"I don't prowl after the help."

Finished a draft of a scene today that turned out surprisingly long, set sometime in the future of the Mrs. Hawking continuity. You may have heard me mention Nathaniel's elder brother Justin, who's a world traveler and a bit of a rake. I wanted to write a scene between the two of them, and I settled on a theoretical moment where Justin is in London and has been starting to hit on Mary, which Nathaniel, knowing his brother, doesn't approve of.

I wanted to show the brothers' relationship as well as possible raise large plot-relevant issues, which I think I succeeded with. The one thing I struggled to accomplish was I want it to subtly reveal some of the classism in Nathaniel that he hasn't confronted yet-- that he may think of himself as high-minded, but that he considers attraction to a lower-class person to be vulgar for a gentleman --and I'm not sure I executed with sufficient clarity and understatement. It was too easy to gloss over "I'm not attracted to people beneath my class" with "I don't sexually harass people at work" and "I'm married and so not paying much attention to any outside people romantically."

But I think I did a good job characterizing Justin. He tweaks Nathaniel, who's way more of a goody-goody, which is fun. And I love writing the relationship between them as brothers. "Frasier" is one of my all-time favorite shows, and the way they depict the brothers and their relationship really is the best part.

( "Just what do you think you're doing?" )