6.07 only) Read More »
The post Episode #6.07 – Author Commentary (spoilers through 6.07 only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>Well hello. Fancy meeting you here!
Yes, so, let’s take it as read that I am, as ever, very sorry for the lengthy delay before publishing Via Dolorosa, Part III. I had hoped that such egregiously long breaks were a part of my past, but… I’m not entirely sure why I had that level of hubris.
I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been fantastically busy producing dozens of books. Wouldn’t that be nice? But while I have spent much time working on other projects, including helping a co-author with the middle book in a trilogy, I wouldn’t say that’s what’s kept me away from ASF. As usual it’s the ongoing struggle with my own mind that is primarily to blame.
But no one wants to hear me complain about that, not even my shrink and I pay her, so let’s move on.
One of the non-Depression-related mental clogs, so to speak, is actually worth speaking about here. When I started this “Six Weeks” experiment–i.e., writing from the POV of one character (or a small set of related characters) throughout an entire installment–I thought it would be a terrific challenge.
Well… it was a challenge, anyway.
After spending so many years writing for multiple viewpoints, sticking with one person for so long, especially when the actual plot beats (reactions to the wedding massacre) have been similar, turned out to be more stifling than freeing. I’m not saying I regret the experiment, because I think (in particular) the Hannah installments were effective and couldn’t possibly have been as impactful as I believe they were, if they’d been written in the standard three-or-four plotline/POV format of ASF.
But when it came to Ian’s storyline, I wanted to cover so much of his torturous experience in Tag’s cellar, and his first day of freedom, that it took much longer–imagine that, Kira’s writing becoming too wordy!–to get through. And that meant pushing it to three installments, and I simply didn’t want to go back into Ian’s mental state yet again.
And yet, I’d made the commitment. Being somewhat perfectionist (and not in a good way–that isn’t a humblebrag, it’s a genuine flaw that is toxic to a creator who wishes to produce material regularly), I felt unable to break the format and swap to someone else’s POV. No, I had committed to Ian, and so, damn it, the next episode would be following through on that.
That, my dear friends, colleagues, readers, and spambots who visit this page, is what led to a mental standoff. I refused to budge, even though it meant I also felt trapped and uninspired. And that meant paralysis.
So here we are, nearly two years later. What helped me through this latest obstacle was the decision that, while I would stay with Ian’s POV through to the finish line, I would trickle more hints about what’s going on with other characters and their own arcs as possible. Which is why (spoiler alert for those who haven’t read the episode yet…) Julie shows up and I teased the heck out of whatever happened to the Fiores–not to mention Laurie–at the wedding; Tristan appears with a curious bruise and a somewhat tougher attitude, at least through Ian’s perspective; Chelsea’s hearing situation is clearly more pronounced than before; and Jason’s behavior (and a teaser that he’s spent more time with Becca) continues to seem out of character.
Finally, I also decided to focus more on depicting Adele as a human being, a possibility thanks to her strong feelings for Ian and her grandchildren. What keeps Adele from being Cruella DeVille (I hope) is that she does have real emotions. We don’t see this side of her that often, but here I could let her drop her defenses, all as a result of Hannah and Nick’s devastating loss.
It would take a monster not to react to parents losing both children in six agonizing weeks (hence Danielle’s sociopathic lack of response), and Adele–as horrible and cruel as she is–isn’t a monster. Even as awful as she is to Laurie, and as cold as she is to her son, and calculating/vicious regarding Martina and that damned necklace… Adele isn’t inhuman.
(Heck, even Dean is shown to be affected by his boss’s grief.)
These are the elements added–some of them planned all along, others not so much–that made me able to produce this final (yay!) part of Via Dolorosa. Of course, the Daphne/Ian pairing remained an important through-line of the piece, and this time I showed the identical scene as in #6.04–Daphne in the waiting room after Tyler’s liver transplant, then discovering Ian’s family and realizing just who Tyler’s mystery donor was–all from Ian’s POV. The gimmick isn’t a well from which I want to draw too often, because it can get too repetitive. But for characters whose thoughts and reactions to the same event are especially important, I do want to keep using this technique.
In any event, now that Via Dolorosa has been travelled at last, we can move on. And because I desperately need a break from the Nichols side of the equation–and the wedding tragedies as a whole–I’ll be switching to a new set of characters whose lives were frozen with fairly significant cliffhangers at the end of (what is now) Season Five. Which ones? Well, you’ll find out. But yes, this means you’ll still be waiting to find out who lived and who died. Sorry!
One last thing. As mentioned at the end of this installment, I’m dedicating this to the memory of Eadie Silverberg, who passed away on December 7, 2014. I wrote a post on Facebook about Eadie, but I’ll add briefly that Eadie was one of ASF’s first readers, a dear woman whose encouragement and enthusiasm–and even ASF-evangelism in the early days when she posted to soap opera newsgroups about this new web-based story she’d discovered–meant the world to me. I am so sorry that I never got a chance to meet or speak with her in person. If the many emails and messages through the mailing list were even a glimpse of her humor, kindness and effervescence, Eadie’s family and friends were lucky indeed.
Thanks to everyone for reading and, as always, your patience. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.
P.S. happy new year (or L’shanah tovah ) to those who celebrate Rosh Hashana!
The post Episode #6.07 – Author Commentary (spoilers through 6.07 only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>Episode #6.06 – Author Commentary (spoilers through 6.06 only) Read More »
The post Episode #6.06 – Author Commentary (spoilers through 6.06 only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>I intended “Via Dolorosa, Part 2” to be the final segment of the “Ian” tale. I really, really did. Just in the last episode’s commentary, I boasted how quickly I was zipping through time. No turtle-esque, overly detailed pacing, nossir.
Well, okay, this week I couldn’t help myself. Ian’s story is just too character-changing, and there were beats that simply needed to be played, and… in the end, only about two or three days pass in this installment. In fairness, that’s still better than 99% of ASF episodes. But it wasn’t what I wanted for this miniseries, so I’m still disappointed in myself. Nevertheless, if readers are into Ian’s tale, I don’t think they’ll feel the same disappointment. At least, I hope not.
Spoilers, as always, are ahead.
Ian has run the gauntlet and he’s still enduring some pretty traumatic situations. The Danielle scene… I fought myself on that, I have to tell you. The debate in my mind was pretty angsty. I knew I wanted her to be this despicable, for Ian to be this degraded by someone he… well, not trusts, he’s not an idiot enough to trust Danielle.
But I needed Ian to be hurt even once he got home, even when he thought he was safe. Because he isn’t. And it’s horrible to do such a thing to a young man who’s been through this ordeal, but he must be broken down and the pieces torn into little shreds in order for… ah, but that would be telling.
Meanwhile, Danielle’s awfulness keeps finding new lows. She is a master at this. Hey, I didn’t want Taggart to get all the kudos for being a scumbag. He’s good, no doubt about that, but Danielle has the homecourt advantage here. She raised Ian, seduced him, and took control of his life; once Ian fell for Daphne, she sensed him getting away from her. Danielle didn’t like that. She needs to prove that her influence over him is absolute. Also, and this is not to be underestimated, she enjoyed the risk of it all.
Pragmatically I needed Ian to get to that funeral, because I’d already established that old gentleman who got through the security at the cemetery back in #6.01; he was described by Cameron as having been seen by “my son,” and thereby causing a ruckus. Now in that episode, I intentionally showed the man through Hannah’s eyes, where she saw him at another grave far away as vulnerable and touching, a fellow mourner. Once Cameron and Nick suddenly claimed he was a danger, Hannah blew up and perhaps the readers were on her side at the time.
Thanks to the dovetailing timelines, we’re now watching this through Ian’s POV and getting a far better rationale for why this stranger was seen as a possible threat. Ian conveyed this to his father (and also, presumably, was quickly whisked home before Hannah saw him). And thus a new chapter in the Vaughan/Nichols war may have just begun.
One angle I certainly wanted to explore was what the heck happened to the iCafe/Sorcery opening, considering Ian is a partner/owner, and Daphne a hostess (and Julie also had a job there, but… there hasn’t been a Fiore seen anywhere in this miniseries, so we’ll have to wait and see what’s up with that).
Of course, Tristan was at the wedding too, and thus bringing him and Ian together seemed a natural. This was a bit of housekeeping that was necessary to update readers, letting y’all know that the opening has, of course, been moved up to April. Which will be just at the end of the “six weeks” timeline, for those keeping track at home. (In other words, no one but me!)
In addition, throughout the miniseries I’ve been using these dovetailing stories to connect episodes with one another. Hannah’s episode had a hint of Daphne in it; Daphne/Tyler’s episode had plenty of references to Ian; and now we’re in Ian’s POV, where we begin to look at Becca, Jason and, yes, Tristan. The benefit of the Tristan connection is that he’s peripherally involved in one of the few cliffhangers not related at all to the massacre. I’m anxious to get to that because I think we all need a slight break from wedding-related plots.
Finally, there’s Daphne. The Daphne/Jason scene was referred to in an earlier episode, when she told Tyler that Jason had revealed that she was the reason Tyler had been so badly hurt. But I wanted to show it, both because it’s important for Daphne, for Jason–who is showing far more anger and frustration than he ever has before, and of course this trauma will be changing him as well–and for Ian, who of course overhears the tale and has second thoughts about visiting Daphne at all.
Even the dried flowers he buys her, the ones that were lost track of and Daphne won’t actually receive until she leaves the hospital (and then tosses them out, even after we see Ian spending such care in picking the flowers and partiularly the laurel leaves), get a mention. And it all goes back to Daphne/Cameron/Ian’s first meeting waaay back in the third season, where Cameron told the story of how the mythical nymph Daphne had her life destroyed by Apollo’s relentless pursuit of her.
Another mention of Cameron I’d like to make. He’s been the most pleasant surprise in the miniseries for me. I’m not trying to make him a good guy, honest. I’ve said it before, but I have to repeat it: he’s not a good guy. He’s a complex bad guy who loves his children, but apparently is too enmeshed in his power grab to get out of the business that’s thus far caused Ian’s near-destruction and Becca’s shooting.
(Simon has gotten off scot-free so far, and perhaps that’s because I admit he’s a cipher and it’s a pity to waste any good trauma on him when no one will care. He won’t be a cipher for long, but that development will have to wait for next season. Biiig plans for Simon, trust me.)
Exactly how I’m dealing with Part 3 of Ian’s tale is currently being fought over in my mind. It may get its own third part, but I might split it with the Becca/Jason story, if I can manage it. The more efficient I can get, the better.
What are your thoughts on these developments? Please do get in touch by the comments below, Facebook, our message board, or the mailing list.
As always, thank you for reading, thanks for your patience, and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and a very very happy new year!
The post Episode #6.06 – Author Commentary (spoilers through 6.06 only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>Episode #6.05: Reader Commentary Read More »
The post Episode #6.05: Reader Commentary first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>Note from ASF author Kira Lerner: to enhance the interactivity of ASF, I’ve solicited these reader commentaries, which will be written by an avid ASF reader and community member. All opinions are completely independent and may contain criticism and/or praise, or simply ruminations on individual storylines/characters/the webserial as a whole. I have no editorial control over what’s written (except maybe regarding typos–what can I say, it’s my job!). Please enjoy and share your feedback. Thanks for reading! — Kira
Welcome to the official About Schuyler Falls Reader Commentary!
For those not in the know (which is… all of you!), I have been asked by Kira to write down my live play-by-plays down on the blog. So from now on, once you have read the episode, you can migrate to the blog to see my thoughts and reactions. I will try and summarise as I go along but again you should really read the episode first.
And now the post!
Episode 6.05: Via Dolorosa Part I
Scene 1: We pick up almost immediately where we left off with this storyline, with Ian seeing Daphne getting shot. The thugs start attacking him. They tell him to ‘shut the fuck up’ and then begin talking among themselves. Ian learns that they plan to keep him as a hostage. He tries to fight back but it clearly isn’t working. The thug starts choking him as he silently asks for someone to help them.
Commentary: I think I’ll outline the post thusly, summarising and then commenting scene by scene. Anyway my primary reaction to this is Oh Ian… It’s gotta be rough seeing the girl you fancy (I hesitate to use the word ‘love’) and your rival shot and stabbed.
But this whole thing must seem completely surreal to him right now – if it weren’t for all those punches and nearly being choked to death, I imagine it must seem like a dream – a particularly bad one. The only other character with which I’ve been getting this sensation is Hannah, and understandably so.
Scene 2: Ian wakes up in a limousine. Turns out the whole kidnapping thing wasn’t exactly planned. Still Tag is prepared to roll with it. Ian sees and hears the whole church massacre while I mentally tell Tag to fuck off because damn! That is evil. Tag does what all the evil villains do and rants about why he’s getting revenge. He slams Ian’s face into the glass partition.
Commentary: Seriously just go away Tag! I cannot even deal with you right now.
Lordy poor Ian. (I had a feeling before I even sat down to read this episode that I’d be saying this a lot). For all he knows, his family is dead right now. And he could be tortured, messed with, etc.
Even without the knowledge that Ian survived this, I wouldn’t think he’d die anyway because he’s a hostage. He’s far too valuable. Then again I guess if the ransom is paid, the kidnapper doesn’t have to follow through.
This is pretty heavy so far so on a light-hearted note… look, I’m the son of a church organist so this may have only occurred to me but that sign saying ‘no parking during services’ at the top of the page in the scenery box thing? Seems harsh to me. Of course now I’ve typed that, it doesn’t seem harsh at all. Naturally.
*Resists sudden urge to google ‘Via Dolorosa’*
Scene 3: Cameron stops shooting at the attackers to look for his family. He finds Danielle but not the children. Not at first. But after a while, he finds Becca trying to protect herself from the gunfire. She seems to have been shot in the thigh. He then locates Adele and Simon who both seem okay (considering the other injuries). He breathes a sigh of relief and then realises he hasn’t come across Ian. He then comes across Justin’s body and I start tearing up again because FUCK.
Excuse me a minute.
*downs alcoholic drink*
Better.
A paramedic asks Cameron to come outside to ID some bodies. He recognises Daphne immediately but not Tyler. They then show him the bloody trail Ian left behind. He’s questioned by some cops but doesn’t answer. He then vows to kill every last Vaughan man until he finds his son.
Commentary: If ever I said this webseries drove me to drink before, I didn’t mean literally. But I challenge anyone not to be emotionally affected by the description of Justin’s body. (He was, what, five? That’s just all kinds of messed up right there!)
Anyway back to the point of the episode, I’m torn!
On one hand, I’m all in favour of Cameron getting revenge on the Vaughans because it might lead him to his son. And because I like Ian. I don’t want to see him get hurt.
On the other hand, I was shouting at Nick for wanting revenge in the first episode because if the Nicholses weren’t in the mob, none of this would have happened. So if I’m suddenly supporting Cameron in his mission, doesn’t that make me a hypocrite?
Maybe I should read on before making my mind up.
And like I said in the forum, of course Adele survived. The whole state of New York could be completely destroyed by an earthquake and she would survive. Because she is invincible.
Scene 4: Ian regains consciousness. He’s in some dark room somewhere (today is specific day!). He manages to get up, and, as if waiting, Tag and a couple of heavies enter the room. Ian feels resentful that his father and uncle managed to win a mob war against the Vaughans without protecting their own (and really, who can blame him?). Apparently Ian has been out for ten hours. Tag offers to tell him what happened to his family but Ian fails at giving the acceptable answer and is punched in the gut for his troubles. Tag lies that Ian’s family is either dead or dying (and I really wasn’t expecting anything else from that douchebag). But Ian believes Tag anyway.
Okay apparently I was wrong. They’re going to kill (or attempt to kill) Ian anyway? Okay then. Taggart gets a hammer and strikes Ian’s kneecaps (OW!!!). He screams as Tag takes a second swing.
Commentary: Oh lord.
At least I was wrong about Tag killing Ian. But I’m not sure the alternative is much better because OUCH!!!
I think the only scene more painful to read (physically, I mean) than this was that scene in The Blackthornes where Suzanne broke Lon’s manhood. But this really is a close second.
I do hope the rest of the episode isn’t just a chronicle of Ian’s torture.
And my god, he knows about Justin’s death as well. Okay I may be fixating a little too much on that particular mortality but something like that is just soul-destroying!
I literally cannot think of a single good reason for Ian not to give up and die right now. And that’s just sad.
Scene Five: Apparently Cameron and Tag have been speaking. Tag congratulates Cam on staying alive but then ruins the moment by having Cam listen to Ian being tortured (lordy!). Tag tells Cam not to have anyone trace him else Ian gets it. Naturally Cam doesn’t listen.
He then thinks back to his introduction to Hannah Tierney who was probably a pole dancer or something before meeting and marrying Nick. He respected her for not rising to Danny and Adele’s japes, and respects her even more so now. She asks about his family and he fills her in. She seems resentful that Simon saved Adele’s life but he doesn’t blame her.
He asks her what she’s planning for Justin’s funeral. He puts a hand on Hannah’s shoulder, mainly to feel her touch (although he’s not attracted to her). He offers to take care of everything. Hannah wonders why so he tells her he needs to keep busy. She realises the Vaughans were behind it all. She shouts at him for continuing the mob war then screams at him to get out. He begs her again to let him plan the funeral and she grudgingly agrees.
As he approaches the elevator, he thinks if he plans a funeral for Justin, he won’t have to for Ian.
Commentary: These summaries are getting longer and longer!
Anyway I’m glad Hannah showed up. Still torn but glad. She reinforced my original arguments on the mob war. In that the Nicholses should get out before they’re all sleeping with the fishes.
But I’m still torn. Because Ian? Is being tortured by… there are no words for Tag right now. Apart from maybe ‘sick in the head.’
The one thing I’ve loved about SkyFalls (and I’m not gushing, this is my honest opinion) is the idea of the Nicholses. In one sense, they’re supposed to be villains. Pick a crime and they’ve probably done it, or ordered someone to do it.
And yet they’re not being presented as completely evil. Nick and Cam especially are three-dimensional characters. I for one still care about them. I even like Nick! (he will only be a favourite when he gets out of the mob. I’m not a complete sucker!)
And that’s why this particular moral dilemma works. Because yes being a mobster is all sorts of wrong and evil on so many levels. But in this case, Cameron doesn’t really have a choice, does he? Not one that I can think of anyway. Because Ian’s being tortured.
Full disclosure: If that were my son? I would probably be doing the same thing. If I were in the mob of course.
This episode so far is brutal but gripping! And for me, it’s solely because of that moral dilemma.
Scene 6: Ian’s lost track of the time but thinks ten to twelve days have passed. He starts to give in to the knowledge that maybe his father is dead. He realises he’s grown grateful for Tag in allowing him to live. He’s got food, water, and a drain so the basic necessities at least are covered. He hates himself for not being stronger (Oh Ian… and there I go again!). After all the beatings and torture, Tag seems to revel in taunting Ian out of hatred.
More graphic descriptions of torture. This definitely ranks as the most painful episode of Skyfalls ever!
He apparently fought back a few days ago, when he was drawn to a green apple Tag was eating. As per usual, Tag’s going on about family, loyalty, and how and why the Nicholses are shitheads. Talk about your one track man! And of course as soon as I say that, Tag goes on about wanting a piece of Becca (there is absolutely no way I can summarise that paragraph without coming off skeevy, is there? Because ewwww!!!) Ian reacts appropriately and I clap. Tag keeps on about Becca until Ian is sufficiently provoked and puts his hands around Tag’s throat.
Commentary: Kill him, Ian. Just do it. Seriously some guys do not deserve to live.
I cannot put into words how much I HATE Tag right now. It’s almost close to ‘hate him so much, I’d organise a church massacre just to kill him off’ except I wouldn’t organise a massacre because I’m not sick in the head UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE!!!
Okay so Tag only said this to provoke and torture Ian mentally. I get that. I do. But it was pretty torturous for me to read (in a good way…. is there a good way?). I don’t even like Becca and…
*shudder*
There really is not a lot for me to say except to rant about what a fucked up piece of shit Tag is. And that could take several pages. So in the interest of finishing this week’s commentary off, I’ll just go to the next scene.
Scene 7: Ian was obviously punished for his little rebellion, and he’s now wheezing thanks to his cracked ribs. He holds onto the hope that Daphne is alive (since Tag hasn’t mentioned her) and tries to remember being embraced by her.
Tag comes in with his thugs, holding a noose (gulp!). He’s bored with Ian’s company so has decided to kill him (naturally!). Ian meanwhile is wondering whether to escape through the open door.
Or he’s letting Ian go? Wait, really? What the hell is happening here?
Seems Tag is sending Ian off with a message. Knowing him, it’s probably Thank you for checking out the Tag Vaughan Torture Workshop. Please come back soon for more hammertime! Ian agrees to pass the message on, not that he has much choice. He says that if the Nicholses attempt any kind of revenge against the Vaughans, they’ll all die.
Tag tells Ian to close his eyes. The noose slips over his head and onto his eyes. Tag tells him if he does anything against orders, the noose will tighten. They take him outside and put him in a car trunk where he begins to fear for his life.
After a while, he’s taken out of the trunk, the rope around his hands loosened and shoved into some grass. One of the thugs tell him to wait until they’ve gone to move. He frees himself after they’ve gone. He’s been dumped on a highway access road. Alive but fearful for his family.
Commentary: Well at least Tag followed through on his promise, I guess?
I don’t really have a whole lot to say at the end of this episode. Which is pretty unusual for me.
It was very painful for me to read (I don’t just mean physically but it took me four days to recap this) because I’ve spoken to family members who have had relatives tortured by the Serbs when I was in Kosova. To see the same type of thing happen again here, in albeit an entirely different setting, is a little weird. And I’m not sure whether it needed to be that graphic, especially considering we knew Ian lived before the episode even began.
But that nitpick aside, the reason why it was painful generally is because I’m invested in Ian in particular. He’s not a favourite character of mine but he’s just outside the list.
And of course the character development following this must be a writer’s dream!
Anyway that’s where I shall leave it. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on this episode. There will be an article like this for the remainder of the sixth season, and then we go on the Great ASF Reread! Which I hope some of you will join me for because it’ll feel lonely with just me!
The post Episode #6.05: Reader Commentary first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
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The post Episode #6.05 – Author Commentary (spoilers through 6.05 only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>In “Via Dolorosa, Part 1,” readers at last learn just what happened to Ian Nichols the day of the church massacre and subsequent weeks — a puzzle that seems to be one people want solved already. Well, you all know the expression “Be careful what you wish for…”
This pair of installments (it’s possible it may grow to three, but I think I can keep things within a total of 16 scenes) was one of the most difficult to write, on a par with the Hannah “Whom the Gods Love” episodes. If you haven’t read this half yet, consider this fair warning that things are not pretty. This is a dirty business and Ian is one of the survivors who gets the closest to the center of it.
Spoilers, as always, are ahead.
Y’know, all evidence to the contrary, I don’t like making characters suffer–not this much. Sure, I’ve been cruel to many characters, with extra dollops of sadism ladled out to Martina, Tristan, Frank and Jonnie. You may now add a new character to that ill-fortuned pantheon. In fact, poor Ian might just be deserving first place in the line for hugs anyone may want to dole out. Dude goes through some hardcore suffering.
Hence the title of this multipart installment. For those not up on either Latin or Christianity, “Via Dolorosa” can be translated in a few different variations of “The Way of Sorrow,” “The Road of Suffering,” “The Way of Grief,” and so on. In Christianity it is a literal road in Ancient Jerusalem, the one taken (according to the New Testament) by Jesus as He carried the cross to His own death by crucifixion. The path becomes a hugely important pilgrimage particularly around Eastertime, and along the route are what’s known as the nine Stations of the Cross (basically, if rather crudely, ‘milestones’ that Jesus is said to have passed on the way, such as the Trial by Pilate, meeting Mary–Jesus’ mother, that is, certain points where Jesus “fell” or was prostrate during the ordeal, and so on). Maybe I’m doing a poor job describing it considering I’m not Christian, in which case I’m sorry.
I should mention that the people in my family are hugely empathetic–it’s not a religious thing, though I daresay empathy is one of the most important aspects of Judaism–but I’m just referring to my family’s psychological makeup. We are ridiculously empathetic, I mean, to the point where it sometimes becomes crippling. (Killing bugs, for example. I cry if I accidentally harm a fruit fly.)
The point is, despite not being Christian or even religious in any way, I’ve always found Jesus’ story tremendously poignant and meaningful. The term “Via Dolorosa” also has an external meaning, which of course comes from its original usage. It means a rite of passage through intense sorrow and suffering. Honestly this could have easily been used as the title for Hannah’s episode, but while I’m hardly comparing Ian to Jesus, at least Ian’s tale includes a bit of resurrection to it–by the end he’s free, anyway. Besides, I also really loved that quote from Menander — Those Whom the Gods Love Die Young — and using only a segment of it allowed me to keep an element of surprise regarding its true meaning, at least for those who don’t recognize the quote out of context.
Okay, so, speaking of suffering. It was a conscious choice to go this graphic with the violence visited upon poor Ian. I did some cutaways, and much of the violence is told through exposition rather than shown (usually a big no-no in fiction), mainly because while I would have no problem depicting everything full-out, I don’t want to repel people or think I’m doing torture porn a la the “Saw” movies.
Besides, the point of the torture scenes in this is to further Ian’s path in this arc; as in just about every storyline, I prefer to focus on the follow-up and how the character is affected by their experiences. While this does mean I have to show those experiences, I don’t think it’s essential to describe in gory detail the actual scene of Taggart using pliers on Ian’s fingers.
I even added a reader advisory/warning to the episode, which you may have noticed. ASF is considered “for mature audiences” anyway (that’s always been on the homepage as far back as 2001), but for some very few episodes, when I move things past the usual boundaries I’ve given the series, I figure it can’t hurt to add a little heads-up. Actually, some of the advisory is related not to anything that happens on screen, but the sadistic, vulgar and graphic way Taggart describes Becca, which of course he does specifically to torment Ian.
This may bring up a question. Is Taggart really this sick? Is he willing to commit statutory rape just to mess with his enemies? Well, a good question is, is having sex with a nearly-sixteen-year-old girl consensually THAT out of bounds considering we’re talking about criminals who murder and torture one another? But that’s a discussion best left waaay elsewhere, though I wanna make it clear that I’m not advocating anything pervy. Trust me, I tend to fall on the less liberal side of this argument (I’d be fine if the age of consent were 18, for example, although I’m not all that militant about it, honestly).
Getting back to the issue of what, if any, boundaries Taggart has in this war, and what his repulsive remarks to Ian were really about: let’s look back at last season’s finale for a second, because there was kind of a similar situation.
If you read that final episode, specifically the flashback just as Laurie was saying her vows, Adele warned Laurie that, should Laurie actually run off with Jonnie, Adele would initiate her alternate plans to ‘invite’ Laurie’s young sisters to take Laurie’s place as the Nichols Family Prostitute. While this seems a viable threat to Laurie, it was merely highly effective intimidation. Adele wouldn’t go through with it because she knew she wouldn’t have to go through with it. Laurie would never allow it to happen. It was the perfect trap.
So, am I saying Taggart is completely full of b.s. as he revoltingly relates his plans to seduce a fifteen-year-old? Well, I don’t think I’ll reveal that yet. But it is icky, isn’t it? He’s good at being bad.
Speaking of which, I was pleasantly surprised while writing this episode to find that I’d developed Tag into a villain who matches Danielle in sadism, which is kinda nice. Still, they’re very different personality types and psychological studies. I wouldn’t call Tag a sociopath, while Danielle absolutely is one. Tag is an unpredictable, vicious thug who’s reacting to (or taking advantage of?) the brutal murder of his own father, someone with whom he had a pretty conflicted relationship. Danielle would never shoot up a church of people, that’s not interesting to her. She might take a set of pliers to someone, but her attitude while doing so would be one of a sadistic scientist, coolly taking mental notes. Tag’s motive is that he wants to hurt back way worse than anyone has hurt him.
I’m hardly excusing him–I find him disgusting and scary (but fun to write, I admit). I just also think of him as the prime example in ASF of an angry, wounded, warped psyche with a desperate need to raise himself up by clawing viciously up the backs of others.
The other surprise for me in this episode was how much I wanted to delve into Cameron’s mind. I don’t think we’ve had a Cam POV scene more than two or three times in the entire time he’s been on the canvas. And each time he was cool, collected, very much the master of all he surveyed. I wanted to tear him apart and see what happened when the edifice he’s built around him came crumbling to the ground. (I guess I wanted to give him an edifice complex. Ha ha.)
Where he’s always been nothing but surface, in #6.05 and #6.06 Cameron is far more open–well, he has to be if we’re to see things from his perspective–and, dare I say it, even vulnerable. His scene with Hannah was the first example thus far of seeing a scene that I’d already shown, except this time viewing it from an alternate POV. In the original version (back in #6.01), Hannah was focused like a laser on Nick, Justin and Heather, and she was furious with both her husband and Cameron. Cameron had almost nothing to say, except (oddly–so it seemed to Hannah and presumably the audience at the time) volunteering to arrange Justin’s funeral. Four episodes later, we’re seeing exactly why Cam is so uncharacteristically tired and sad, and even lonely. I found myself writing his first meeting of Hannah, which let me show a new bit of backstory for both characters.
I do want to stress that he isn’t reaching out in a romantic way to Hannah. He’s just that scared for his son’s life that he needs someone to connect with. Can you imagine trying to get empathy out of Danielle? Her interest in Ian is purely opportunistic, a way to wield her power; there’s no love or concern for him as a human being. Deep down Cameron knows that (though obviously he doesn’t know the depth to which Danny’s sunk). Adele does truly love Ian, but the Cameron/Adele relationship is distant. I haven’t done a good job of exploring that yet, and it is high time I did; if I’d done so by now, it would have better explained Cameron’s loneliness in this episode. He can’t even commiserate with Nick, not that he and Nick are BFFs or anything, but Nick’s daughter was kidnapped once and Nick would certainly understand how Cam feels.
And yes, yes, of course I intentionally included the fact that Cameron has been on the other side of the kidnapping business–Chelsea’s situation only happened (in ASFtime) in early- to mid-January, so we’re talking just over a month ago. Thus, only a month ago he was perfectly fine with capturing Chelsea, taking Jem’s money, and blowing up the building with her in it just to teach Jem a lesson. Karma’s a bitch, huh? Although the karma isn’t very karmalicious, since it’s Ian paying the price most directly, not Cam. I guess I equate Cameron with Charles in this scenario. He put Charles through hell, and now Cameron is getting a big taste of the same medicine. Interesting that they’re both married to cold fish redheads, now that I think about it, both of whom are stepmothers to the kidnapped child. Although here the parallels end, because as much as I dislike Cynthia, she’s not anywhere on Danielle’s level. She does love Charles. Danielle couldn’t begin to comprehend what love is.
Anyway, this was Ian’s episode with a side of Cameron, and I really had “fun” utterly destroying poor Ian by putting him in this cruel situation. I almost wish his captivity had lasted longer–in fact, I think that’s why I had to make it so very intense and horrible; I knew I needed him home by a certain date (which you’ll see in Part 2), and that meant he couldn’t be in this circumstance as long as I’d rather have kept him there, ideally. Why am I rushing things when my instinct is to extend them? Well, that’s exactly the point. Part of this miniseries experiment isn’t just exploring a single storyline at a time, or playing with temporal mechanics by hopping back and forth and dovetailing storylines. Part of it is seeing just how much I can push storylines forward without angsting about showing every little detail. At no point in ASF’s history have I managed to run through even as much as twelve days in only seven scenes. So that, at least, has been a success for me. I only hope it’s working for you too.
Thanks again for reading! Please do get in touch by the comments below, Facebook, our message board, or the mailing list. I really want to know what you guys think!
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]]>The majority of both episodes is seen through Daphne’s perspective, and here I had to be careful. She can often be pretty self-absorbed, and that’s not a highly attractive quality in a POV character. Realistic for a teen? Absolutely. And for many people in other age groups, for that matter! She’s also at the cusp of adulthood–it’s revealed in the first half of TPoG that she’s had her 18th birthday while in the hospital–and thus she’s straddling two worlds.
True, Daphne is the daughter of a serial killer and a drug abuser, and once those two facts were revealed and her home life was ripped apart, she’s had to grow up largely on her own, because heaven knows her screwed-up parents weren’t doing much role modeling. Her other “parental” figure was her uncle Greg, and he was as hands-off as you could get as a temporary guardian. (Not surprisingly.) So Daphne basically felt her way around blindly, naturally making lots of mistakes in judgment–running away and kidnapping her baby sister, for example.
And yet by and large, readers have found Daphne too mature for Tyler. As I described in last week’s commentary, this was something I’ve tried to rectify by boosting Tyler’s characterization somewhat.
This week I purposely began with Daphne back in the role of a teenager. She may have gone through some serious traumas and life experiences, but she’s still a high school girl (sort of) and as she herself thinks, her injury pretty much gives her a legit reason for loafing around and watching lousy TV. Okay, admittedly this was an authorial dig against today’s soaps and talk shows. She could be doing stuff online, but I’ve never depicted Daphne as being hugely into the web. One big reason is that in my experience everything I write about the web is dated about two months after I post it. I run into this issue all the time with Jason, who’s a total tech geek and needs to be up on the latest stuff.
But I digress. So Daphne’s portrayed from the beginning of this installment as reverting somewhat to her teen persona, at least for the week she’s been home from the hospital. Before long, she’s back to taking a more proactive role in various storylines, by visiting Hannah herself to convey her sympathies about Justin (at this point in the post-wedding timeline, Heather is still alive), trying to convince Hannah to let her dad see Hope, and attempting without success to learn more about what’s going on with Ian, seeing her uncle and wondering what’s going on with him, visiting Tyler and continuing to show great concern–justifiably, as it turns out–over his condition, and finally waiting during Tyler’s surgery and the dual confrontations with Jason and Ian, neither of which she expected.
By the end she’s pretty much back in her young adult role, a girl burdened with a lot on her shoulders–weighty secrets, responsibilities, and worries. There’s really no going back for Daphne.
Despite giving Tyler an extremely serious health condition, and thus making it harder for Daphne to break up with him as she told Ian she’d intended to prior to the wedding, I definitely don’t want to depict the stereotypical romance plot where a woman just stays with a guy out of pity and noble sacrifice. I know that’s what the audience is expecting and I’m hoping to subvert it somewhat.
To show readers I’m all too aware of the trope trap Daphne/Tyler/Ian appear to be falling into, I added Jason to the mix. He’s a bit of the reader’s stand-in here by straight-up asking Daphne if she’s planning on staying with Tyler out of pity. I wanted to get this issue on the table as soon as possible, and Jason was the best way to do it.
Jason seems to be acting somewhat out of character, intentionally so, in how sullen and bitter he is toward Daphne. But in addition to furthering the Daphne plot, this scene, along with Charles’s observations in the previous scene from his POV where he notes Jason’s disobedience in not going to counseling, was meant to pique the reader’s interest regarding just what’s been going on with Jason. Of course, we’ll see more of that once we get to his storyline later in the miniseries. Suffice it to say that he’s been dealing with changing perceptions and a loss of innocence that I think are completely natural after his ordeal.
(Having the poor kid be trampled underfoot in the panic at the church is kind of a metaphor for just how much of a doormat he can be–honestly, I only just thought of this parallel now!)
Anyway, Daphne lies about her make-out session with Ian (can she do anything else at the moment? I mean, Tyler only just barely escaped death!), but she genuinely cares about Tyler and even if she and Ian were boinking like bunnies, I highly doubt she’d be cruel enough to reveal this to Jason, much less his brother.
After Daphne’s exhausting, terrifying night, which began seeing Tyler coughing/vomiting up blood–pretty harsh for anyone–she ran into the last person she expected at that moment: Ian. I wrestled only briefly in deciding whether to show Ian in this episode at all, but I thought it was vital for the burgeoning relationship. Last season Daphne had made a big decision to pursue Ian regardless of his attempts to push her away, and for the past couple of episodes I’ve shown her reverting to the “oh he doesn’t care about me so I’ll hate him” shtick.
Well, I knew I needed to end that wishy-washy behavior, and the best way to give Daphne the slap in the face she needed–and also to show her ability to keep a proper perspective regarding what’s important–was to show Ian among his family after Heather’s death. I consider it a sign of Daphne’s growing maturity as well as her feelings for Ian that the instant she saw him, while she briefly had the desire to yell at him for ignoring her for all this time, that desire vanished and she turned to supporting him–and instead of complaining about what he’d put her through, she focused on what Ian and his family were going through. I wanted to show that her feelings for Ian are far deeper than the need to ‘get back at him’ for avoiding her, and hopefully that came across.
The other benefit of showing Ian’s demeanor and physical condition was that it feels like the culmination of all the little vague hints I’ve given throughout the past four episodes, pushing the suspense about just what the hell happened to him. At long last, the next two-parter will reveal all.
Okay, Greg and Chelsea are really bad examples of “The Professor and Mary Ann” syndrome (a reference to the theme song for the old sitcom Gilligan’s Island, for those of you from overseas–the lyrics of the song go into details about most of the main characters, and only at the very end do they cram in the final two characters who are apparently not interesting enough to get descriptions–heck, in the original version, the lyrics were just “…and the rest!” Poor characters didn’t even get names). But I did want to mention why they’re included in this episode.
Actually, it’s probably pretty obvious why they’re there. Again, one of the reasons I’m using this different format is the ability to tease different storylines by having other characters dip in and out of the main storyline in the installment. We only get hints of what’s happening with them, the truth waiting to be shown for when it’s their turn in the spotlight.
So for this episode, those characters are Jason, Doug (to a lesser extent), Greg and Chelsea. Greg performed his role admirably, because in addition to letting me tease the Greg/Rena/Chelsea/Jem quad plot, he’s also a doctor and can perform some useful exposition / explanation about what’s going on with Tyler. Now, Doug could do that–but he’s too protective of Daphne to tell her the truth; Charles, as a doctor, could do so as well, but he’s far too close to Tyler and all the emotional stakes in the scene would have belonged to him, rather than Daphne. Thus Greg filled the Exposition Fairy part, and also let me dovetail another storyline at the same time.
Further, showing Chelsea visiting Tyler is a big step that not only advances her character development, but Tyler’s as well. Ty’s already mentioned that Chelsea visited him–this despite their relationship having been almost nothing but animosity since the first season.
Then her behavior coupled with Greg’s antsiness are obviously intended to pique the readers’ interest (it certainly works for Daphne!) about what exactly is going on with them.
Readers should expect to see these moments from Chelsea’s POV down the line.
So about the title. It has several meanings; Daphne owing Tyler her life (and thus perhaps feeling obliged to stay with him); Doug and Daphne feeling grateful for Nick saving Hope’s life (and being reluctant to push the Hope situation as a result); and, most importantly, Charles’s being grateful for the organ donation that saved Tyler’s life. In this case, the price was paid by Heather, Hannah and Nick.
Speaking of this final point: once it became clear in “Whom the Gods Love” that Heather was to become an organ donor, I figured readers would fully expect at least one of our characters to be recipients. I did a little bit of lampshading in the end of the second installment by having Hannah wish that Heather’s heart would be transplanted to someone close by, but revealing that this wouldn’t be happening. The whole “parents/loved ones listen in to their dearly departed’s heart now beating in someone else’s chest” thing is a melodrama staple and I wanted to sweep that out of the way as soon as possible. I’m not saying it’s not moving–one of the most touching storylines in soap opera history occured in a classic General Hospital storyline involving a baby’s death and subsequent donation of her heart. But again, it’s now a cliche, and… just, no. Didn’t want to go anywhere near that.
But there are scads of other useful organs, and there is certainly a reason I wanted to link the Nichols family to the Stanfords (in a way, it’s the least they could do after Chelsea’s kidnapping and near-death!). So I knew Tyler would be the recipient of one of Heather’s organs, and I assumed that most readers would be expecting this as well. So, rather than string it out, I got the inevitable over with by hinting that Tyler might need a liver transplant.
(BTW, he only had the injury he had because it’s possible for a young child to donate a liver to a teenager; this called for research, which I performed early this year. Among other stories, I learned about the inspiring case of Nicholas Green, a 7-year-old who was shot in the head and, when he died, his parents decided to donate his organs; his liver went to an adult. Livers are remarkable organs, actually, and can reform and grow after injury (unless the injury is catastrophic). So even a young girl like Heather could be a donor to an 18-year-old teen like Tyler.)
Because I do like secrets, I felt obliged to use a bit of obfuscation, just in case there were some readers who didn’t see the writing on the wall the instant I mentioned an organ transplant; hence mentioning Charles and Cynthia. Actually, I kinda had to mention Charles and Cynthia, and figure out why they wouldn’t be doing partial donations themselves–if you’ve got relatives with matching blood types, there’s no reason to use up an extra cadaver donor organ.
There are two usual reasons why a relative might not be a good living donor match: wrong blood type and physical health. Well, the blood type is easy enough: one of his parents is simply not a blood match. Since Charles is obviously in excellent health–or at least, he was until his whole family started getting injured!–I made him the non-matching parent. This meant that Cynthia needed a physical reason not to be a donor. The easiest reason to make her nonviable was, simply, smoking. Thus Cynthia suddenly became a smoker, which, yeah, I haven’t ever mentioned before. But on the other hand… why not? People do smoke, after all.
I admit she doesn’t seem like a smoker to me, and Dr. Charles Stanford doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d tolerate smoking around his kids. Still, nicotine addicts are stubborn and I figured, what the hell, it adds to the realism that someone in ASF smokes. Or at least, used to. I admit I felt compelled to make her a recent ex-smoker because I just feel Charles would have pushed Cynthia into quitting already.
Two other options were Chelsea and Jason. Chelsea, being a half-sibling, I figured would be easy to explain as a non-blood match. Jason… well, while I could’ve explained that he wasn’t a blood match either, I was a bit uncertain about that. It seemed unlikely that no one in this family would work. In the end what saved me was the extreme urgency of the transplant. This provided a good rationale for not moving on to other family members. Acute Liver Failure means you’re likely to die in a matter of hours, not days (thank goodness–uh, I mean, for my storytelling purposes!), and so there was simply no time for the necessary testing on other patients. Here was Heather, who just happened to die on the same day (okay, coincidence, but it happens!) and she also happened to have the same blood type (a bigger coincidence I admit). Thus, the link between Tyler Stanford and the Nichols family came to pass.
– While creating this miniseries I’ve been updating all the bios to make them current with the 6th season. In some cases, I’ve created multiple bios. Heather, Hannah, and Nick all get one new bio each during the brief period of time in between Justin’s death and Heather’s. So, depending where we are in the six-week timeline, Hannah and Nick may have either one child listed as deceased or two. Some will call me crazy for going back and forth between bios (for example, in this episode, Hannah, Nick and Heather each get the version where Justin is dead but Heather’s still in a vegetative state), but that’s just how I roll. Anyway, to date, I’ve updated/created a total of 48 bios. And those are just the characters who’ve either appeared or have been mentioned thus far in the season!
– Yes, that’s a new image for Cynthia. Always disliked the one I had for her. When I finally revamp the website everyone will have new depiction images, hallelujah (I’m paricularly psyched for the Ian redo), but in some cases I had to strike early. Cynthia is now suitably attractive rather than somewhat frumpy. Not that ASF can’t have ‘frumpy’ characters, but Cynthia has been described as elegant and youngish (at least, she’s younger than me, so officially you’re damn straight I consider her young!), and I figure she needs to be way more attractive than the Gladys Kravitz lookalike I was using. The same thing occured with Alicia Vasquez in “Whom the Gods Love.” Alicia got a major upgrade, no offense to the anonymous model I used for the original.
– Certain character photos have been altered so they’re no longer smiling. (At least, there are versions both smiling and serious.) I just can’t deal with seeing a happy, smiling Hannah in a scene after she’s just lost one of her kids, y’know?
– Cornwall Medical Center officially has more images depicting its various interior locales than any other setting in ASF history. Because sooo much of this entire season will be or has been set there, I knew I’d need to have more than a simple exterior shot; things would get boring very very quickly (even though it’d certainly have made my life easier!). Thus far we’ve got setting shots of the exterior, the ICU hallway, a sample ICU room, the waiting room area, the doorway to the O.R., the hospital chapel, and a sample regular corridor. As you can see, no expense has been spared in the set budget!
And that closes this two-parter. I think it’s telling that this feels like a lighter pair of episodes than the first two, despite this one containing a possibly dying son and a heartbroken girl. I hope it turned out well for you guys, and I also hope these ruminations aren’t hugely boring.
Next up: Ian finally gets his turn in the spotlight. Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll share the episode, click “like” or “+1” on Google or Tweet or comment or just click the MoodThingy option below. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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]]>If this half of “The Price of Gratitude” feels a bit short and anti-climactic, I apologize. TPoG was really intended as a single episode, more so even than last week’s. Together, the entire thing will encompass either 13 or 14 scenes. Admittedly that isn’t huge for an ASF episode, but I’m quite conscious of the fact that ASF episodes are too damn long for a single sitting. They’re daunting. The two solutions I can think of are: eliminating the details that make the episodes long, or splitting them up.
The thing is, I don’t want to eliminate the details. I’ve said it before, possibly on an EpiCast but maybe just in conversation with Michael (author of the webserial Footprints), who’s my co-host on the EpiCast as well as a writer I admire: I try to make ASF a mix of the high-stakes plots of a nighttime serialized drama with the detailed character development and exploration of a daytime soap. I love that character exploration; it’s what I miss most from the daytime serials I loved as a teen through my late twenties (basically, the mid-1980s – 1992), and why I got sick of them and today can’t bear them–because they no longer care about characters.
ASF was Cassie and my answer to the style of storytelling that we missed. Sure, we loved the higher stakes of primetime dramas too, and of films as well, and of course great/fun novels while we’re at it. I’m not skipping beats just to speed things up arbitrarily and turn the serial into something I don’t find fulfilling to write (hopefully, you guys find it fulfilling to read too).
Anyway, all this is to say that despite my fetish for detailed character development and believable (if sometimes melodramatic) plotting, I also don’t want ASF to be so unwieldy that no one can ever catch up because episodes are 15,000 words long and it’s just too overwhelming to fall behind.
Sooooo, that’s the long way of saying: this episode was 15K words long and I split it up at a relatively reasonable place so that each half is a meal that’s a far more digestable size.
In the first two-parter of the miniseries, “Whom the Gods Love,” the installment was easily split at a much more natural resting place. The funeral was over, Hannah had confronted her husband and Cameron, and there was a bit of a cliffhanger regarding her finally realizing that something had happened to Ian. Part 2 began with a change of time period, the beginning of Heather’s story, a diversion with the Hope plotline (which, obviously, was continued and will continue moving forward), and finally the slow, inexorable decline of poor Heather’s condition. All very satisfying and meaty.
Wow, all this verbiage and I still haven’t addressed THIS episode yet! What trivia tidbits do I have to offer in this commentary?
Okay, how’s this: In this episode, we spend more time in Tyler’s head than in any other ASF episode.
Now a fair response to that trivia might be: “Um, yeah, Kira, and now we see why. He’s just a regular guy. What’s special about him?”
My answer to that last question would be–not much, but a helluva lot more than before.
It’s taken me 16 years (on and off) to get a handle on Tyler Stanford. Unlike almost every other ASF character, he’s not neurotic. It’s the nutcases, the troubled folks, the angsty, who fascinate me and make for particular interesting POV characters. Their minds are unusual; they have a lot of tumult going on inside them, or (in the case of someone like Martina–she’s not a neurotic, for example, but she certainly is troubled) outside them. Or, to take another POV character I enjoy who’s not neurotic: Jonnie. I freakin’ adore showing scenes from his perspective. I know his mental voice, I know his external voice (they aren’t hugely different, even when he’s keeping secrets from the majority of the rest of the cast). But he has sardonic thoughts about everyone and he lets me take a darker viewpoint of even likeable characters such as Frank. Even Jonnie’s thoughts about Rena or Hannah are enlightening.
Okay, this isn’t supposed to be a paean to one character; it’s unseemly. Point is, Tyler is, as my hypothetical interlocutor above said so pertinently, just a regular guy. I don’t actually empathize with “regular guys” all that much. Even Mike Fiore… he’s a ‘regular guy’ but he has more frustrations, more experiences to deal with. Tyler’s been a good-looking basketball star with a pretty girlfriend, supportive and present parents, annoying half-sister, admiring younger brother, and offscreen friends. He’s not a deep thinker–he hasn’t had to be. Where’s the fun in looking at things from a generally happy kid’s POV?
Then along came Ian and Daphne. The readers saw at once that Ian/Daphne had way more chemistry than Tyler/Daphne. It was obvious the dramatic flow was in favor of Ian/Daphne; there’s internal and external conflict causing problems, for a long time neither of them wanted to admit their attraction, major angsty and action-oriented plots kept throwing them together, and so on.
Faced with all this, what does Tyler have? Does anyone want Tyler and Daphne together? I’ll wait while you all answer.
Hmm, do I hear crickets, or is that my tinnitus acting up again?
You see? That’s been my challenge. Oh, I’ve thrown some minor obstacles in his way; Charles doesn’t approve of Daphne, he’s annoyed wth Tyler blowing off schoolwork and spending too much time with Daphne’s problems (which in fairness is a perfectly legitimate and believable objection, and I don’t think that was a bad beat to play at all, especially considering it paralleled Charles’s own background with his troublesome first wife, Roberta, thus letting me explore Charles as well). Meanwhile, Doug isn’t thrilled by Daphne’s relationship with Tyler either, but really, in his case that’s more dog-in-the-manger sour grapes (to combine two Aesop’s Fables there). It’s the fact that Tyler’s Charles’s kid that bugs Doug, not really Tyler himself. So I hardly count that.
Somewhere toward the middle of the interminable Fourth Season That Was (now the fifth season), I took a look at Tyler and thought to myself: Wow, it would be so, so easy to just send Tyler off to college and get rid of him already. Toward the end of the (now) Fifth Season, Daphne’s been cutting classes and isn’t interested in graduating, while Tyler did well on his SATs and seemed headed for Cornell. Yay, soon the unimportant leg of the uneven Daphne/Ian/Tyler triangle would be gone, the road’s clear for whatever’s in store for the preferred duo of Ian/Daphne! Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Well, screw that. ASF isn’t supposed to be easy peasy lemon squeezy. It’s supposed to be… difficult difficult lemon difficult. (That’s for you fans of In The Loop.)
Seriously, I don’t like making things easy on myself as a writer (heaven forfend!) any more than I like making things easy on my characters. I wanted to make Tyler likeable, I wanted him to mature already, I wanted him to ease into a more, dare I say it, protagonistic position. Most of all I wanted readers to like him, to understand him. Hell, I wanted to like and understand him!
And so began his very slow (and possibly invisible to you guys who are reading this in real-time) metamorphosis from shallow jock to caring but not sappy young man. Chelsea’s operation at the very end of last season is, in a way, his shining hour (and I admit this was with an eye to what I knew would be happening to him at the wedding). It’s not your standard heroic shining hour, I admit. There’s an episode where Charles, Cynthia, Tyler and Jason are all waiting for Chelsea’s ear operation results. The scene is actually from Jason’s POV. Charles is pretty much in a haze, Cynthia is trying to offer what she calls support (okay yeah, I don’t like her much) and wants to talk to Charles in private, but Jason doesn’t notice this.
Tyler, however, does.
He suddenly tells Jason to come with him to get something to eat since it’s obvious Jason’s hungry. Jason isn’t hungry and doesn’t take the hint until Tyler insists. Tyler later explains that he knew their mom wanted to talk to Dad, particularly about not having Chelsea stay with them post-operation. Tyler says it’s probably best that Chelsea doesn’t stay. Jason gets annoyed with him for continuing to hold a grudge against Chelsea considering what she’s going through.
Here, Tyler takes a completely reasonable position: he says, no, he’s not a big fan of Chelsea, but the truth is, their sister doesn’t want to stay with them either, especially with Cynthia for company; their dad wants to take care of Chelsea mainly for himself, because he needs to make up for being a negligant/absentee father during Chelsea’s childhood.
There’s more of this discussion where the two brothers bond in a way they never have before, but I don’t want to go on about it. The point is, this is really where Tyler shows that he’s grown up and learned something about his father and their family dynamics. It doesn’t come out of the blue, at least I hope it didn’t. And from then on, there were other little moments. Tyler makes objections to Ian’s behavior regarding Daphne that are perfectly legitmiate: Ian is being manipulative, he is constantly pulling Daphne toward him and pushing her away the next minute. He’s invited her to fancy occasions (the opera, a dinner party, a formal wedding) where Daphne’s out of her depth and thus reliant on Ian to show her the ropes.
Meanwhile, in a scene at the Arleigh School, despite the fact that Tyler’s pissed off with Daphne, I had him be utterly unintimidated by Becca and her crew when Becca was being a total witch to her. He set her straight and told her to shove off. Even Becca was impressed.
Finally, there was Valentine’s Day/Victor and Laurie’s wedding. Again, almost everything was from Jason or Daphne’s POV, but we did start to move into Tyler’s perspective (at least, once he decided to break up with Daphne… just before he got stabbed). Tyler stood up for himself and explained to Daphne that he was tired of her stringing him along; yet he also told Jason that even if Daphne was acting inconsiderate, he did love her and wanted to make sure she was safe. He also gently told Jason to watch out for Becca–showing that despite his bluster, Tyler does notice Jason and sees the company he’s been keeping.
And I even made sure to show him not being a typical soap opera idiot: when he started to investigate the missing security guards around the church, he stopped himself and thought, “What am I, stupid, walking around by myself? Call 911 and have the cops deal with it.” Isn’t that what we’ve been shouting at self-appointed amateur detectives since time immemorial? Okay, this time it was too late and the poor guy got himself cruelly stabbed for his trouble, but he tried to make that call. Thus winning him intelligence points above 99% of soap opera teens.
So at long last, there’s this episode. I knew, when he was stabbed in last season’s finale, exactly what would happen to him. I know his fate and I wanted readers to care what happens to him. I don’t want you to think: a) thank God, we’re getting rid of this annoying obstacle to Daphne/Ian, or b) Kira’s taking the lazy route out of things. I want y’all to be thinking c) oh crap, just when I started to like this guy! When did I actually start to care about him? Here he is showing some good common sense and knowledge as a would-be doctor and it’s only going to end in tears. Damn it Daphne he’s a perfectly good catch and look how hard he fought to save you! Now he’s getting worse and you’re not even paying full attention to what’s happening because you’re obsessing over Ian!
Okay, you probably won’t be thinking all that. But if anyone’s thinking any part of option C, I’ll be happy.
As for the rest of the episode, most of it is in the very-familiar Daphne perspective, and while she too is in a difficult position, she’s working from some basic misunderstandings here. Showing Daphne’s POV lets me continue the suspense of what exactly is going on with Ian, something I teased in the last two episodes, and continue to do so in this one. Again, this is the unique aspect of this changing perspective miniseries I’m enjoying so much.
By the end of this episode, SPOILER ALERT (although I assume you’ve read this episode already if you’re reading this commentary), Daphne appears to have ‘heard’ from Ian, or at least, she discovers he sent something a week ago (for those keeping track of the timeline, which is probably no one but me, this episode ends on Week 3 post-wedding, so the flowers arrived two weeks after the massacre). I do have some fun here, since we have seen flowers being sent to a woman that were a bit of a misdirection (the bouquet Laurie received just prior to the wedding). But there is a big clue in the dried flower composition itself, if you know your botany.
Anyway, I just want readers to start to wonder: okay, so Ian is alive, apparently? Why isn’t he seeing Daphne? Last episode Hannah called his situation “horrifying.” What the heck is it? You’ll get some more clues in the second half of “The Price of Gratitude.” And by the following episode after that, Ian’s story will be told, I promise.
Finally we have Doug’s perspective, where we see his impetus for getting in touch with Alicia Vasquez and wanting to see Hope. At this point, he feels sympathy for Hannah (who just lost Justin) but he doesn’t realize she’s about to get a second major blow in three more weeks, so his thoughts are mainly for Hope here. I touched base with Nora–mainly due to the fact that Daphne’s mother simply couldn’t ignore her daughter after such an incident, even if she’s in prison. But also because… well, Nora isn’t completely gone from their lives, is she? I don’t want y’all to forget that.
I’ve sure written a lot about an episode that didn’t seem to have much going on, haven’t I? I’ll end with a promise that Part 2 is more filling. There are some beats played that you probably should be expecting considering previous events, but perhaps… not. And it certainly contains, emotionally, more of what you’d expect from an episode following a church massacre. I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but… it’s an ASF thing. And hopefully that’s what you guys came here for, right?
Thanks as always for reading, and I hope you get in touch and let me know what you think via comments below or in the message board or the interactive mailing list. Gosh at least click the little “MoodThingy” bar down there (you don’t have to be logged in, I don’t think) to let me know how the episode made you feel. Or click “like” if you’re on Facebook. To quote “When Harry Met Sally,” do something resembling anything! It’ll make my Thanksgiving extra special, as I hope yours is too. (Those of you who celebrate it. The rest of you can have extra special regular weeks!)
(BTW I want props for that title image. Blood added by myself, thankyouverymuch!)
The post Episode #6.03 – Author Commentary (spoilers for #6.01 – 6.03 only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
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The post Episode #6.02 – Author Commentary (spoilers for this episode only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>The second half of “Whom the Gods Love” was the harder of the two installments for me to write, and possibly (if I managed to do my job) for many to read. As a writer, I found it difficult for reasons both technical and emotional.
I should say that the entire two-parter was originally conceived as a single episode. It was only once I started to post the season premiere–which, by the way, I began to do back in August but changed my mind–that I simply felt the weight of the story would be too onerous for readers to absorb in one shot.
So apparently there is a limit, even in ASF, to how much misery I’m willing to inflict on the audience!
The two halves separated themselves rather organically. First there was Justin’s death and the lead-up to his funeral; the second began with Hannah’s vigil for Heather and the re-introduction of Alicia Vasquez’s role in Hope’s life, which itself introduced an external conflict that briefly took Hannah’s mind off what was going on with Heather. It was also intended to do the same for readers–a mild sleight of hand to keep Heather’s fate almost backgrounded while Hannah was faced with a completely new conflict: growing concern over Hope’s future.
Of course it also allowed me to slip in more unhelpfully vague hints about what happened to other characters we haven’t seen after the church massacre; now Daphne and Doug’s situation was teased without revealing any resolution yet.
So while Hannah was briefly absorbed with the prospect of Hope disappearing from her tragically diminished family, we also learned more about her growing ‘selfishness,’ though I hesitate to use that term when referring to a woman who’s lost one child and waiting for news on her second. Perhaps ‘selfish’ is a poor description anyway; better descriptions would be overprotective, needy, desperate.
The episode further let me show the receding influence of Nick on Hannah, and really, his loss of control over any situation whatsoever–throughout this, after spending all of last season in a powerful role culminating in masterminding the revenge he’s sought for so long, now Nick is forced into a situation he simply cannot influence.
He’s so racked with guilt that he defers to Hannah on almost everything, he’s afraid to make decisions and lets Cameron pick the expert for the medical second opinion, and eventually he gives in to Hannah’s rational but painful decision to let Heather go. He is quite literally voiceless. (Though I promise I didn’t give him this injury with such a ham-handed metaphor in mind!)
While Nick’s influence on Hannah recedes, Ryan’s begins to grow. Rather than explore their past relationship, or introduce some romantic tension, which is a route I’m certain some soap operas would have taken, I stayed as far away from that as possible. Instead I wanted to use Ryan to examine Hannah’s relationship with the Church and God. And not just hers; many people dealing with such a cruel situation have difficulties reconciling their faith in a just God with the random violence visited on an innocent child.
Here we get to the technically difficult vs. emotionally difficult issues I had with this portion of the episode.
Technically, I had to keep Hannah sympathetic while having her avoid Alicia’s (or really, Doug’s) perfectly understandable and legal requests to visit Hope; while rebelling against God Himself by showing such bitterness toward Ryan when he’s only trying to help her; while forcing her to acknowledge that yes, she can certainly be blamed for having brought her children into this dangerous life and choosing not to leave it behind, even after Heather had once been kidnapped already, even after Hannah was nearly killed herself.
Obviously most people who have some ability to sympathize for fictional characters will feel something for a mother depicted as losing two children in such a short period of time. But I wanted to address all these uglier aspects of a woman in mourning, and I rewrote these scenes so many times in order to strike a balance between sympathizing with her and acknowledging her own mistakes and less-than-noble instincts.
(There was also the research angle. I had to make the injuries believable and determine exactly how Heather would so abruptly go downhill, to the point where a decision had to be made. As always I do as much research as possible to bring verisimilitude to the story. With some dramatic license, to be sure, but never wielding that license like a cudgel.)
In the forum comments on this installment I’ve received some flattering compliments on ASF’s depiction of the ‘mob’ storylines. Once I wrote the Nicholses into ASF, I knew I had to tread carefully, because in adding an element like this, it’s so easy to turn them into caricatures, or worse, “good” mobsters.
I definitely never wanted any glamorizing or idealizing of the criminal elements to this family, even when some of them are sympathetic. I don’t want there to be the aforementioned “good” mobsters, although even within the Nichols family there are varying degrees of what people are willing to do–just as I imagine there are in real life.
Theirs is a violent and exploitative business, and I can’t imagine sugar-coating it. If there’s one rule I obey as an author it’s that I must always, always, show the consequences of people’s bad behavior. People don’t usually get off scot-free–even someone like Jem has to pay the piper in some way for what he does, regardless of whether it’s a legal ramification or a more personal one.
I think that’s helped keep the Nicholses somewhat believable. They don’t have (complete) Plot Armor. Even right from the start, we saw the results of Nick’s activities on his wife: Hannah was introduced as a victim of her husband’s business via the assassination attempt that lost her ability to walk.
The difference between the impact on Nick’s family vs. Cameron’s is also something I’ve wanted to show. Nick’s side bears the brunt because he’s closer to the dirty action; Cameron keeps at a further distance and so he’s been… up to now… more protected from the ugly side. (Clearly that’s about to change, as the implications of his scenes and the hints re: Ian show.)
The final technical issue begins to dovetail with the emotional difficulty: how to depict parents’ reactions to the loss of a child in a sensitive, believably grief-stricken manner without resorting to melodramatics and manipulation of the audience.
I knew I wanted to avoid too much crying–I’m a firm believer in notion that the more tears you show on the page, the fewer tears you’ll engender from readers. If your entire cast is weeping and wailing every five minutes, the maudlin theatrics start to grate and the fictional seams begin to show. Nevertheless, it would be entirely unrealistic if Hannah weren’t crying at certain moments. I just had to make sure that there were just as many moments where she was frozen and unable to cry.
I must have changed the scene in the chapel about five or six times, knowing that this had to be where Hannah made her decision to let Heather become an organ donor. All previous versions focused on Hannah’s belief in God, in Ryan’s saying the ‘right’ thing, on Hannah’s generosity… Each one worked, in its own way, but I was never satisfied.
It was only when the bird-feeding anecdote struck me that I realized Hannah’s epiphany had to come from seeing Heather’s generosity, from Hannah’s belief in what Heather would expect of her. And when I hit on the idea of Hannah making the decision not just to give away Heather’s organs, but to continue to feed the geese for Heather’s sake, that I had what I felt was a moving and tragic way for Hannah to not just end her daughter’s life, but to envision the life she’ll have without her daughter.
That’s when I knew the scene had taken the right direction at last.
That takes me to the emotional aspect. As readers saw at the end of the episode, I dedicated this installment to my own brother, Kenny. Kenny was 10 when he died–from an accident that occurred before I was born. This year (2013) marks the fiftieth anniversary of his death. I won’t go into the details, but if you’re interested in the background, I wrote about the incident and the impact of his loss on my family earlier this year.
While I never knew Kenny myself, I saw how my parents behaved years afterward, and (once I reached adulthood) learned/understood more about how they reacted immediately following the tragedy. Clearly this is something no parent should have to face, but I think a child’s death is even more likely to wreak havoc on a parent when that parent feels guilt for his or her loss. That was the case with my mother, and that was the dynamic I wanted to explore here, with the twins’ deaths.
So I had to put myself in the mind of a woman who both felt responsible for the loss of her children, but also felt some resentment toward her husband too. Channeling this in a realistic way, depicting a family that doesn’t immediately come together in mourning, was painful for me. Of course Hannah has a far more direct reason for blaming Nick, while my mother primarily aimed her contempt inward. So the parallel isn’t 1:1, but it was close enough that I found myself understanding and sympathizing tremendously with Hannah when she acknowledged her role in her kids’ deaths.
Many times during the writing of this I felt oddly as if I were intruding on someone else’s private grief, and I think it was those moments when I was getting close, uncomfortably so, to how I believe my mother felt. (I say ‘believe’ because, if you read the post linked above, you’ll see that I only have hearsay regarding her feelings because we never ever spoke about my brother’s death in my family, not until my mother died and the subject turned from something forbidden to something that had to be understood in order for me and my sisters to know our late mom better.)
Anyway writing the episode became somewhat cathartic and it’s why I took such care in composing it. I’m sure it didn’t work for 100% of the readers–no episode does–but if a significant number of you were moved and felt Hannah’s arc was believable, I’ll be extremely gratified that I did what I set out to do.
Thanks as always for letting me tell this story to you. If you have any feedback on this installment, please don’t hesitate to write below or visit the official forum thread for “Whom the Gods Love,” Part 2.
The post Episode #6.02 – Author Commentary (spoilers for this episode only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
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The post Episode #6.01 – Author Commentary (spoilers for this episode only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>I thought I’d do something a bit different, considering this entire season will be a departure from the usual, and talk about the behind-the-scenes mechanics for some of these episodes. I’ve never done this before–except within the ASF discussion forum, of course, usually in response to reader questions. This new format seems to cry out for more rumination, or maybe it’s just me navel-gazing that makes me think so.
Readers should read on with caution; I’ll be talking about stuff assuming you’ve already read the episode in question. There won’t be any spoilers for future episodes, I promise. Still, suffice it to say, go read Episode #6.01: Whom the Gods Love, Pt. 1 before continuing.
I thought it might be interesting to explain how I put these episodes together. Normally when there are as many secrets to be revealed in a season, I don’t like to show the cards in my hand, so to speak; unlike the major third season revelations, the ‘twists’ in these various plots don’t require me to keep silent. Like the episodes they are self-contained and I don’t think there’s any risk of me giving anything away too soon.
So, about this episode. It was the almost serendipitous decision to start with Hannah’s story that made the miniseries and its one-storyline-per-episode concept gel for me. After I began work on it, the whole thing felt possible and, in fact, ideal for the stories I need to tell after the events of the last season finale–as well as a unique way to maintain suspense regarding everyone’s fates.
As a result of the tragedy, Hannah is so tightly focused on her family (understandably) that I could avoid revealing what happened to other characters, because she’s not paying attention to anyone outside her loved ones. Now it’s not contrived that she doesn’t ask about certain people, or that the readers aren’t told the results of all the endangered lives during the wedding massacre.
I originally started with Hannah simply because her arc is the most tightly contained–every single scene of 15 (counting both this and #6.02) is from Hannah’s perspective. I figured: okay, if the readers buy this premise after jumping in with both feet, they’ll probably stick along for the bulk of other episodes that don’t have as narrow a focus on one person. Also, in a very real sense this was an extremely difficult episode to write; there are beats that resonate very strongly in my family history, and I wasn’t looking forward to dwelling so intensely on a woman in the throes of tragedy.
And yet, once I did choose to begin the season with Hannah’s POV, everything clicked. Most of the supporting cast in this episode are only seen via her peripheral vision, as it were–so when people aren’t acting ‘normal,’ the readers can see it but Hannah has a perfectly understandable explanation for not digging into what’s going on outside her own bubble.
Obviously the primary person who’s acting unusual is Cameron. Now here’s a character I’ve never delved into at all in any real detail. He’s probably the biggest cipher in town, perhaps second only to Cynthia Stanford and Cam’s son Simon. (Considering that unlike those two, Cam’s a rather major figure in town, a puppetmaster pulling multiple strings, I admit this has been an egregious omission.) But even so, I think it’s clear that the readers who know enough of his self-contained, cool character to see that he’s acting… off.
Hannah notes briefly how run-down and almost unkempt he is in her first scene with him (where they’re visiting Nick), but thanks to her grief, fear and anger, she doesn’t stop to consider why he’d look this way; even though she knows he and Nick aren’t particularly close, so it’s not as if he’s likely all broken-up about his half-brother. When Hannah finally does ask Cam about his family, I was very careful to make sure he only gave responses about Adele, Danielle, Simon and Becca.
Since I want Ian’s fate up-in-the-air, having Cam mention his twins allowed me to let Hannah’s attention get diverted from things by resenting his good fortune–that Cam’s twins are basically fine, while hers are… well, very much not.
(And here’s another bit of serendipity, because I hardly created Heather and Justin as twins for the purposes of comparing them fourteen years later with Becca and Simon! I don’t even remember why Heather and Justin were twins, except that I know twins do run in families and it just seemed like a possibility, so why not? Now, fourteen years on, suddenly the parallelism became a useful tool to divert Hannah’s attention. Go figure!)
From Hannah’s POV, he’s changing the subject out of sensitivity to her own mood. But with benefit of hindsight (once the end of the installment arrives and we learn something very bad seems to have occured with Ian), the rationale for Cam’s reticence is now clear. He doesn’t want to bring up Ian because it’s a painful subject and he doesn’t want to show such vulnerability in front of Hannah. It’s only when Hannah blasts him to pieces at the funeral and accuses him of not caring about his family, or at least not caring about protecting them, that Cameron finally lets down his guard.
Of course, y’all don’t get to see what that is. Another benefit of the written medium! Hmm, I guess if this were a TV show the camera would cut to a wide shot and Cam’s words would be obscured or muffled.
So that’s one example of how the solo POV lets me cheat you guys out of the resolution of certain plots. Ain’t I a stinker?
Eagle-eyed readers can also see who isn’t being mentioned in this episode, or who were barely there. For example, Jonnie Adair, probably the most prominent character of the final episodes of last season.
This is a guy whose plans went so awry at the wedding, he’d begun to give his heart away for the first time in a decade (of real time, anyway) to Laurie only to get burned, he got shot up and at risk of being revealed as a traitor by Ross for screwing up Operation Mousetrap, not to mention murdering Lou and the crooked cop right before Ross’s eyes.
But he was completely absent. This despite his working for Nick and thus perhaps being someone a reader might expect/hope to see in an episode all about Nick and Hannah’s family.
Instead I left him out until the very end, letting anyone who might have actually feared I’d kill him off (as if!) rest a little easier. Nevertheless, we don’t know what’s up with him, and again, it’s primarily because Hannah resents him too for being part of the Vaughan plans and thus making her family a target of Taggart. (Pun intended, sorta.)
We’ll eventually see Cameron’s POV and learn exactly why he’s behaving as he is (and once we’re out of Hannah’s POV, readers might actually understand and even sympathize with him), we’ll get different angles on the same scenes (e.g. the discussion between Cam, Dean, Jonnie and Nick at the funeral), and basically a whole bunch of different storylines will dovetail like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Actually a jigsaw is a great analogy. One might find a piece that seems blank except for a little squiggle on one of the “outtie” pegs. (Okay, I don’t know the technical term for it, sorry!) Only once you find the matching pieces and insert that little squiggle can you see the full context and understand its role in the bigger picture.
I have to say, I went back and forth many, many times on whether to create this miniseries. Even as recently as last month, I was considering breaking up the episodes I’ve written thus far into normal chronological, multiple-plotline versions. (I may do that later on just for kicks–I know avid fans put a chronological cut of Arrested Development‘s fourth season to see how everything fit together. I don’t expect fans to do it, but I might create it as an extra download once the miniseries is over.)
But in the end it’s that puzzle thing that made me stick to this option. I love logic puzzles, games, riddles, optical illusions, and other things that “trick” people in clever ways. I enjoy being tricked and taking on the challenge as a reader/solver — and I like doing the same from the other side of the bench, so to speak.
So be prepared: throughout this miniseries/season, there will be clues dancing in and out of various storylines, some related to characters on whom I’ll focus during this season, and some’ll be related to plots that are only beginning to take shape. There was one tiny little clue of the latter form in this episode.
In short, it’s another way to have fun and challenge myself, and if it helps me tell the best story I can–and where Hannah and other similar arcs are concerned, I’m certain it has–then the experiment will be worth it.
I’ve yammered on long enough. Thanks for reading and please let me know your thoughts.
The post Episode #6.01 – Author Commentary (spoilers for this episode only) first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
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The post ASF’s Sweet Sixteen Party Begins with Miniseries first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>What is this miniseries, and what’s so special about it, and why is it called “Six Weeks,” you may ask? Read on, good reader.
The miniseries will probably comprise the entire season, meaning that Season 06 will take up six weeks of in-universe time. That seems quite short, but let’s put this into perspective: it took ASF all sixty-three episodes of the fourth and fifth season (formerly just the fourth season) to get the serial calendar from January 1 to February 14. Yipe! Trust me, Season 06 is not gonna be sixty-three episodes. I’m aiming squarely at a maximum of 16 – 20. The first episode, “Whom the Gods Love, Part 1,” is available now. The second will be posted on Monday, Nov. 18.
Now, the reason for the truncated season, and why I’m going with the six-weeks theme, is because I’m going with an experimental format for the first time in ASF’s history. Instead of the usual episode style consisting of multiple, often completely separate storylines, “Six Weeks” episodes will do exactly what’s on the label: they’ll tell the story of the six weeks following the tumultuous season finale and how they affect one character’s storyline, or a few closely connected characters. This means in many instances you’ll be following a single plot throughout an episode, and sometimes (as in the case of the first two-part episode) through the viewpoint of a single character.
I was inspired to try this idea by the fourth season of “Arrested Development,” where each episode showed us only one character’s storyline directly. That word, “directly,” is quite important: often, we’d see other related characters doing their own thing off in the corner, or having some curious and tantalizing lines of dialogue that seemed utterly mysterious out of context. But the episode would generally not follow up on those tidbits and clues; we only saw whatever the point-of-view character saw. Only subsequent episodes focusing on these different characters would ultimately reveal the context and meaning behind the various conversation snippets or strange costumes or sudden job changes or… well, you name it. “Arrested Development” is known for being a comedy where almost anything can happen, since it’s basically a live-action cartoon.
This miniseries/mini-season won’t be quite that ambitious. I don’t have delusions of grandeur. However, I really liked the idea of following a single character, or a small group of characters, and only showing the barest hints of what’s going on with the rest of the storylines. This actually solved a problem that had worried me following the massive cliffhanger of last season. With so many characters in jeopardy, and so many plots ripped open and demanding a great deal of emotional follow-up, it would take me forever to do justice to each batch the way I like to. That’s why ASF has such long seasons and moves so slowly, you see; I am a continuity whore and feel very strongly that consequences are the meat of any story. It’s not enough to place your characters in a thrilling storyline; for the story to matter, there must be significant consequences and aftermath to whatever major set-piece you’ve thrust your characters into. At least, that’s how I feel as a reader, and as a writer too.
The trouble is that not all of my characters experience these consequences at the same rate; it wouldn’t be believable, nor even feasible considering the massive size of ASF’s cast.
Using this “six weeks” premise, I can show each of the characters and move their plots as fast or as slow as I need to. Having written the first three full episodes already (meaning both parts, if the episode is a two-parter), I can already see a huge difference in how my storytelling has been affected by this format. Time is freakin’ moving, yo! I don’t have to show what’s happening every day for every character. I can skip whole weeks if necessary. For example, in the first part of #6.01, two weeks pass in only seven scenes (and those seven scenes only show three separate days); by the end of #6.02, another month will have gone by! Can you imagine? When the heck has that ever happened on ASF?
Of course, once #6.02 is over and I move to the next character/group of characters, we’re resetting the clock and zipping back to February 14. So it’s not as if each episode is moving us six weeks further in time. However, now characters can set their own pace and there’s no need to backburner anyone. Time flows naturally for the storyline in a linear way. It’s refreshing. It’s not how I would do a full-length season, because that would get tedious. It’s also important that I don’t repeat beats–I promise you that readers won’t be forced to view the church shooting over and over again from each character’s viewpoint. Yes, for some we’ll see that particular moment (as long as it’s unique rather than repetitive); for others, I’ve shifted the start of the story to a later point in time where appropriate.
So time moving forward is one big benefit, as well as the ability to focus more tightly on specific character arcs. Another one is something that worried me, again as a result of the Big Cliffhanger of last season: how do I maintain suspense over what happened to everyone that day? It wasn’t just the church shooting; there was the action outside the church too, with Daphne/Ian/Tyler; then there was Beth’s reunion with her father, and Chelsea’s proposition to Greg, and Jem discovering (or possibly discovering) Greg’s betrayal of Rena, and Maxine’s continuing investigation of Greg, and so on.
My standard season openers are huge, lengthy episodes devoted to showing as many of these aftermaths as possible, since most of them usually happened at the same time. (See Season 03’s ending with the explosion at the newspaper.)
Now, however, using this one-storyline-at-a-time method, I can throw in subtle hints about what might have happened with other characters just by having them interact briefly with the main point-of-view characters. As a hypothetical example, let’s say I have a Chelsea episode. Perhaps she briefly bumps into Doug at the hospital and he’s distracted and looking sickly. Since we’re following Chelsea, she’d probably just roll her eyes, insult him mentally, and go on her way–and we wouldn’t see Doug again in that episode, because we’re focusing on Chelsea’s hearing loss and her possibly-continuing affair with Greg and so on.
As a result, now the reader suspects there’s a mystery afoot regarding Doug: does his sickly pallor mean a) he discovered his BFF and sponsor John is actually Elaine’s abusive husband, b) Daphne is gravely ill or dead from the shooting, c) he’s been called to testify about Greg faking prescriptions for him at a hearing due to Maxine’s investigation, d) he’s fallen off the wagon and is using drugs again, or even e) little Hope was hurt or killed in the church massacre? You won’t know until it’s his turn for an episode. Psyche! (Well, you’d probably know about the last option considering Hannah’s episode comes first, and you may safely assume Hope’s fate will be part of that, but you get the drift.) Suspense and intrigue! Speculation ahoy!
I must say in addition to all these positives, it’s the challenge of doing this–of providing clues such as the above, of maintaining the suspense in a believable way, that excites me. It brings back memories of all my tapdancing during Season 03 to maintain the Beth/Danielle/Tristan mystery. At heart I’m a game-player, a riddle-lover, a puzzle-solver. This is the sort of thing I love to do. It’s the old “pick a card, any card,” and even though you know the magician’s going to trick you somehow, damn it, you end up being tricked anyway and picking the card the magician wanted you to pick the whole time!
That is the rationale for this miniseries and in particular this potentially risky and more difficult method of telling these stories. To be honest, the very first episode is the one that convinced me of how interesting this style can be. Hannah’s story is one that really had to be told straight through. It’s almost not fair to her to keep shifting away and dragging it out. It’s one of the hardest arcs I’ve written, even though it lasts only two episodes (well, it lasts longer than that, but the bulk of the setup is in these two initial parts), and I didn’t want to shortchange the drama or the poignancy of what she experiences by cutting to a different plot, thereby allowing readers to look away from the reality of what’s going on. This is also possibly the only arc where you’ll be seeing the whole episode through a single point of view: Hannah’s. (Sadly, Hannah’s mind isn’t a very joyful place to be during this episode, so please, take your Prozac or chocolate dose before reading.)
This brings up a good point in that there’s a big downside to this, I’ll admit that. If you don’t like Hannah, if you hate the teen storyline(s), if you cringe at Doug/Elaine, or (pick any despised storyline or character of your choice)… forcing a focus on one of these plots per episode means you might not enjoy that particular episode very much. I apologize in advance for that. But I also hope that, just maybe, the more in-depth look at the characters this format allows will pique your interest enough to let you slog through even a Bert/Ronald scene.
Okay, that might be hoping for too much.
Anyway, on the plus side, it won’t last forever. It is just for this mini-season. I like the multiple-storyline format far too much to lose it forever; ASF began as an homage to soap opera-esque storytelling and I like the variety of characters I’ve created over the years (with big help from co-creator Cassie, and other helpers such as Kim and Jill along the way). Knowing I’m able to bounce back and forth from story to story in an episode keeps me on my toes and maintains my interest–and I think yours as well.
In the meantime I hope you’ll join me on this experimental journey and will let me know how it’s working for you. I need your feedback, well, I always need your feedback but now I need it more than ever! Most of all, thank you for your patience (I’ll spend another blog post explaining the reason for the delay; for once, it’s not writer’s block, yay!) and a huge thanks to those of you who’ve spent sixteen years watching the story unfold, sometimes in big chunks and sometimes in small dribbles. (Wow, how many mixed metaphors can I shove into one sentence?) I hope it’s been fun, and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy it. As the old song goes: “Happy birthday sweet sixteen!”
P.S. If you do enjoy ASF, won’t you please visit and “Like” my Facebook page or share ASF’s link (http://skyfalls.com) with someone? It would be a great help!
The post ASF’s Sweet Sixteen Party Begins with Miniseries first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>Official: ASF’s fourth season to be split in twain Read More »
The post Official: ASF’s fourth season to be split in twain first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
]]>Part of me dislikes the decision; I always intended the fourth season to end a certain way, and that was with the Laurie/Victor wedding. That stubbornness is why I stuck to my guns (um, pun not intended) and forged ahead with the season, episode after episode, until the season bloated to a crazy length and finally, at long last, that damn wedding finally made its appearance.
But it is bloated, and I just can’t get around it. The bulkiness of the episodes is daunting for anyone to look at, much less newcomers to the serial, and I just don’t want people reading through ASF to make it through three seasons, only to find themselves at the fourth and seeing sixty-three episodes still to go. That would overwhelm anyone. (And these are generally not short episodes, either! The last four episodes alone are nearly 100K words!)
As serendipity would have it, there was a set-piece big enough (almost) for a finale: the destruction at PlayCity, which comes at #4.38, or a little over the midway point. The episode itself is full of action involving the biggest storyline of the season (at that point), with four characters in grave jeopardy, and a ticking clock that keeps things moving forward. There’s also the smaller cliffhanger involving Martina, Mike and a certain DVD.
Splitting the season there left (originally) 25 episodes for the new Season 5. Relatively short (compared to the previous three seasons) but respectable nonetheless. And, storywise, things move forward with the aftermath of the PlayCity storyline, and pushing ahead until the focus shifts to Operation Mousetrap.
Not content to leave well enough alone, I also made the executive decision to do some episode splitting when it came to the more massive episodes. Basically, anything in the new Fifth Season that was longer than 12 scenes, and had a decent cliffhanger at the midpoint, has been split off into its own episode.
This doesn’t really affect much… until one gets to the final batch of episodes. Three out of the last four episodes, consisting of “Operation Mousetrap: The Bait,” “Operation Mousetrap: The Switch,” and “Season Finale Part 1, Throwing the Bouquet,” are each split into two acts totalling either 12 or 13 scenes. And the very last episode, “Season Finale Part 2, Torn Asunder,” had three acts with 21 scenes! That’s just insanity.
So now each of these episodes has been split into two separate entities. Only “Torn Asunder, Part 2” has a two-act structure within it, because while I could have hypothetically split it into three episodes, thematically and emotionally the episode, particular everything that begins with the actual ceremony, needs to be kept together. As a result, in order to maintain a strong enough cliffhanger/ending for Torn Asunder Part 1, that meant moving around some scenes within the episode. Luckily this wasn’t difficult to do, and none of the chronology was affected at all; I am 100% convinced that no one will notice that the scenes have been moved around, it’s that subtle a difference. Oh, and of course I had to change all of the recaps to reflect the differences, including adding NEW recaps for episodes that didn’t exist before. And splitting up the print episodes accordingly. Whew.
As a result of all this, the new Fifth Season has 29 episodes, with the very last episode–“Torn Asunder, Part 2″–containing a much more reasonable 12 scenes.
To be honest, when I began this process, I had no idea how much effort it would take to accomplish such a major restructuring. And I’m not yet finished, either, even though the hardest part is done–renaming the episodes, creating the new file structure, rejiggering the scenes, ensuring that the links work, and updating the episode references in the text itself (in page titles, in navigation breadcrumbs, at the start of each episode, at the end of each episode, in the print episodes…). Very fortunately, the HTML editor I use, Dreamweaver, is very good about updating links if you’re assiduous about using their file manager to move documents around. So in other words, when I changed the files for episode #4.39 to #5.01, that meant moving them to a new main folder called s05, and a subfolder called 01, and renaming each individual file from (for example) 043901.html to 050101.html. Once I made these changes, the program automatically updates every link from s04/39/043901.html to the correct new path, s05/01/050101.html.
Sounds ridiculously complex, right? Well, this is why it took me so long not just to make the decision to change, but to perform the change. I have literally just finished updating the file structure after two full days of work. That doesn’t mean I’m done, as I said. I still need to:
1) Update all of the episode graphics post #4.37. (Even #4.38 now needs to be updated to reflect that it’s the Season Finale of the fourth season.)
2) Update all of the opening credit sequences to point to these new images.
3) Update the episode archives and create a new “season five” tab.
4) Create redirects for each episode post #4.38. This is to ensure that if anyone, anywhere, happened to link to (say) Ep. #4.53, the page won’t result in an error, but will instead switch to Ep. #5.15. (Oy, that took some calculating…)
5) Go into the ASF Forum and change all the episode threads to reflect the new names, including links and graphics within the thread. (If I’m successful with the redirects I may not need to do the links…)
So, yeah, as you see, this has been a major undertaking and it’s obviously nuts of me to do this. But my gut tells me it’s the right decision, and should have been my decision all along–if I’d pulled the trigger as I should have once the PlayCity building went poof, I wouldn’t be going through this tsuris now. However, as I’ve stated before, the reason I didn’t want the season to end with #4.38 was the simple fact that Season 03 ended with a building being destroyed. I didn’t like the idea of repeating myself. However, I guess now I can kinda say that there’s a parallelism going on: the person who caused the building to explode in the finale to Season 03 (trying to avoid somne spoilers) is actually the one trying to stop the building from exploding in the finale to Season 04. (Though he’s kinda responsible for it anyway.) Hey, it was totally artistically intentional all along! Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Very very long story short: The new structure will be launched later this week. And when the new season begins, it will be Season 06. Bring out the confetti!
The post Official: ASF’s fourth season to be split in twain first appeared on About Schuyler Falls: Backstage Pass.
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