More Crimson Peak ideas
9 December 2018 02:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI've been toying with the idea of doing a 'Crimson Peak'-related entry for the Writers Anonymous December Holiday Flash Challenge (I wish Americans wouldn't use 'holidays' as a euphemism for 'Christmas'; the holidays are what happens over the summer when you go away to the seaside!)
At least Christmas *exists* in that fandom, for one thing. (It does in the 'Phantom of the Opera' setting as well, of course, but I've already done that one using Raoul's December birthday).
Not that I was planning to do a story that was anything much to do with celebrating Christmas itself. It just occurred to me that since the climax of the film takes place during the first snowstorm of the year (probably early December, allowing for at least a few weeks of married life after the fateful dinner party when Thomas announces that he is leaving just in time for 'the beginning of winter'), and Alan and Edith's evidence would be crucial in establishing what had actually happened, they probably wouldn't have been able to leave the country until an inquest had been held on Lucille and safely returned a verdict of self-defence :-)
And any such inquest could plausibly be adjourned until the two principal witnesses were in a fit condition to give evidence, by which time it probably would be nearly Christmas...
(And at least if it's for a WA competition it will pick up some extra readers; I tried the experiment of not doing promotion all over the place for "A Necessary Evil" but just leaving it to people who are actually reading in the "Crimson Peak" fandom or following me as an author and getting notifications. I got a total of two page views.
Not two reviews; two people in the entire world bothering to click beyond the summary to see what it said. The previous one managed to total a couple of dozen over the course of a month!)
What I've got for this story idea is all pretty disjointed: the idea of Alan and Edith retelling events (while trying to shield Thomas's name from scandal and push all the blame off onto Lucille? Alan not very happy about implicit perjury for a man he had no reason to love). Some snippets of private conversation between them -- not sure how to fit that in. It would have to be before or after proceedings at the inquest. Lucille will never leave (just as she always wanted) but is trapped alone (just as she always feared).
The theme to be that of Lucille's ghost desperately seeking Thomas and not finding him: mainly because it's pretty standard in this fandom to write stories about Thomas's ghost coming back to guard and/or visit Edith -- and after all, we *see* his ghost appear in canon! -- so it would make a change to write a story where Thomas doesn't have a ghost because he has died successfully without unfinished business, as it were. But also because losing him is what she fears most, and hence the most fitting 'punishment'...
I was planning to do the story from Lucille's point of view (as she is a ghost she can flit in and out of anywhere!) and thus get her take on canon events and her backstory. More potential Christmas-themed things: she loses Thomas in a game of hide and seek while their mother is away at a party on the other side of the county. The birth of her child could take place at Christmas. (When she says 'it was born wrong' and they should have let it die at birth, it sounds as if the baby had some kind of obvious defect due to inbreeding -- a visible curse. I wanted to make it a harelip, as this would make it hard for the child to feed and thus directly account for its death, while giving Enola a role in trying to spoon milk into it. Then I realised that we get to see the baby in a canon photo, and the face isn't visibly deformed. Then I discovered that it's quite common for baby girls to have a cleft palate without the lip itself being affected :-)
Does Lucille even realise that she is dead, and/or that she killed Thomas herself?
Idea for the end: Edith suddenly reveals that she has been able to see Lucille all along (but has been pretending to look straight through her to shield Alan from the knowledge of her hovering round and ill-wishing them; he has had enough to cope with already). Tries to force Lucille to face facts?
At least Christmas *exists* in that fandom, for one thing. (It does in the 'Phantom of the Opera' setting as well, of course, but I've already done that one using Raoul's December birthday).
Not that I was planning to do a story that was anything much to do with celebrating Christmas itself. It just occurred to me that since the climax of the film takes place during the first snowstorm of the year (probably early December, allowing for at least a few weeks of married life after the fateful dinner party when Thomas announces that he is leaving just in time for 'the beginning of winter'), and Alan and Edith's evidence would be crucial in establishing what had actually happened, they probably wouldn't have been able to leave the country until an inquest had been held on Lucille and safely returned a verdict of self-defence :-)
And any such inquest could plausibly be adjourned until the two principal witnesses were in a fit condition to give evidence, by which time it probably would be nearly Christmas...
(And at least if it's for a WA competition it will pick up some extra readers; I tried the experiment of not doing promotion all over the place for "A Necessary Evil" but just leaving it to people who are actually reading in the "Crimson Peak" fandom or following me as an author and getting notifications. I got a total of two page views.
Not two reviews; two people in the entire world bothering to click beyond the summary to see what it said. The previous one managed to total a couple of dozen over the course of a month!)
What I've got for this story idea is all pretty disjointed: the idea of Alan and Edith retelling events (while trying to shield Thomas's name from scandal and push all the blame off onto Lucille? Alan not very happy about implicit perjury for a man he had no reason to love). Some snippets of private conversation between them -- not sure how to fit that in. It would have to be before or after proceedings at the inquest. Lucille will never leave (just as she always wanted) but is trapped alone (just as she always feared).
The theme to be that of Lucille's ghost desperately seeking Thomas and not finding him: mainly because it's pretty standard in this fandom to write stories about Thomas's ghost coming back to guard and/or visit Edith -- and after all, we *see* his ghost appear in canon! -- so it would make a change to write a story where Thomas doesn't have a ghost because he has died successfully without unfinished business, as it were. But also because losing him is what she fears most, and hence the most fitting 'punishment'...
I was planning to do the story from Lucille's point of view (as she is a ghost she can flit in and out of anywhere!) and thus get her take on canon events and her backstory. More potential Christmas-themed things: she loses Thomas in a game of hide and seek while their mother is away at a party on the other side of the county. The birth of her child could take place at Christmas. (When she says 'it was born wrong' and they should have let it die at birth, it sounds as if the baby had some kind of obvious defect due to inbreeding -- a visible curse. I wanted to make it a harelip, as this would make it hard for the child to feed and thus directly account for its death, while giving Enola a role in trying to spoon milk into it. Then I realised that we get to see the baby in a canon photo, and the face isn't visibly deformed. Then I discovered that it's quite common for baby girls to have a cleft palate without the lip itself being affected :-)
Does Lucille even realise that she is dead, and/or that she killed Thomas herself?
Idea for the end: Edith suddenly reveals that she has been able to see Lucille all along (but has been pretending to look straight through her to shield Alan from the knowledge of her hovering round and ill-wishing them; he has had enough to cope with already). Tries to force Lucille to face facts?