Lauren Willig has a very fun contest going on over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. You can vote on a sexy cover for the inimitable Turnip Fitzhugh, and if there’s sufficient acclaim, Lauren will write a love scene between Turnip Fitzhugh and Arabella which did not appear in the wonderful Mischief of the Mistletoe.
It’s a great idea, born about because two different reviewers regretted the lack of a love scene between Turnip and Arabella. It got me to think about “missing scenes” – scenes which don’t take place between the pages of a book which I’ve always wanted to read. For instance:
Darcy and Elizabeth’s engagement conversation. Some authors fade to black for love scenes. Jane Austen does it for the final romantic resolution between her heroes and heroines. In many ways it’s a wonderful literary technique, leaving so much tantalizingly to the imagination. And yet I would so like to know what they actually said and did…
Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane after “Placetne, magistra? / Placet.” and the final embrace at Oxford in Gaudy Night. Busman’s Honeymoon reveals that they spent the rest of the night in a punt madly kissing, but I would so have liked to see that scene dramatized.
Percy and Marguerite’s meeting and their wedding (not to mention their wedding night, I can never be certain if they ever actually made love or not), not to mention Percy learning of Marguerite’s denunciation of St. Cyr. Basically all the complicated back story of The Scarlet Pimpernel. (If you’re a Pimpernel fan be sure to check out the great discussion of the 1982 film and other adaptations at Dear Author).
Lymond seeing Kuzum again at the end of the Lymond Chronicles, how he dealt with him, what kind of relationship they had.
Sophy and Charles on the carriage ride back to London at the end of The Grand Sophy, not to mention the scene with Sir Horace and Lady Ombersley when they reached Berkeley Square.
Are there any “missing scenes” from the Charles & Mélanie/Malcolm & Suzanne books you wish I’d dramatize? From other favorite books?
I’ve just posted a new Fraser Correspondence letter in which Aline writes to Gisèle about Charles/Malcolm’s arrest.
Tracy Grant - Novelist 
July 18, 2011 at 8:50 am
Thanks for sharing the review of TSP at ‘Dear Author’ – I haven’t watched the 1982 film in ages, but it’s still my favourite version.
More information from Orczy about Percy and Marguerite’s history would have been helpful, but I think she mostly filled in/faded to black in appropriate measures. I have been known to write a couple of bedroom scenes for the Blakeneys, but I actually much prefer the romance of Orczy’s stories over the smut of modern romances.
I agree that leaving certain scenes to the imagination is a fun literary technique, and Austen was particularly skilled at giving her hero and heroine their much deserved privacy. How did Emma accept Mr Knightley’s proposal, apart from ‘how a lady should’, and did they kiss like in the 2009 miniseries? But that’s what fan fiction is for, I suppose!
July 18, 2011 at 9:20 am
It’s amazing how many of my favorite books/characters you mentioned – Peter and Harriet in Gaudy Night, Sophy and Charles in The Grand Sophy, and Darcy and Elizabeth, and I agree that each of those scenes is one I wish had been written.
The scene which I would like to have read is between Brat Farrar and Aunt Bee in Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, while he is recovering in hospital. I find the ending of the book slightly ambigous, and I would like to have read (I wrote “heard” first!) the full conversation(s) between them in which they discussed their relationship and future.
July 18, 2011 at 1:19 pm
“Margot and Percy”; although I did enjoy reading (for the first time) a romance in which the couple was already together.
July 18, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Oh, yes, Sarah, I think Orczy does fill in the backstory quite well, and obviously an author can’t show all of it. I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek about missing scenes. I don’t necessarily think any of the books I mentioned would be stronger for including these scenes, but they are scenes I’ve imagined in my own mind. As you say, that’s what fan fiction is for. When I mentioned Percy and Marguerite’s wedding, it’s not so much that I wanted her to actually show a love scene (I tend to prefer fade to black myself) as that with the timing of the revelations about Marguerite and the St Cyrs, I’ve always wondered if they ever had sex at all.
July 18, 2011 at 7:43 pm
When I mentioned Percy and Marguerite’s wedding, it’s not so much that I wanted her to actually show a love scene (I tend to prefer fade to black myself) as that with the timing of the revelations about Marguerite and the St Cyrs, I’ve always wondered if they ever had sex at all.
*lol* That’s exactly why more backstory is needed! 😉 It’s the reference to ‘twenty four hours after’ that always throws me.
July 18, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Yes, that’s a bit of backstory that I think would strengthen/clarify the present-day narrative. I suppose the “twenty-four hours after” could imply they had a wedding night free from suspicion and then he learned about the St. Cyrs. In which case, have they slept together since? For all Percy’s acting skills, it’s difficult to imagine him maintaining his detached façade in the bedchamber. But if they haven’t slept together since, wouldn’t Margot find that particularly odd? And then there’s the 1982 film, where he learns at the wedding. I always really wonder in that if they ever slept together at all. Though the scene where she says “stay with me tonight” doesn’t play as though he never has…
July 18, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Glad we like a lot of the same books, HJ! The Bratt Farrar scene you mention is a great suggestion and would definitely add to the story.
July 18, 2011 at 4:15 pm
I love stories with couples who have a lot of backstory, JMM, which inevitably means there’ll be a lot in the past that isn’t dramatized (which it’s fun to speculate about). Which part of Percy and Margot’s past would you most like to have seen written?
July 18, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Couples with a backstory are better than “Meet, boink, love, marriage” – within a week. 🙂 Well, it seems like that in some books.
July 18, 2011 at 7:01 pm
There are some books I love where the hero and heroine meet in the course of the story, but in general I find there’s more texture to the relationship if they have a history. Certainly couples with a history tend to start at a greater state of emotional crisis. I particularly like it in the books I write, because with a suspense plot the time line tends to be so compact and action filled that it’s hard for people to meet and realistically have time to fall in love.That’s why I love exploring Charles/Malcolm and Mel/Suzette’s relationship against this background and also why it was fun writing about Cordelia and Harry Davenport in Imperial Scandal. The Waterloo timeline gave them time to deal with the ashes of their relationship. There wouldn’t have been time to build a relationship from scratch.
July 20, 2011 at 4:15 am
I really am in the minority. Except for the example you gave of Darcy & Elizabeth, I have a hard time coming up with scenes that I’d consider missing. (Quite on the contrary, I’ve occasionally felt annoyed by “the unnecessary epilogues.”) As to “missing scenes” from the Charles & Melanie books, I’ve wondered about the exchanges between Lady Elizabeth and Edgar leading up to the subsequent event. I’m interested in seeing them, but I think I could bear not finding out since they are not happy scenes.
July 20, 2011 at 7:20 am
Those exchanges between Elizabeth and Edgar would be interesting to write, Sharon, but painful. But they are an important part of the story, and I wonder about them myself.
You also bring up the possibility that I could do another whole post on “unnecessary scenes”…:-).