31 Plays in 31 Days, #7 - “Cheeky Girl”

This builds upon yesterday’s #6 - An Interesting Life. It’s still extremely clumsily written, as I am just focusing on the structure in this first draft. But at least it has slightly more in the way of specifics, in some of the dialogue in the beginning. I need Beatrice to be slightly cheeky in her insistence, with some tension between Nathaniel and Clara as the accommodating and stern parent respectively, while hinting at Mrs. Hawking’s reluctance to any emotional connection being the real issue here. It will also lead into an eventually revised version of 2020’s #4 - Soft Touch. It all needs SO MUCH editing, but it’s a start.

I’ve also got a small thematic detail I’m trying to run through without making too big a deal of it. Mrs. Hawking references a book here with an inscription that says it used to belong to “Cornelia M. Blake.” It will be echoed later in the second conversation with Beatrice, where she’s been looking at an old picture of “Madam Amina.” These are not big clues to anything, and certainly not related to the case. Maybe it’s too much, but I wanted to try out the idea that Miranda’s letters have been making her think about certain things.



( Day #7 - Cheeky Girl )