"Afterwards": Deleted scene
29 December 2018 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI've been working on producing a 'full version' of Afterwards to be uploaded to fanfiction.net once the competition judging period is over (the entry period doesn't expire until the end of December, and on past precedent it's likely to take some time for the judges to get round to downloading everything for comparison). Because of the way I cut the text 'on the fly' as I typed it up, leaving out words and sentences as I went, this means effectively retyping and then re-editing the whole thing from scratch. Which is one reason why I've been delaying the task...
The other reason was that I'd been conscious more or less since I finished the first draft that I wasn't happy with the overall effect of the 'pregnancy scene' between Alan and Edith, despite the fact that this conversation was one of my original inspiration concepts for the story. And no, there isn't any mention of children by Edith in the current edit: I took advantage of the necessity to drop several thousand words to solve the problem by omitting that section of the scene altogether, and writing a new 'bridge' to the end (that vital first mention of "Lucille", originally appearing in a very different context!)
What I'd done was write a pregnancy scare: not that Edith was scared she was pregnant, but that she was scared she was carrying a monster due to the discovery of mental and physical deformity in the family. There's a chance in canon that Edith might have conceived a child, but we'll never know, and of course fanfic jumps upon the idea, generally with the idea that children are little blessings. So I thought I was being original by suggesting that the idea was unwelcome. But by the end of the story you'd really have to address the question: well, is she pregnant or isn't she? And since my head-canon for this was that she wasn't (again, mainly in order to differentiate it from other fanfic), she would have known that by this point. It takes a lot longer at this era to be certain that you definitely are in an interesting condition than that you aren't :-
At any rate, the subject ought to have come up one way or another in the final confrontation, and I didn't want it in there. In fact I decided I didn't really want that element in the story at all -- it was just embarrassing fanwank.
However, there was at least one bit in the scene I was sorry to lose (the image of Alan comforting her, "scarcely any more steady on his feet than she") and others which were useful as fandom-blind allusions to things that would otherwise pop up unexplained in later scenes ("You're a doctor, Alan--", Lucille's deformed offspring), or which needed fixing (Alan obviously has to stand up at some point!) So if I was going to do a full version of the story, I had it in mind that I was going to need to rewrite this scene using something else as the emotional trigger: something that Edith could become credibly distressed about without making her look like a feather-headed idiot, on a subject on which Alan could be the right person to reassure her but which he wouldn't be too happy to hear. Oh, and it had to fit with the existing new bridge :-p
After a couple of days of racking my brains I very nearly gave up altogether and decided simply to go with the cut-short version; nothing I could come up with was an improvement on the results already obtained by omitting the rest of the scene. (I did consider writing a scene where Edith's worry is that as a result of the poison she won't ever be able to have children, but this didn't feel like something it was very appropriate for Alan to comfort her over, and I really wanted to get the pregnancy thing out altogether.)
However, I finally managed to come up with a workable replacement tonight that involves Edith angsting over whether her husband ever actually loved her or not, and Alan being qualified to give reassurance simply by virtue of being male (and in love with her himself, of course) :-p
The whole thing helps to make the various Edith/Thomas/Alan relationships more explicit than they were and thus contributes positively to the overall story instead of negatively -- and poor Alan gets a couple of nice moments that hint towards an eventual happy ending for him. (The funny thing is that while I'm actually on Thomas's side, as it were, in my stories for this fandom I seem to keep coming down on the Alan/Edith side, even though that's certainly not made explicit in the ending of the film. Her final interaction with Thomas is one of love; her final interaction with Alan is one of mutual reliance.)
I think the new section is actually better than the one it replaced, and I even managed to incorporate all the bits I'd noted as being important back in -- a considerable achievement when I'd been busy doubting that I'd be able to manage the most basic patch job. The only bit I haven't got in there is the one I forgot about; Lucille's later reference to "not needing Edith's precious doctor" to tell her the risks of incestuous conception. However, I already cut that line for the short edit due to having omitted the whole of the scene to which it referred, so it can stay cut :-p
With the one major obstacle to the 're-edit' out of the way I now feel much more optimistic about the extended version being an improvement! (I was starting to wonder whether reinstating all my prolix digressions was actually going to be a good idea or not.)
However... just for the sake of posterity and comparison, here is the original -- and unpolished -- draft of the scene, as it will no longer appear:
Reading through that now, I definitely concur with my initial uneasy instinct that the scene wouldn't do; it's just a little bit cringemaking :-p
The other reason was that I'd been conscious more or less since I finished the first draft that I wasn't happy with the overall effect of the 'pregnancy scene' between Alan and Edith, despite the fact that this conversation was one of my original inspiration concepts for the story. And no, there isn't any mention of children by Edith in the current edit: I took advantage of the necessity to drop several thousand words to solve the problem by omitting that section of the scene altogether, and writing a new 'bridge' to the end (that vital first mention of "Lucille", originally appearing in a very different context!)
What I'd done was write a pregnancy scare: not that Edith was scared she was pregnant, but that she was scared she was carrying a monster due to the discovery of mental and physical deformity in the family. There's a chance in canon that Edith might have conceived a child, but we'll never know, and of course fanfic jumps upon the idea, generally with the idea that children are little blessings. So I thought I was being original by suggesting that the idea was unwelcome. But by the end of the story you'd really have to address the question: well, is she pregnant or isn't she? And since my head-canon for this was that she wasn't (again, mainly in order to differentiate it from other fanfic), she would have known that by this point. It takes a lot longer at this era to be certain that you definitely are in an interesting condition than that you aren't :-
At any rate, the subject ought to have come up one way or another in the final confrontation, and I didn't want it in there. In fact I decided I didn't really want that element in the story at all -- it was just embarrassing fanwank.
However, there was at least one bit in the scene I was sorry to lose (the image of Alan comforting her, "scarcely any more steady on his feet than she") and others which were useful as fandom-blind allusions to things that would otherwise pop up unexplained in later scenes ("You're a doctor, Alan--", Lucille's deformed offspring), or which needed fixing (Alan obviously has to stand up at some point!) So if I was going to do a full version of the story, I had it in mind that I was going to need to rewrite this scene using something else as the emotional trigger: something that Edith could become credibly distressed about without making her look like a feather-headed idiot, on a subject on which Alan could be the right person to reassure her but which he wouldn't be too happy to hear. Oh, and it had to fit with the existing new bridge :-p
After a couple of days of racking my brains I very nearly gave up altogether and decided simply to go with the cut-short version; nothing I could come up with was an improvement on the results already obtained by omitting the rest of the scene. (I did consider writing a scene where Edith's worry is that as a result of the poison she won't ever be able to have children, but this didn't feel like something it was very appropriate for Alan to comfort her over, and I really wanted to get the pregnancy thing out altogether.)
However, I finally managed to come up with a workable replacement tonight that involves Edith angsting over whether her husband ever actually loved her or not, and Alan being qualified to give reassurance simply by virtue of being male (and in love with her himself, of course) :-p
The whole thing helps to make the various Edith/Thomas/Alan relationships more explicit than they were and thus contributes positively to the overall story instead of negatively -- and poor Alan gets a couple of nice moments that hint towards an eventual happy ending for him. (The funny thing is that while I'm actually on Thomas's side, as it were, in my stories for this fandom I seem to keep coming down on the Alan/Edith side, even though that's certainly not made explicit in the ending of the film. Her final interaction with Thomas is one of love; her final interaction with Alan is one of mutual reliance.)
I think the new section is actually better than the one it replaced, and I even managed to incorporate all the bits I'd noted as being important back in -- a considerable achievement when I'd been busy doubting that I'd be able to manage the most basic patch job. The only bit I haven't got in there is the one I forgot about; Lucille's later reference to "not needing Edith's precious doctor" to tell her the risks of incestuous conception. However, I already cut that line for the short edit due to having omitted the whole of the scene to which it referred, so it can stay cut :-p
With the one major obstacle to the 're-edit' out of the way I now feel much more optimistic about the extended version being an improvement! (I was starting to wonder whether reinstating all my prolix digressions was actually going to be a good idea or not.)
However... just for the sake of posterity and comparison, here is the original -- and unpolished -- draft of the scene, as it will no longer appear:
[...but I can't hate him, Alan."]
She took a breath. "He was my husband, and perhaps... the father of my child."
Alan could not hide an instinctive movement, less of dismay than revulsion, that mirrored the unseen onlooker's rage. "Forgive me.... Are you sure?"
"You're a doctor"--Edith's laugh was a quick sob of breath--"you know it's still too soon to be sure."
"But you hope-- want it to be so?"
"No-- yes, I-- oh, can't you see? I'm afraid, so afraid..." Edith had stumbled to her feet, seeking his arms, and buried her face now against his shoulder, sobbing in truth. Scarcely any more steady on his feet than she, Alan held her close, while behind them the wind set shadows dancing in the fire.
"There was a child that died." She was whispering the words as if that could make them less true. "Her child -- her own brother's child. How could he? Oh, it's horrible.... And if we-- if there is a chance I carry his child, and it is a monster--"
"It won't be." Quick, professional reassurance. "There's a reason right-thinking people don't hold with cousin marriages, let alone... well, a union of closer blood. But it's inbreeding that does the evil, and you've no need to fear that."
Edith looked up, bleakness in her eyes. "Only there are other kinds of monsters. Beautiful, perfect on the outside... like her. Like Lucille."
Reading through that now, I definitely concur with my initial uneasy instinct that the scene wouldn't do; it's just a little bit cringemaking :-p
