Baton Rouge
July 11, 2008
25 Words or Less: Middle-aged married woman in Louisiana is being haunted. Through counseling sessions with her priest, we get closer to the truth about her marriage.
Background: Another Idea I’ve had floating around in my head for years. I’ve tried on numerous ocassions to write up a first draft, but always tend to get stuck on momentum issues, among other specifics of the story.
Story: MAGGIE is a middle-aged Louisiana housewife with a teenaged daughter (SHELLY) and well-to-do husband (SHEP). One morning, Maggie is staring out her bedroom window at an oncoming storm when a mockingbird flies directly into the window, right in front of her face. Set on edge, Maggie tends to the regular occurrences of her day, which today includes Shelly angling for a new car for her upcoming sixteenth birthday, and Shep mentioning that he’ll have to be spending the next several days in Houston on business. These early scenes hint at a possessive and controlling nature within Maggie, but hopefully not too harshly.
One of the nights when Shep is out of town, and while Maggie is waiting up for Shelly to get home, she starts to hear strange noises. as she follows them for the source, she comes across the friendly family dog, who is inside the house and dead-set on attacking her. Maggie manages to escape the dog, barricading herself in a coat closet, but then freaks out when the door opens to reveal – Shelly. The dog is still outside, and still as friendly as ever. Shelly makes a call to Shep, who comes home early.
END OF ACT ONE
After discussion of the incident turns into an argument, Shep takes Maggie with him to see FATHER NICHOLAS for marriage counseling. Maggie stonewalls her way through the first session, and Father Nicholas insists that he needs to meet with Maggie just on her own. Meanwhile, as Shelly is sneaking around with her boyfriend, a creepy, older TOWNIE is watching her from afar.
Reluctantly meeting with Father Nicholas, Maggie tells the story of how she and Shep met at LSU. It’s a pretty standard boy-meets-girl story, but with a little prodding, Father Nicholas is able to get out certain details, like that it was a shotgun wedding, that Shep had a beautiful girlfriend (BONNIE) when he and Maggie met, and finally, that Bonnie disappeared mysteriously, which is when Shep came to Maggie for comfort.
Father Nicholas starts looking into this, doing his own research to find out what happened to Bonnie, but there seem to be no leads, until a new development out near the swamps pulls up a 16-year old car. Meanwhile, the Townie confronts Shelly, pounding on the car window and yelling at her as she and her
boyfriend are making out. As he attempts to actually enter the car, Shelly manages to escape.
In all of this time, of course, the hauntings continue in one way or another
In their final meeting, Father Nicholas locks the door to his office and demands that Maggie tell him the truth. As she covers and lies and reverts and changes the telling of events, we find out that Maggie, obsessed with Shep, not only murdered Bonnie, but also intentionally got pregnant in order to play on Shep to marry her. When Maggie wasn’t pregnant from her one encounter with Shep, however, she went out and found… the creepy townie, which did the job.
Father Nicholas asks Maggie if she wants him to hear her confession, but she refuses and makes him open the door. After she leaves, Father Nicholas reluctantly decides to give Shep a call.
END OF ACT TWO
As Maggie is rushing home to pack her things, the hauntings start affecting her car, sending her into a panic. Once home, it’s time for the Ghost’s big finale, where she lets out all the stops. This leads finally to Maggie taut and waiting in the master bathroom with a kitchen knife, as apparitions play off the mirror and she has finally lost all control. As everything reaches a crescendo, the door flies open. Maggie lunges forward and stabs like mad, unknowingly killing Shep. The apparitions die down, with just a final image of Bonnie herself in the mirror, mouthing the words “Thank You” as Shep joins her.
Problems:
1. Making Maggie sympathetic without destroying her key character traits.
2. Fleshing out Shep much more.
3. The actual nature of Bonnie’s Murder/the hauntings, which should be inter-related, for obvious reasons.
4. Perhaps a better final image which still conveys the idea that the hauntings were not just to punish Maggie, but also to get her to kill Shep, so that Shep and Bonnie could be together once more.
5. Building momentum in the first and second acts.
1. She has to sacrifice something. Eventually she seems to sacrifice Shep. But she needs to lose something very close to her. Perhaps the child? Perhaps her break from sanity is complete?
2. Does Shep cut his finger nails? Does he have earlobes? Is his big toe hairy? Does he take daily walks? Is he a sissy or macho or what? Does he cross his legs from left to right or right to left?
3. Yup, I think the relationship between the townie and Maggie needs attention. How did they meet?
4. Perhaps this could express being punished “by the sin not for the sin”?
5. That is a tough one.
1. Perhaps, if you will indulge a Freudian digression, you could cast her as the victim of a male dominated society, as represented by her husband effectively forcing her into counseling and reinforced by the image of the patriarchal traditions of the Catholic Church. Did she have father issues? Perhaps an absentee father created her need to pin down a man. Maybe a controlling mother figure made her resent other women. How does she interact with her daughter? Is she jealous of her youth?
2. I want to know more about Shep’s psychology. You mention that Maggie is possessive and controlling but I want to know what this has done to Shep. Is him taking her to therapy an act of asserting one overly dominating will against another or is the final act of an endangered individual soul that knows the attention demanding histrionic outburst will be the one that ends it? Does Shep come home and argue with his wife or does he try to avoid her? Or maybe he really loves her and tries to communicate with her.
3. I am not sure what to say on this. I will take a pass here. I will make up for it with a long response to the next point.
4. I am beginning to feel bad for Shep. It seems to me that he is really becoming the victim of one woman’s machinations without any final recompense. If the hauntings have a specific purpose of getting Maggie to kill Shep, then Shep is also now being screwed over by mystical powers as well. They guy can’t win. I feel like if Shep dies, Maggie has to suffer, or at least not be thanked. Her death would be too clean and expected. Perhaps Shelly finds out about the relationship with the Townie when all is said and done. That would be hard for Maggie to live with. Still I think at some point there needs to be a strong indication that Shep was willing to accept death or that his death accomplished something other than the ends of others in order to make him seem like a fulfilled character. Right now, he seems more of a blunt instrument than a person to me. Or conversely, Shep can be punished for some past wrong by being condemned to an eternity with Bonnie, the woman who would kill him to punish her killer, not really the actions of a loving person. Also, having Bonnie thank Maggie suggests that Bonnie is more interested in having Shep killed than Maggie punished, which really makes Maggie dispensable, as any person or random accident killing Shep would have sufficed. In fact, if that were the case, I could imagine it would be even more traumatic to Maggie to have to watch another person kill Shep as then someone else’s hands would be bloodied for her misdeed. Bonnie’s/”the haunting’s” motivations don’t seem to clearly justify the ending as written. I don’t think Maggie deserves the comfort of being thanked, nor should Bonnie even indicate that Shep’s death is desirable. In all reality, a look of tranquil happiness from Shep when being reunited with Bonnie and a knowing acknowledgment of that happiness between Bonnie and Shep, ignoring Maggie as one would a tool after completing a project, would be better.
5. I think momentum requires motivations for characters to act upon. When you more clearly define who your characters are, it should help define what propels them from moment to moment. Right now only really Maggie seems to have motivations and she can’t really act on them in a vacuum. Give her an equally strong character to propel off of, then fine tune.
1. I think it is fitting that you list this problem first as it seems to be the most difficult. I’d be more inclined to sympathize with Maggie if I understood her motivations better. First, I’m curious as to why she killed Bonnie. This might be appropriately in the subtext but it’s intrinsically related to the more central mystery of Maggie and Shep’s relationship. But even if the exact reasons behind the murder are left to the reader’s imagination I find myself, like Aaron, yearning for more about the marriage and the way that Maggie relates to Shelly. Since the nature of the murder and pregnancy are drastic, there will need to be more for us to warm up to Maggie. Some ways to play it out:
- We suspect Maggie has killed Bonnie out of a sense of pure entitlement. She has always been one that knows what she wants and how to get it. This would explain her possesive and controlling qualities. In her LSU days she had her eyes set on Shep, and she was prepared to take drastic steps to have him. At this point it is equally important to understand a little more about Shep and what about him compelled Maggie to want to have(posess?) him. None of this, of course, helps us warm up to Maggie. Instead we find refuge in her suffering; in the consequences that she supposedly deserves; in the events that help her see her own desperate state. An evolving relationship with her daughter could be a springboard for change or realization.
-While we can’t condone Maggie’s actions we find that there are good reasons for them. Aaron’s suggestion of Maggie’s experience with an opressive, misogynistic world might be a good one. You might be able to make the murder of Bonnie more acceptable if you develop her character into a despicable one. Also, casting Maggie as misguided or confused instead of calculating would make her more sympathetic. Here, she would genuine love Shep dearly and her actions would be a reflection of it.
-Another option is that Maggie is simply nefarious. Here you don’t have to work to make the reader sympathize because, presumably, the reader doesn’t much need to. Maggie did what she did because she wanted Shep for herself. This sounds like the first suggestion, with Maggie exhibiting sociopathic qualities; she doesn’t much consider the effects of her actions on others. The difference here would be to continue to cast Maggie in a believable shade of evil until, in the end, we honestly feel she deserves her misery and insanity. This isn’t redemptive really, and I have a feeling its not what you’re really going for.
2. I agree with the above responses. I want to know more about Shep. Does he feel trapped in his marriage? Was the marriage to Maggie the product of a short-lived infatuation with her in the wake(no pun intended) of Bonnie’s death. Presumably Shep’s qualities will be important in explaining why Maggie would go to such lengths to have him so its important to explore that a little more.
3. I commented a little on this before. In short, I think we need more on Bonnie’s murder. You might consider structuring the hauntings so that the are not only allusions to the murder but also progressively reveal additional information about the murder such as why Maggie did it, whether it was pre-meditated, how she reacted when it was over…In order to do this, the haunting scenes might need to become longer and more dreamy to really carry any analgies to the past. And if you’re going for more of a suspense and shock feel that might not really work. It might be better, anyway, to develop the details of the murder through Father Nicholas as you seem to have already somewhat done.
4. I don’t think just an image will convey to the reader that the hauntings were designed to get Maggie to kill Shep so that he could be with Bonnie. The concept is too involved, it seems, to convey in such a short scene. Instead consider developing that idea progressively throught the hauntings themselves. A haunting that showed Shep and Bonnie together in an afterlife would be an obvious choice(too obvious perhaps and borderline spoonfeeding). Maggie’s reactions to the hauntings I think could be important. If the reader senses that Maggie isn’t simply writing off the hauntings but instead changing her thoughts and reactions in response to them, then the hauntings will hold more sway in the storyline. I found myself wondering, in the last scene, who is in control. Is it Maggie or the hauntings? She kills Shep unknowingly, and in a panic, suggesting that she was almost tricked into doing it. I wonder if it would provide for more effect if she deliberately chose to kill Shep after having become convinced by the hauntings that his death was the way forward. Here her actions could be eerily calm and calculated, in contrast to the confused frenzy that she currently displays.
5. I’m sorry but I don’t really know what you mean by building momentum. Is that the same thing as building suspense?