Charles and Ashley
23 July 2017 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeFanfiction.net appears to be malfunctioning again...
I discovered this yesterday, at the point where I was attempting to post about having a panic due to losing the notes I'd thought I'd made for a putative "Gone With the Wind" fan-fiction. It was an idea that came to me during an exchange of PMs after writing The Paths of the Living, several years ago now, and I thought I'd written down the salient text and tucked it into the front cover of the red leather notebook I was using at the time. When I actually got round to looking at the sheets in question, I discovered that they were notes for Lost and Found instead, which was also sparked off by a PM conversation at about the same time...
Of course, the moment you find that you can't lay your hands on a thing you thought you had, it becomes the one thing in the world that is the most urgently important to you, even if you hadn't previously spared it a thought in years. (Case in point: my panic when I thought our copy of the gloomy "Shardik", the confusingly non-follow-up to "Watership Down", had been dumped in the great bookshelf purge; having discovered that we do still have it, I haven't actually reread the passage in question!)
However, I have now succeeded in locating the original PMs in question — so am now in a position to attempt to write the fanfic, if I can, without being tormented by the idea that a much better and more inspired version exists in potentia if only I could lay my hands on it again :-p
So far as "In Regret Always" is concerned, I'm coming to the conclusion that I probably need to prune the ending back to the original concept of Gustave as "a kind, concerned stranger"; the bits I added in which seemed like a good idea at the time (Gustave concerned that Raoul's letter might have been unkind; Gustave asking to see the letter and accepting her refusal with 'mine was private too') are the bits where the wording seems the most awkward. And after all, the letter was supposed to be the climax of the chapter, so I really ought to wind down quite quickly after it. I was just having trouble feeling my way to a finale and trying to work out what should become of Christine's relationship with her son, and thus ended up embroidering as I went...
If I do streamline over this stuff then I need to work out what else to do with Christine and Gustave; I like the final couple of pages (from "what are we to do?"), but then I'd have to find another route to get the characters to that point :-(
I discovered this yesterday, at the point where I was attempting to post about having a panic due to losing the notes I'd thought I'd made for a putative "Gone With the Wind" fan-fiction. It was an idea that came to me during an exchange of PMs after writing The Paths of the Living, several years ago now, and I thought I'd written down the salient text and tucked it into the front cover of the red leather notebook I was using at the time. When I actually got round to looking at the sheets in question, I discovered that they were notes for Lost and Found instead, which was also sparked off by a PM conversation at about the same time...
Of course, the moment you find that you can't lay your hands on a thing you thought you had, it becomes the one thing in the world that is the most urgently important to you, even if you hadn't previously spared it a thought in years. (Case in point: my panic when I thought our copy of the gloomy "Shardik", the confusingly non-follow-up to "Watership Down", had been dumped in the great bookshelf purge; having discovered that we do still have it, I haven't actually reread the passage in question!)
However, I have now succeeded in locating the original PMs in question — so am now in a position to attempt to write the fanfic, if I can, without being tormented by the idea that a much better and more inspired version exists in potentia if only I could lay my hands on it again :-p
From what little we see of him, I think Charles Hamilton probably had a lot in common with Ashley, actually; they were cousins, after all, and we know Charles was very close to Melanie when they were living in Atlanta together. The two of them share a Borgia reference that goes clean over Scarlett's head, and Ashley can see and sympathise in that moment all too well with what the younger man is going through -- the difference is that he is old enough and mature enough to understand that there are times when it is better to say no. I can see him wondering if he ought to be trying to talk his future brother-in-law out of that rushed wedding, actually, and scrupling to do so because of the seeming hypocrisy of his own forthcoming marriage and his feelings for Charles' intended bride -- how *could* he advise the boy under those circumstances? :-(
Though given that Charles jilted Ashley's sister in proposing to Scarlett, things get quite complicated...
So far as "In Regret Always" is concerned, I'm coming to the conclusion that I probably need to prune the ending back to the original concept of Gustave as "a kind, concerned stranger"; the bits I added in which seemed like a good idea at the time (Gustave concerned that Raoul's letter might have been unkind; Gustave asking to see the letter and accepting her refusal with 'mine was private too') are the bits where the wording seems the most awkward. And after all, the letter was supposed to be the climax of the chapter, so I really ought to wind down quite quickly after it. I was just having trouble feeling my way to a finale and trying to work out what should become of Christine's relationship with her son, and thus ended up embroidering as I went...
If I do streamline over this stuff then I need to work out what else to do with Christine and Gustave; I like the final couple of pages (from "what are we to do?"), but then I'd have to find another route to get the characters to that point :-(