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breakinglight11I realized recently I haven’t worked on the mainline entry in my MCU fanfiction series, Forever Captain, for like a year now, and I feel kind of guilty about that. Of course, I feel guilty when I spend too much time writing fanfiction as well, so I guess I can’t win. But I do want those stories to get finished eventually. Unfortunately, I always find plotting to be the most intensive work in writing, and in a plot-heavy story like that one, it makes it the number one barrier to making progress.
It sometimes helps when I’m stuck on a prose project to try drafting scenes as drama, to lower the barrier to getting them on the page. That’s not super helpful when I’m trying to just figure out what needs to happen structurally, but it occurred to me it might help on a lower-intensity installment in the series that hasn’t seen any updates recently either. So here’s a scene from The Show, the one where Steve’s great-granddaughter takes him to see Rogers! The Musical. The premise of that piece is that while laughing over the musical’s inaccuracies, Steve gets to reflect to his great-granddaughter about the trajectory of his life, so I can weave pathos into the humor, and I’m afraid this scene is a bit thin for that. But as I continually remind myself— draft now, flesh out later. If you can’t do something you want to with a scene, do the next-easiest thing to it, and fix it in the edit.
I shall definitely have to do that here.
Day #9 – Singing and Dancing
From Forever Captain: The Show
By Phoebe Roberts
STEVE ROGERS, formerly Captain America, now retired and living as Grant Carter
ANGELA CARTER, his sixteen-year-old great-granddaughter
An ACTOR playing Steve Rogers in Rogers! The Musical
An ACTRESS playing Peggy Carter in Rogers! The Musical
New York, 2025
~~~
(The cast launches into “Star-Spangled Man With a Plan,” as SHOW-STEVE is swept into the propaganda machine of the American war effort. He is shoved into his costume to perform in USO shows, lead war bond drives, and shoot cheesy action movies. USO girls dance, photographers flash their cameras, and ordinary people enlist and do their part.)
ANGELA: (Groaning) Oh, my God, this is so cheesy.
STEVE: (Snorts) So far, this is the most accurate scene yet.
ANGELA: Jesus Christ, really? This stuff worked on people?
STEVE: Really. Folks weren’t as jaded back then by sophisticated marketing, so you didn’t have to be so slick about it.
ANGELA: And that’s all it took? A smile and a bit of flexing?
STEVE: Well. Like you said. I was a bit of a...
ANGELA: A beef castle!
STEVE: Yeah. That.
(They observe SHOW-STEVE acrobatically turning and flipping with the girls.)
STEVE: Except he’s a much better dancer than I ever was.
ANGELA: Aw, so you didn’t do backflips with the kick line?
STEVE: I mean, I learned eventually. But just so I could take your grandma on a turn around the dance floor.
(After the number is over, SHOW-STEVE is left alone and sits dejectedly, as SHOW-PEGGY enters. He rushes to stand and salute.)
SHOW-PEGGY: (Laughing) At ease, soldier.
SHOW-STEVE: What soldier? Just a dancing monkey, here, ma’am.
SHOW-PEGGY: If you “ma’am” me one more time, Steve, I’m going to have to slap you with my handbag.
STEVE: (Grumbling under his breath)
SHOW-STEVE: Right, ma’am. I mean— sir— I mean—!
ANGELA: Oh, my God.
SHOW-PEGGY: Peggy will do. Now, who’s supposed to be a dancing monkey?
SHOW-STEVE: Aw, it’s just this assignment— this USO dog and pony show. I wanted to do my part for the war, but I thought the Nazis I’d be slugging wouldn’t be wearing dancing shoes.
SHOW-PEGGY: Raising war bonds is very important.
SHOW-STEVE: Not when there’s an army marching their way across Europe.
STEVE: For Christ’s sake.
ANGELA: Huh? I thought you wanted to get out there on the front lines.
STEVE: Of course I did. But not to beat up Nazis. Because it didn’t seem right to be singing and dancing while other people were putting their lives on the line to stop fascism.
ANGELA: Didn’t you want to fight?
STEVE: Oh, honey. Nobody wants to fight a war. At least, nobody decent, not if they don’t have to. But don’t you think for a moment that I wanted to be a soldier.
ANGELA: So… why didn’t you find some other way to help?
STEVE: Because… people needed me. Because Bucky needed me.
(On the stage, a UNIFORMED SOLDIER enters.)
SHOW-SOLDIER: Miss Carter? It’s the Howling Commandos— they’ve missed their last mission contact.
It sometimes helps when I’m stuck on a prose project to try drafting scenes as drama, to lower the barrier to getting them on the page. That’s not super helpful when I’m trying to just figure out what needs to happen structurally, but it occurred to me it might help on a lower-intensity installment in the series that hasn’t seen any updates recently either. So here’s a scene from The Show, the one where Steve’s great-granddaughter takes him to see Rogers! The Musical. The premise of that piece is that while laughing over the musical’s inaccuracies, Steve gets to reflect to his great-granddaughter about the trajectory of his life, so I can weave pathos into the humor, and I’m afraid this scene is a bit thin for that. But as I continually remind myself— draft now, flesh out later. If you can’t do something you want to with a scene, do the next-easiest thing to it, and fix it in the edit.
I shall definitely have to do that here.
Day #9 – Singing and Dancing
From Forever Captain: The Show
By Phoebe Roberts
STEVE ROGERS, formerly Captain America, now retired and living as Grant Carter
ANGELA CARTER, his sixteen-year-old great-granddaughter
An ACTOR playing Steve Rogers in Rogers! The Musical
An ACTRESS playing Peggy Carter in Rogers! The Musical
New York, 2025
~~~
(The cast launches into “Star-Spangled Man With a Plan,” as SHOW-STEVE is swept into the propaganda machine of the American war effort. He is shoved into his costume to perform in USO shows, lead war bond drives, and shoot cheesy action movies. USO girls dance, photographers flash their cameras, and ordinary people enlist and do their part.)
ANGELA: (Groaning) Oh, my God, this is so cheesy.
STEVE: (Snorts) So far, this is the most accurate scene yet.
ANGELA: Jesus Christ, really? This stuff worked on people?
STEVE: Really. Folks weren’t as jaded back then by sophisticated marketing, so you didn’t have to be so slick about it.
ANGELA: And that’s all it took? A smile and a bit of flexing?
STEVE: Well. Like you said. I was a bit of a...
ANGELA: A beef castle!
STEVE: Yeah. That.
(They observe SHOW-STEVE acrobatically turning and flipping with the girls.)
STEVE: Except he’s a much better dancer than I ever was.
ANGELA: Aw, so you didn’t do backflips with the kick line?
STEVE: I mean, I learned eventually. But just so I could take your grandma on a turn around the dance floor.
(After the number is over, SHOW-STEVE is left alone and sits dejectedly, as SHOW-PEGGY enters. He rushes to stand and salute.)
SHOW-PEGGY: (Laughing) At ease, soldier.
SHOW-STEVE: What soldier? Just a dancing monkey, here, ma’am.
SHOW-PEGGY: If you “ma’am” me one more time, Steve, I’m going to have to slap you with my handbag.
STEVE: (Grumbling under his breath)
SHOW-STEVE: Right, ma’am. I mean— sir— I mean—!
ANGELA: Oh, my God.
SHOW-PEGGY: Peggy will do. Now, who’s supposed to be a dancing monkey?
SHOW-STEVE: Aw, it’s just this assignment— this USO dog and pony show. I wanted to do my part for the war, but I thought the Nazis I’d be slugging wouldn’t be wearing dancing shoes.
SHOW-PEGGY: Raising war bonds is very important.
SHOW-STEVE: Not when there’s an army marching their way across Europe.
STEVE: For Christ’s sake.
ANGELA: Huh? I thought you wanted to get out there on the front lines.
STEVE: Of course I did. But not to beat up Nazis. Because it didn’t seem right to be singing and dancing while other people were putting their lives on the line to stop fascism.
ANGELA: Didn’t you want to fight?
STEVE: Oh, honey. Nobody wants to fight a war. At least, nobody decent, not if they don’t have to. But don’t you think for a moment that I wanted to be a soldier.
ANGELA: So… why didn’t you find some other way to help?
STEVE: Because… people needed me. Because Bucky needed me.
(On the stage, a UNIFORMED SOLDIER enters.)
SHOW-SOLDIER: Miss Carter? It’s the Howling Commandos— they’ve missed their last mission contact.
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