Choice cuts III: “Exeunt” through “Arrangements” · 1:12am Feb 24th, 2021
For obvious reasons the transition from Act I to Act II has been one of the most fraught stretches of Three-act Play. Scampy and I chewed it over a great deal, working and re-working various elements for maximum impact (pun intended). With so much of the story revolving around trauma physical and mental, and hospital ICU procedures, we went into a lot of gruesome detail. Wallflower’s mother changed names from Ivy to Holly; the latter seemed more appropriate given how poisonous holly berries are. Also, it was during this period I started dumping raw transcript, editing it down, and using the result as notes while writing.
It may seem from the transcripts Scampy does most of the talking. Sometimes that is the case, but more often it’s the result of my editing process, in which I clear away everything that isn’t immediately relevant and sometimes rearrange lines that otherwise would seem out of order, when we both typed at once, replying to earlier comments.
Scampy: From my experience working in mental health, there are two kinds of attempts: entirely impulsive vs planned and methodical. I guess this is sorta in between—like, she was gonna do it anyway.
Dave: But she’s rushed because Rose is ahead of schedule.
Scampy: Maybe she was just lost in thought, and seeing Rose kinda shakes her out of her stupor.
Dave: Ooh, yeah. Most of this won’t come out until Sunset brain-dives, but it’s useful to set up so I know how to write it.
Scampy: If Wally seems "rushed", that might be really confusing to the reader, cuz that doesn't match her attitude from the last scene they saw her in. So it's less that she sees Rose and is like "oh shit im out of time", and moreso "well, time to go.” I doubt she's even thinking about the time of day, when Rose was to arrive, etc.
Dave: Sure, that works. Lost in thought and daydreaming, then?
Scampy: I think she's just standing in the window, yeah. Just thinking. Maybe with watering can still in hand, but having finished minutes, or an hour, earlier. Maybe she doesn't even look at Rose. She just sees the car, and thinks, “Okay then.”
Dave: “Done now.”
Scampy: Yeah, like she's been holding her breath for hours, and upon seeing the car, she finally exhales (not literally).
Dave: For some reason I think it’s important she hasn’t seen Rose’s face yet, just the van.
Scampy: Yeah. I’m wary of this coming across to the reader as Wally jumping because Rose showed up. This is in no way an impulsive attempt.
Dave: If there’s any way around that, I’m open to it. I mean, in a certain sense she does, but not in the way you’re afraid a reader might interpret it. It’s more that the arrival is the tripwire, not the cause.
Scampy: The hourglass was flipped days ago—rose is just the last grain of sand.
Dave: Anyway, yeah. Rose makes frowny-faces at Sunset for skipping breakfast. Maybe they’re nursing their coffees after mostly finishing their meals.
Scampy: "Oh yeah, I skipped breakfast." [Rose glare.] "H-hey, but I can always have brunch, right?"
Dave: Rose has a powerful glare. The only potential concern I could see would be discussing confidential matters in a public place.
Scampy: No one there knows who Wallflower Blush is. A good rule of thumb is to not use last names. It's okay to discuss a patient when on lunch break somewhere, but be mindful.
Dave: Maybe Rose deliberately picks someplace fairly large and busy. I’ll cogitate on it.
Scampy: That sounds like something she'd do, yeah.
Dave: It would be an interesting contrast against the fast-food joint where they went for the previous lunch.
Scampy: Maybe she's "treating" Sunset for assisting so much with Wallflower.
Dave: Sure! It also is an opportunity at least to hint that Rose considers Sunset at least a casual friend, someone she thinks well of and would like to be well thought of in return.
Dave: So you’re thinking Sunset doesn’t know what happened when she storms in.
Scampy: All she knows is that she got a call from Rose saying Wallflower just tried to kill herself and is on her way to the hospital, I think. She doesn't know the exact sequence of events, nor does she know just how bad it is. Maybe part of the reason she wants to be by Wally's side is that she's holding out hope that she's okay, she's awake, even.
Dave: I’m thinking maybe not even a call, just a text message of where to meet.
Scampy: Yeah, no time for anything else.
Dave: In a phone call, Sunset can interrupt. She can’t interrupt a text message.
Scampy: Very good point.
Dave: It takes a little longer to tap it out than to speak—but only if the speaker isn’t interrupted. So just “meet me at such-and-so ER.”
Scampy: And this way, Rose can just stuff her phone in her pocket and not worry about a flood of follow-up questions. Ohhh yeah. Sunset's more than smart enough to put two and two together.
Scampy: And of course [Wallflower is] in a hospital gown. She'd be pale as hell, too, and probably cold to the touch. Internal bleeding is effing scary.
Dave: Very. The green of her complexion would be a cooler, bluer green. Scary strange.
Scampy: Oooo yeah.
Dave: Am I right that the reddish component of her coloration would be reduced? That’s what I had in mind.
Scampy: Yes.
Dave: So for candy-colored alternate-world humans, that would translate to bluer/less reddish coloration.
Dave: The photo Rose showed her was on Rose’s phone. I hadn’t had in mind that Ivy had a photo, and I didn’t write that in. Hmm.
Scampy: I forgot Rose gave her the number only. My mistake, not worth backtracking over, unless you want to.
Dave: I think it’s enough she mentally obsessed over it. At least to the extent of revisiting the memory constantly.
Scampy: She's seen that face in her head nonstop the past two weeks, and when she called Rose, she was hoping to see it again, but not like this.
Dave: The other possibility is Wallflower missed a photo—maybe something in Ivy’s purse/wallet.
Scampy: Ooooooh, something she found after Rose left.
Dave: Something Wallflower wouldn’t think to look for or couldn’t get to.
Scampy: Maybe something tucked away from a time when things weren't quite as bad.
Dave: Yeah. Something she produces. “I found this.”
Scampy: I just remembered that, good lord, Rose is gonna be getting that phone call on the way to the damn hospital, probably. That might be the hardest thing she has to do all day, crush Ivy's fragile optimism that she's gonna meet her daughter today.
Dave: Maybe that’s one reason she didn’t communicate further with Sunset—grappling with this new element. And that’s part of why Rose is so depressed and upset.
Scampy: That was not a conversation she was ready to have today
Dave: I might even use that line. It sounds just like something Rose would say.
Dave: I think I want to have Sunset ask that [“will she be okay?”] after I present the full panoply of medical-equipment terror.
Scampy: Ohhhh that's a good call.
Dave: There is all this stuff helping to keep her alive, right?
Scampy: Like she's hoping for reassurance, and gets none.
Dave: Yep. With the implication the medical-equipment terror is what wrenches the question out of her.
Scampy: Like just on impulse, yeah.
Dave: It’s a rough scene with a lot of impact, and I think a large part of the impact is the intimidation factor of modern mechanical medicine.
Scampy: Absolutely. This is the first time Sunset’s seen anything like this, too.
Dave: Yes. She still has, at the back of her mind, industrial-age medicine, maybe with magic thrown in.
Scampy: [After reading the draft in progress] The description of all the medical equipment is honestly disturbing.
Dave: Good. I have succeeded.
Dave: One of the themes I really plan to develop with [Ivy/Holly] is how shooting her memory full of holes, horrible as it was, ended up giving her a fresh perspective, free of all, or at least half, the gradually built up bad habits and bad thoughts. That’s how she’s able to make a new start, both in her own life and with Wallflower.
Scampy: Yeah, I really like that. The one good thing to come out of that mess. It's funny, I hadn't realized just how much sense that makes until you just spelled it out like that. But it fits so perfectly.
Dave: Yeah, it kind of hit me on the back of the head. I didn’t think of it at all until I started pondering her as a character once you proposed bringing her back in. I had to justify that growth. And the fact she does seem kind of different in “Lacunae” than the way we initially crafted her.
Scampy: It's always neat when the story grows by itself like that.
Dave: I want to convey the sense the enchantment includes a sort of heuristic indexing system, jumping from experience to experience by seeking associations of the sort Sunset, the user, is looking for. Organic branching, following a branch, moving from one to another, starting from a “seed” experience. In this case, since Sunset is trying to understand the fall/jump, it starts there. Specifically, it latches onto Wallflower’s half-resigned, half-bitter sense of “I can’t even get this right.” Then it moves backward, seeking associations that match, partly by following how Wallflower’s brain and memories are organized, how she thinks of things and puts them together in her mind. And in reviewing the jump/fall, I can explain why she was trying to crab along the wall instead of just tumbling out of the window.
Scampy: I think a common trend of each memory should also be events that made her more and more believe the words Sunset put in her head, the root cause of all this. So, like, being ignored at school, feeling unheard by her mother/unwanted by her father, feeling like she's making Sunset's life more difficult just by being part of it—all things that make her think, 'they really wouldn’t mind if i was gone. She was right.'
Dave: Ultimately it gets to Sunset’s cutting remark, with all the baroque baggage Wallflower has built up around it.
Scampy: I think that was her justification to herself as she was crawling out the window—something along the lines of "this is best for everyone," like she's finally 'doing the right thing' in some sick sense. Sunset's taunt stops being a taunt and starts sounding like sound, well-meaning advice.
Dave: Yeah. But it’s only after diving into all those layers Sunset gets the context of that.
Scampy: I think a big difference between Sunset last chapter and Rose this chapter (and just between the two characters in general) is that Rose can recognize when she needs to take a step back. Sunset is just go go go all the time never stopping gotta help gotta save the day.
Dave: Composed, I think, of natural energy, capability, guilt, and youth.
Scampy: And by take a step back, I mean like she's able to accept—awful as it is—that she can't do anything for Wallflower right now, at least not directly. Rose is better at accepting really unfortunate situations, and after a day has passed, I think she's accepted that whether Wally survives or not is just out of her control. Not to say she doesn't hate that feeling, but I think she might see Holly as a way to find meaning in that feeling.
Dave: That all tracks, yeah. I have this vague notion of her telling Sunset at some point something along the lines of “you can’t save the whole world and everyone in it, Sunset.”
Scampy: I bet Rose used to want to save the world, and everyone in it. And she's since learned that the best way to do that is to save the people in her own world, narrow as it may be.
Dave: When she was young and feisty, probably around Sunset’s age.
Scampy: Yeah, exactly.
Dave: She sees a lot of herself in Sunset. She sees the ghosts of any number of lieutenants and sergeants in Sunset.
Scampy: Some who didn't learn the lessons Rose did and paid the price for it.
Dave: Yeah. And she does care about Sunset.
Dave: My question right now is what the hotel is like.
Scampy: Probably a chain hotel, like Hilton or something. So beige, generic building lined with curtained windows. Rooms that are featureless save for maybe a cheap photo frame with a print-off art. Overly fluffy beds that aren't uncomfortable but definitely not like whatever you'd have at home. A big TV with a menu screen no one can figure out how to make work, so it just stays off.
Dave: I love this description. It is so perfectly, sarcastically dead on. What’s the lobby like?
Scampy: Reception desk tucked out of the way, otherwise a pretty wide open room. Carpet looks like something out of a catalog from over a decade ago, maybe a few scattered lounge chairs with a table between them, covered in unread magazines from years prior. Kinda dim lighting.
Dave: Always dim lighting. That doesn’t seem to change. Except in cheap, cramped motel lobbies.
Scampy: I’m sure there's room service but it's exceedingly expensive.
Dave: On-site restaurant?
Scampy: Only offers seating for the breakfast buffet, but at night it's closed, the kitchen offering a limited room-service menu. Probably just burgers, pizza, easy-to-prepare stuff.
Dave: Where is the building in relation to the hospital? I do have a mental image of the area, but I want to compare it.
Scampy: Probably not directly next to it, maybe a couple blocks down.
Dave: Yeah, just what I was thinking, actually. Major boulevard lined with businesses including restaurants, so there’s no shortage of nearby places to get food. Some of them open twenty-four hours, probably in part because the hospital is nearby. (There’s a hospital here in the Valley I passed by once that I have in mind.) They’d get traffic from visitors and staff both.
Scampy: Probably a lot of signs in the windows to let people know they offer 24/7 takeout.
Dave: Ooh, yeah. And the hotel long since has given up on trying to prevent people bringing in food.
Scampy: Yeah, the hotel just gave up, lol. I like that.
Ooooof. Of course you went there...
That's... actually a good reason for the name change. The implications there makes her involvement much more complex. (Although I must resist the urge to point out that there's such a thing as poison ivy, too.)
It's good to see this exchange, because this kinda lines up with how I interpreted the scene and the chain of actions. Wallflower had already made the decision to jump the day before, which is why she was so calm when interacting with Sunset. (The emphasis on her being "calm" stuck out to me as a red flag, because, according to my understanding, those who go through with planned attempts often feel a sense of calm, relief, and peace once everything is lined up.) It's only the arrival of the van that... Well, I don't necessarily want to say forces her hand, because she was going to do it anyway, but that its presence made it literally now or never. She knew she was going to be taken to inpatient that day; she just wasn't sure when. The van was the last alarm clock she'd get.
Didn't come across as impulsive to me. (Again, me picking up the hints might have been part of that, though I feel like you two telegraphed this enough that it wouldn't have felt out of left field if I hadn't.) Like I mentioned above, the arrival of the van meant she was out of time, but the decision had already been made.
I wouldn't want to be on her bad side, no.
Plus, from a narrative (and IRL) standpoint, it's much more chilling as a text message. Something you can just read, over and over again, while hoping and praying there'll be more to say later.
That was one of the best lines in that chapter.
... That's a brilliant consideration. The main show is really inconsistent with its technology, including medical equipment. There's a couple episodes with modern-looking hospitals, vet offices, etc. and stuff like X-rays and surgical theaters, but nothing that comes close to modern life support. That would add even more terror to the situation for Sunset. You two really did think of everything.
The thoughts on Holly's growth, and the impact of what the Memory Stone left behind, are a good example of how stories can often take on lives of their own. Or at least go down paths we hadn't intended from the outset. That's a sign of a good, dynamic story, IMO.
The way you had the geode work, in terms of how the memories were categorized/associated/connected with others, was something I hadn't seen before. I think it made for a riveting read.
That's what I get from both characters. The difference between them, like you both point out later in this exchange, is due to age and maturity. It also reminds me of this quote I've seen floating around online, supposedly from the OP's college professor:
One last thought, regarding the hashing out of the hotel setting and amenities... The biggest hospital in my area has a cluster of hotels near it that are exactly like this, down to decor and dining options. When I was reading the hotel segments in the story (and here) a part of my mind was like, "Yup, been there before..."
A great read as always! Thanks for publishing these. Looking forward to the rest.
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I flailed around a little trying to name Ivy/Holly; “Ivy” was just kind of a default, and I-A-M already had used it in the Sunflower Gardens series. I’m terrible with names, though oddly less so with pony-style names. I ended up kind of rummaging around for plant names and, when “Holly” crossed my path, I knew it was perfect. I haven’t decided whether there’s more to her name, and I deliberately have left that vague.
Your outline of Wallflower’s thinking is exactly what I had in mind. I did my best in the narrative to address Scampy’s concerns, and I never was completely certain how successful that was. That was one reason I included that particular section of discussion.
The chilling quality of being able to read a text message over and over wasn’t something I considered in full at the time—I was concentrating more on immediate narrative needs and character actions—but I’ll take it.
I’m not certain where Scampy falls on the issue, but I hew rigorously to the original late-nineteenth-century world-building put in place at the beginning of MLPFIM—and to which MLPEG, oddly, pays closer attention. Anachronisms being strewn thick and fast is partly the fault of Hasbro, who demanded elements more familiar in young viewers’ daily lives, and partly that of various scriptwriters who were . . . less dedicated to consistency, shall we say.
Holly isn’t the only new element to grow out of the story. Sunset’s track is fairly well set, but Rose’s has changed significantly, culminating in “Erosion”, though I’m sure the implications will continue in Act III.
I had to think about how the enchantment worked in Sunset’s pendant. As I told I-A-M, I tried to evoke the kinetic random-access quality of a microfiche reader, only with all senses at once. One of the basic elements I started from was the fact every brain is individual and different, so the enchantment would have to learn from scratch each new brain it encountered.
Sunset and Rose really do have a lot in common now, though I don’t think Rose’s temper ever was as fiery, and certainly she wasn’t a bully when she was younger. The line you quote is wonderful, and I would love to use it somewhere if I can find a way.
Scampy’s description was from experience, and I’ve visited scores of hotels over the years for science-fiction and other fan conventions; I just needed to know what kind of hotel I was dealing with. I have no doubt any large hospital pretty much anywhere in the developed world, at least, probably has a small business and hotel district around it, zoning and development permitting.