Choice cuts I: “Prologue” through “Interview” · 4:23am Feb 22nd, 2021
Even before Three-act Play took shape, self-harm/suicide was a major item. For Scampy it was foundational; for me it was not. We decided to set aside self-harm, but to make an unsuccessful suicide attempt the basic driver of the story. To avoid rehashing Amphorae we structured the outline around the attempt being much earlier in the story, with the aftermath and eventual recovery forming the middle and end. Sunset planting the seed with “No one would even care if you disappeared”, and Wallflower eventually erasing her memory of doing so, was Scampy’s inspiration. So too were the ideas the story would be told entirely from Rose’s and Sunset’s points of view, and the rest of the Rainbooms would remain mostly or entirely off-stage. Otherwise the outline developed gradually through discussion, and the story as written has followed it fairly closely.
And, laughably, we estimated the story would be only a little longer than Amphorae.
Scampy: I think Wally hates the idea of Sunset more than Sunset as a person. Sunset has everything Wally ever wanted and more, even after all the horrible things she did. But again, it all boils down to Wally hating herself. Why didn't she have any friends? Because she erased people’s memories of every interaction she had with them. And why did she do that? Because she felt like she screwed it up. And why did she feel like that? Because of course she screwed it up. She screws everything up. I like to compare Wallflower to Fluttershy: Fluttershy is anxious of what others are going to do, whereas Wally is anxious of what she’s going to do.
Dave: I think [Wallflower’s] frumpiness is part of her “I’ve given up caring” persona.
Scampy: Definitely. I mean, "Won't be long before I’m gone" isn't exactly subtle.
Scampy: One of the best parts of it imo is how it feels like [Amphorae and Three-act Play] so cleanly [fit] just on the outskirts of what we see in the show.
Scampy: Something I remembered from the special: Wallflower's picture in the yearbook was blank. She just didn't have one, at least until the very end. Maybe that’s a theme Rose discovers in Wally's records. I think what likely happened was she didn’t go to picture day or submit anything. Maybe she didn’t have anything. No driver license/permit, a school ID with no picture. It’s as if a few years ago, she stopped existing as anything more than a name on a page, coinciding with when her father started to sink into being abusive, and her anxiety shot through the roof.
Dave: Kind of the inverse of Sunset, who started getting more bureaucratic presence as time went on, Wallflower’s thins out.
Scampy: Exactly. Wally hates how she looks so much that it’s no wonder there are no recent pictures of her on record. She deliberately went out of her way to make it so. This is conjecture, but I mean, heavy sweater in late spring heat?
Dave: I read it more as just not caring about her appearance, but that isn’t mutually exclusive, and I’ve heard of what you’re talking about.
Scampy: If her dad was hitting her, then, well . . . he probably wasn’t very nice to her in general, and what’s something every teenage girl is scared of? Being ugly. Easy target. That’s part of Wally's paradox. She hates that she’s not seen, and she hates when she’s being seen.
Scampy: When someone is in crisis, if you say, “Let me know if you need anything,” you’re not going to get anywhere. You’re handing them the initiative while they’re just not in a position to handle that. Instead, you say, “Tell me what I can do to help you,” or “I’m going to do x for you, okay?” (Like bringing them food, contacting someone, etc.) Be active about it, and understand what they’re able to handle in that moment. I think Sunset’s the kind of person who intuitively knows these kinds of things, and reacts accordingly.
Dave: Besides, she’s, well, pushy.
Dave: I wanted to avoid the word “help” in Rose’s statement, because that might push Wallflower away.
Scampy: Good that you’re mindful of that. People like Wally have a lot of difficulty accepting help, and even just the tiniest effort to sidestep framing it that way can make a huge difference. Something Rose would no doubt be aware of.
Scampy: In mental healthcare, there’s a huge difference between thinking something and saying/identifying it. When Wally thinks she deserves it, that thought just slips into the hazy mass of “bad thoughts” filling her head, popping in and out of focus like bees in a hive.
Dave: I’ve seen that so many times in narrative, even when not dealing with mental health—some variation of “it’s different when it’s said out loud” or “it was the first time someone had said it out loud”.
Scampy: Exactly. As soon as she's forced to say it, suddenly it’s a lot more real and, for Rose's purposes, it's been identified. It's not “nebulous bad thoughts”—it has a name, and that gives options for how to approach dealing with it. Think of it like a medical diagnosis, in a way.
Scampy: I think the key difference between Rose talking to Wallflower and Sunset talking to Wallflower is that Sunset was trying to learn what she could, but had limits with how uncomfortable she was willing to let Wally get before she pulled back. Rose is willing to push a little further. Sunset is a lot more concerned about providing short-term validation and comfort while helping her friend, whereas Rose is more concerned about Wally’s long-term problems and progress.
Dave: I had been concentrating on the differences in what they brought to it, rather than what they hoped to take out of it.
Scampy: I think both feed into each other there, and there's a critical gap in what they're able to do for Wally that’s gonna lead to her attempt later on. The Bad Thoughts™ are already there, circling, and the path Rose and Sunset take to help Wally ultimately leaves her feeling more isolated on the grounds of “it’s for your own good.” No matter how they phrase it, when they tell Wally that she has to go to some inpatient treatment center, she only hears, “You won’t be able to see the only person who cares about you for weeks because we’re sticking you in this unknown, terrifying inpatient place because you’re too sick and useless to be anywhere else.”
Dave: And there’s just enough . . . well, not truth exactly, but reasonable interpretation to this that it reinforces the slightly paranoid world-view she’s developing.
Scampy: Exactly. They're not wrong; she’s adding judgements to their actions that aren’t really there. I think that could be a huge part of it actually, gosh. When Rose tells her that she’s been put on the list for an inpatient treatment place, and Sunset goes along with it, to Wally, it would feel like her only friend is just dumping her off on some doctors because Sunset’s sick and tired of putting up with her. She’s fine with Wally getting stuffed in some psych ward, out of sight and out of mind. So when Sunset visits her the night before she’s scheduled to go to treatment, maybe it’s to try to ease her nerves a bit, cuz Wally got really upset the last time they talked about it. This time, Wally’s just calm and accepting, which Sunset sees as good, but really it’s because Wally’s decided that she’s not wanted, and it would be easier for everyone if she just stepped out the window instead. And she’s decided that she’s okay with that.
Some chilling insights here. There's a reason Scampy is synonymous with darker reads on Wallflower.
I've always been a massive fan of your author's notes giving us the background and some extra context to your stories. They always feel like a little bonus, a DVD-extras type of hidden gem. Add to that some analysis of Three Act Play as seen as it was being written, and this is an absolute treasure trove even though I haven't read the story yet (gotta wait until it's completed or I'll be chomping at the bit for each update
).
The comparison between Wallflower and Fluttershy gives Wally a hell of a lot more depth than she ended up getting in Forgotten Friendship, IMO. I mean, I mostly only appreciate the fanfic interpretations of her - there's only so much you can cram into a 40-minute special, after all - but drawing that parallel opens up a lot more in the way of canon characterisation.
Hah, of course Scampy had to mention the demo version of Invisible. Your references to the yearbook picture is a really interesting demonstration of the way you both approach expanding the canon. I kinda get the vibe of you reading the canon as-is, then seeing what interesting things can be done from that (Amphorae is a great example, where you spun out "They're just three harmless teenage girls" into an entire arc of coming to terms with powerlessness). Meanwhile, Scampy seems to prefer
shameless projectionhaving an interesting idea that matches a character's general personality, then finding the parts of canon that can be worked into that (Wallflower's sweater leading to basically the entire Bad Habits trilogy).And, of course, all the ideas and notes on mental health, therapy, and spiralling trains of thought both ring as painfully accurate, as well as surprisingly easy-to-read and, well, applicable (especially for a snippet of a private chat).
Damn, this has made me really look forward to binging this story. You're clearly both great at bouncing ideas off each other, dancing between narrative devices, writing styles and a brutal dose of real such that I can't wait to see where this ends up. I wonder if it's possible to find the parts of the story that spawned from these little chat snippets - I'll be on the lookout. Thanks to both you and Scampy for agreeing to share this!
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She identifies pretty closely with Wallflower, and even our joint version of Wallflower in Three-act Play draws very heavily on both our life experiences, as well as other folks we know or have heard about and mental healthcare in general.
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DVD audio commentary is very much the sort of model I had in mind when I came up with the idea, and I delight in presenting or discussing story elements, characters, world-building, and so on.
Your comparison and contrasting of Scampy’s and my approaches to canon information is spot-on in my case, and I believe correct in hers. Of course, being a fly on the wall for some of our non-one-on-one chatting helps!
In fairness, I do edit for clarity, which involves not only redaction but a little proofreading and rearrangement—but it’s amazing what a long way even a little of that can go, especially where people who are fairly articulate are concerned.
And yeah, this has been an amazing collaborative effort! I really can’t emphasize enough the night-and-day difference between my previous generally terrible experiences and working with Scampy.
I think leaving the Rainbooms out of this story pretty much entirely was a wise narrative choice. While I personally enjoy little nods/references/inclusions of character's friends/family within a story that focuses primarily on one or two characters (romantic or otherwise), I think it would detract from the focused narrative you two have built so far. Plus, Rose, Keel, Holly, and even Sticky are better thematic choices to spend words that aren't devoted to Sunny and Wally.
Bingo. They both seem to suffer from social anxiety, but the root causes are vastly different.
The rest of the discussion is incredibly valuable. (Not just as background on the story, but for information on mental health and support as well.) I really liked reading your back-and-forth on the thought process behind some of the narrative and character decisions. The differences between Sunset's and Rose's approaches was particularly insightful.
Both of your backgrounds/life experiences have enabled you two to collaborate on this in a way that seems pretty seamless from what I've heard. Collabs are difficult; I've only managed to do a couple of short ones without wanting to pull my hair out, LOL. I'm glad you two mesh so well together creatively. The result has been an absolute joy to read.
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I deliberately am choosing not just material pertinent to specific elements of story construction, but any other topic a reader may find useful or illuminating. We discuss mental health and care a lot, and quite a bit of it is relevant to anyone with an interest or a need.
The story conferences are wide-ranging and can delve pretty deep into all sorts of subjects. These really are just the tiniest bits, because the whole thing would be far too tedious to wade through, not to mention much too personal. Circling back and reiterating, wandering from topic to topic, and all the other conversational curlicues one might expect are present too—which is why my process for Three-act Play involves as much time editing down transcripts as it does actual writing.
Had Wallflower not crashed so hard, the Rainbooms might have been more of a presence during this period in her life, if only a little. They’ll be there for her after it’s all over, though, I promise.
Scampy’s thought process seems to be more compatible with the way my tiny but active brain wants to do things than pretty much anyone else I’ve tried to deal with. I think, if I had to boil it down to a single sentence to convey an impression of how and why, I would put it this way: when I ask a question, literally or metaphorically, Scampy gives me the answer I’m looking for instead of the dreaded “it depends” or haring off in a completely different and from my viewpoint seemingly random direction.