When the Plot Bunnies Bite.
Aug. 27th, 2020 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reynardoMy dad was a journalist, and has the habit of everything becoming a long story. So perhaps that's where I get it from. But for the last few years, I've given myself permission to feed the plot bunnies, because I'm getting some amazing stories out of them. Yes, a lot of them are fanfic, but that's because it's sometimes good to have a structure to build from.
Here's an example that came to me today - started with one simple idea and exploded.
For those that don't know it, Seven Little Australians is an Australian novel of a family growing up in the 1890s in suburban Sydney. The seven are the children of Captain Woolcot, who had six with his first wife. Some years after her death (just after the last baby was born), he married a young lass, Esther, and the seventh child arrived. The eldest, Meg, is sixteen in the first book - Esther is only twenty. When Judy, the third child and quite a scamp, becomes ill, the children and Esther go to her parents' station in the north-west of New South Wales - Yarrahappini - and there, Meg meets the station Manager. Mr Gillet is in his mid-thirties, bearded (as so many men in the 1890s in the country were) and the son of a baronet. He has poetry books and the keys to the stores which, strangely, he has almost misplaced.
Mr Gillet reads poetry to Meg, and she gives him the blue ribbon from her hair. We discover why it is that he's working in the back country of New South Wales - he's an alcoholic. There's bound to be more to the story, but that's what we get. Nothing more than poetry and a few kind words pass between them, although he is there when a tragedy strikes (no, I won't tell. Read the book.)
Five years later, he comes to help the family when Esther and Captain Woolcot are sent overseas for a while and illness (scarlet fever) strikes the children. He doesn't actually see Meg - she's in quarantine - and then he dies saving Meg's blue ribbon.
So - story ideas. We know Mr Gillet is English, son of a baronet, sent to the colonies in disgrace. He mentions an elder sister (who sounds like she is quite bitter about him and probably for a good reason) and a younger sister who had died. So imagine if Mrs Hassal had given her step-granddaughter Meg the poetry books that Mr Gillet had kept in his station manager's cottage. They're good quality, and have a bookplate with a coat of arms in it.
Meg is married and mother to a boy by the third book (Little Mother Meg), but if she had a daughter next, there is no doubt the girl would be called Judy, after her aunt. And if she was anything like her aunt, then when she goes to England on a trip with her father and some of the rest of her family in the 1920s, she'd probably want to track down her mother's friend's family and meet them. Maybe her uncle served in WWI (it's almost certain) and has friends to meet as well. Did Mr Gillet's behaviour that caused him to be sent to the colonies result in the ruin of the family? Was he supposed to inherit, and now it's all gone to a cousin?
You see what happens? I had one little thought: "Who were Mr Gillet's family, and did they know he died?" The bunnies are strong with this one.
Here's an example that came to me today - started with one simple idea and exploded.
For those that don't know it, Seven Little Australians is an Australian novel of a family growing up in the 1890s in suburban Sydney. The seven are the children of Captain Woolcot, who had six with his first wife. Some years after her death (just after the last baby was born), he married a young lass, Esther, and the seventh child arrived. The eldest, Meg, is sixteen in the first book - Esther is only twenty. When Judy, the third child and quite a scamp, becomes ill, the children and Esther go to her parents' station in the north-west of New South Wales - Yarrahappini - and there, Meg meets the station Manager. Mr Gillet is in his mid-thirties, bearded (as so many men in the 1890s in the country were) and the son of a baronet. He has poetry books and the keys to the stores which, strangely, he has almost misplaced.
Mr Gillet reads poetry to Meg, and she gives him the blue ribbon from her hair. We discover why it is that he's working in the back country of New South Wales - he's an alcoholic. There's bound to be more to the story, but that's what we get. Nothing more than poetry and a few kind words pass between them, although he is there when a tragedy strikes (no, I won't tell. Read the book.)
Five years later, he comes to help the family when Esther and Captain Woolcot are sent overseas for a while and illness (scarlet fever) strikes the children. He doesn't actually see Meg - she's in quarantine - and then he dies saving Meg's blue ribbon.
So - story ideas. We know Mr Gillet is English, son of a baronet, sent to the colonies in disgrace. He mentions an elder sister (who sounds like she is quite bitter about him and probably for a good reason) and a younger sister who had died. So imagine if Mrs Hassal had given her step-granddaughter Meg the poetry books that Mr Gillet had kept in his station manager's cottage. They're good quality, and have a bookplate with a coat of arms in it.
Meg is married and mother to a boy by the third book (Little Mother Meg), but if she had a daughter next, there is no doubt the girl would be called Judy, after her aunt. And if she was anything like her aunt, then when she goes to England on a trip with her father and some of the rest of her family in the 1920s, she'd probably want to track down her mother's friend's family and meet them. Maybe her uncle served in WWI (it's almost certain) and has friends to meet as well. Did Mr Gillet's behaviour that caused him to be sent to the colonies result in the ruin of the family? Was he supposed to inherit, and now it's all gone to a cousin?
You see what happens? I had one little thought: "Who were Mr Gillet's family, and did they know he died?" The bunnies are strong with this one.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-27 11:32 am (UTC)Since Mr Gillet is sent out to Australia for his alcoholism rather than to a sanatorium in England, I would guess that he is not the heir to the baronetcy. I get the impression from other Victorian novels that younger sons and cousins were more frequently dispatched to Australia. Gillet's reference to his sister's 'severe' lips makes me guess that he asked her for help & was refused, suggesting that he can't borrow or obtain money on the strength of being the heir.