All Eyes on Me

This I whipped together late the other night. It's a scene from the past, where the Colonel is confronted by his brother Ambrose. The idea came from thinking about how Ambrose likely heard through his society connections that his brother would be offered the knighthood, and be so delighted by that fact that when he heard Reginald turned it down, he would march over there and give him hell for it. It's very rough and banged out, but it's interesting to think about these things that shaped the events that actually featured in the text of the plays.

( Day #18 - No Knights )

Governor Gareth Stanton— Mrs. Hawking's father —is a bit of a bugaboo in our story. We know she hates him, and in her opinion he was an awful man. We finally get to meet him in part 4, and see where this rage toward him came from.

( Day #17 - Best Solution )

I've been at GenCon this week, promoting on our release of Susurrus: Season of Tides for my job at Evil Overlord Games. So I've been behind on releases scenes. But here's another from Gilded Cages while I endeavor to catch up.

As a side note, I recently realized that Priyanka is a Hindu extracted name, not one an Indian Muslim would be likely to have. So I'm going to have to change it for accuracy's sake, but I haven't decided what to go with yet.

( Day #15 - A Small Alliance )

This was one of the scenes I felt was most successful in all of part 4 during the first reading. It directly builds off of Day #1 - "Stakeout Date" and immediately follows Day #11 - "Showing Up" One of my big resolutions for every piece in the series is that each of my three leads— Mary, Mrs. Hawking, and Nathaniel — get a meaningful personal issue to deal with. It's okay and indeed expected for who takes center stage to shift, like how part 1 is mostly Mary's journey and part 3 primarily features Nathaniel's, but they all need an arc every play whether it's the story's most important arc or not.

In part 4, I was concerned that Mrs. Hawking's is so big that it might completely force out the other two. So I made particular effort to clarify what Mary and Nathaniel's journeys were in my head in very specific terms so I could focus on them. Mary in particular is all about taking steps of a journey that spans the entire series— going from ignored and agency-free nobody to a full-fledged hero in her own right. So each play is her navigating a step along that way. In Base Instruments, she decided she didn't want to be a clone of Mrs. Hawking, with nothing else but the work in her life. Now in Gilded Cages she's dealing with people prospect of what that's going to look like. She knows she wants "more," but what does "more" mean?

She struggles because before coming to Mrs. Hawking, she had no meaningful history, nothing that she did or was that mattered. She has very little to build upon, like any important relationships or ties. It's all being formed from scratch for her. This gives her a good struggle for this story, because part 4 is ALL ABOUT history. Her lack of it does just as much to shape her as Mrs. Hawking's abundance.

The other thing was, at the first reading, this particular scene was read by Charlotte as Mary and Matt as Arthur, and their performance knocked it out of the park. Matt in particular has done so much to shape the character of Arthur in my mind with his excellent portrayals, and hearing it in Arthur's actual voice with all the meaning he brought to it was such a thrill.

Also, the last line is total fan service. BUT I LOVE IT.

( Day #13 - Making Room )

Accomplishment chart, 8/4 – 8/10

Writing
- had first reading dinner for Mrs. Hawking part 4
- drafted “Continual Practice” scene of Mrs. Hawking part 6
- drafted “Promises Kept” scene of Mrs. Hawking part 5
- drafted “From the Queen’s Archive” scene of Mrs. Hawking part 5
- finished final cycle for faction quests in Susurrus for EO Games
- 7 journal entries

Physical
- 2 fighter abs routines
- 3 two-mile runs
- walked 10,000+ steps 1 day

Teaching
- finished editing 3 syllabi for Fall semester at Lesley

Media
- listened to episode 121 of Tom and Lorenzo’s Pop Style Opinionfest

Cooking
- made slow-cooked cannellini, steamed peas with almonds and onions, cornbread, and mixed berry pie in a puff-pastry crust
- made baked crusted cod with steamed broccoli

This scene piece comes immediately after Day #2 - "The One" in Mrs. Hawking part 4: Gilded Cages. It might be a little bit too much of "connective tissue" scene to be worth posting, but it takes us into Nathaniel's major issue for this play, his discovery that the Colonel turned down a knighthood— and that he'll never know why his uncle did it.

A small random observation. You'll notice at the bottom of this scene is a mention of Nathaniel's father. Though we've never actually featured Ambrose Hawking, it occurs to me that he's been mentioned in every single play in the series at least once, even the ten-minute companion piece. In part 1: Mrs. Hawking, our hero mentions "visiting his brother in the south country." In part 2: Vivat Regina, she tells Nathaniel, "All the men in the family have that look. Your uncle, your father, and you." In part 3: Base Instruments, Justin brushes off Clara's comment on his black sheep status with "We can't all be Father's favorite." In the ten-minute, Like a Loss, Reginald puts off a visit from Ambrose, and worries that his brother will teach his dislike of Mrs. Hawking to his two young boys.

I think he is the single most mentioned character who has never actually made an appearance— since the Colonel has now appeared in both part 4, and in the ten-minute companion piece Like a Loss. I've always wanted to do something with him, though I don't know if he'll ever be able to appear. He tends to mostly come off like a bit of an ass in his mentions, but in my head he's a bit more complicated, and it would be nice to get to portray him and his relationship to the rest of the family.

Here, Nathaniel communicates with him off-screen, and it actually would likely be an interesting conversation to hear. But sadly there is no place for it in the Gilded Cages script. Maybe for fun I'll bang it out and see what it looked like, but it would be just for an academic exercise.

( Day #10 - Letter From the Queen )

This scene was banged out in like three minutes after being struck by an idea. I know I want to have Mrs. Frost holding Nathaniel captive as bait/a hostage/an information source as a big part of Mrs. Hawking part 5. It occurred to me that Mrs. Frost would have done her research into Nathaniel in order to effectively manipulate him. And she'd make sure to go in with a weapon.

This is extremely rough, and of course, having not even edited part 4 yet, I don't really know what part 5 is going to be like. Probably this ultimately won't fit the situation that I'll end up using. But I try to take down ideas when I have them, so I don't lose them for later. After all, I had about five or six scenes to at least be adapted already for Gilded Cages. Every little bit helps!

( Day #8 - From the Queen's Archive )

One of my biggest regrets about Mrs. Hawking part 4 is there's no room in it for Clara, who has become one of my favorite characters. However, I definitely want her to be an important part of part 5, going so far as to actually include her in the adventure. Since I'm thinking a major part of that plot is Nathaniel gets captured by their enemy in that, she can become the temporary third member of Mrs. Hawking and Mary's team to help free him and solve the case. Particularly because with her social maneuvering, she has a skill set neither of the other two do, and I love the idea that it enables them to work against their enemy on a totally different level— as they realize in "A Separate Battlefield", a scene that kicked off last year's 31P31D.

It's never a great idea to write high-drama, high-intensity scenes before I fully know the context for them, but they're the easiest to imagine when I don't know the story's whole plot. Here's from after Nathaniel is rescued, a moment with just him and Clara.

( Day #6 - Promises Kept )

Another scene from the first draft of Gilded Cages. This scene sets up Nathaniel's journey in the play, his discovering of the Colonel's turning down a knighthood and struggling with the fact that he'll never know why. Originally I was going to set this piece in 1885, pushing it a little farther into the future, but I looked at my timeline and realize that since the Colonel died in 1879, I should go with a year earlier to get that five-year milestone. I kind of wish it could occur a little later-- a historical event I'm planning on including in part 6 happens in 1888, so I'm trying to spread out the time jumps between episodes --but I think this shift was necessary.

The scene I posted for day #2 - "The One" is the next step of this story thread.

( Day #4 - Five Years is Enough Time to Learn )

This is actually NOT from Mrs. Hawking part 4. It's just an idea I had that I scribbled down, for possible use sometime down the line.

It occurred to me that after deciding Nathaniel had better talents than learning to fight in Vivat Regina, he never really picked up any combat skills. Honestly, with the danger they face, that's something that he'd likely have to do eventually just to keep safe. It also struck me that he's going to go through a pretty serious situation in his part in part 5. So maybe that bad thing happening to him is the impetus to finally get him trained in some form of self-defense.

It also occurred to me that maybe he'd be the one person on the team to use a gun. I'm not sure how I feel about it, as I've avoided including our heroes using guns for a number of reasons, but it seemed like it fit, like it was something he could train at even though he wasn't suited to close combat. Here's a bit of noodling on that idea.

( Day #3 - Learning to Shoot )