I love thinking about the characters in my books. I love to imagine events in their lives before a book starts and after it concludes (which is why I so love to write series and why it’s so fun to fill in the blanks with the Fraser Correspondence). I like to imagine events in the lives of characters my favorite books by other authors as well (what was it like for Elizabeth to arrive at Pemberley as its mistress? did Venetia and Damerel really go to Rome on their honeymoon and take Aubrey with them? what adventures did Holmes and Russell have in France after the end of ‘The Beekeeper’s Apprentice”?).
Sometimes I find myself going one step farther and imagining what might have happened in my own books or in books I love to read if the story had taken a different turn. I’ve considered the different ways Charles and Mélanie’s marriage would have played out if the truth of Mélanie’s past had come out differently, without the pressure of Colin’s abduction forcing them to work together. I’ve imagined scenarios where Mélanie left England (more like Irina Derevko or Fiona Samson), perhaps faking her death to give Charles a clean start. And then returned for some reason (possibly with Charles about to marry again), with Colin and Jessica confused, Charles deeply ambivalent… A lot of interesting possibilities, but I actually don’t think anything would have driven Mélanie to leave her children because I don’t think deep down she’d have believed that they’d be better off without her (she pretty much argues this through in her own head in the book). As I posted in the discussion about Imperfect Characters, I think if Charles had learned the truth in a different way, without Colin’s abduction driving both him and Mélanie, he would have shut down, gone off to his club, refused to speak to Mélanie. Angry as he was, I don’t think he’d have tried to keep the children from her or have put them all through the scandal of formal separation. I expect he and Mélanie would have continued to live in the same house, Mélanie would have continued to be the perfect hostess, they’d have both spent time with Colin and Jessica, but their lives would have been very separate. They would have confronted the issues they’re forced to deal with in “Secrets of a Lady”. Mélanie would never have learned many of Charles’s own secrets. It would have been an intolerable strain on both of them. I’m not sure where that strain would have led.
In the Imperfect Characters thread, we also speculated about what would have happened if Marguerite had never learned Percy was the Scarlet Pimpernel. Sarah said, “As to Marguerite, she did stay with Percy, for a year, before she found out that he was also her romantic hero, so I suppose she would stay with him. They would live the conventional society marriage of the time: he funding her entertainment, she providing him with an heir and perhaps taking a lover.” That’s pretty much what I see happening between them in that scenario as well. I’m not sure if Marguerite would have taken a lover–she has a strong sense of honor, but she’s also desperately lonely. And she’s moving in a set where infidelity is often a matter of course. (I’m also not sure if Mélanie would have taken a lover in the scenario above; somehow, I don’t think either Percy or Charles would have).
In “Sense and Sensibility”, an alternate scenario is contained within the book itself. Elinor specultes on what would have happened had Willoughby married Marianne: “Had you married, you must have been always poor….had you endeavoured, however reasonsably to abridge his enjoyments, is it not to be feared that instead of prevailing on feelings so selfish to consent to it, you would have lessened your own influence on his heart and made him regret the connection which had involved him in such difficulties?”
I recently read Henry James’s “The Portrait of a Lady” and it’s difficult not to imagine multiple different scenarios if Isabel Archer had made different choices along the way (as well as wondering what happens after the returns to Rome at the end). Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” presents two different endings and does a brilliant job of playing with the whole concept of a what constitutes reality within a novel (btw, I saw a preview for the film version of “Atonement” last night and it looks wonderful–many of the scenes looked startlingly close to how I’d imagined them as I read the book).
Do you ever imagine alternate endings for novels? Any thoughts on the alternative scenarios above or on alternative endings to other books?
Be sure to check out the Fraser Correspondence–I’ve just posted the first letter from Raoul O’Roarke, together with a letter to him from Mélanie.
October 8, 2007 at 10:51 am
I saw Atonement a fortnight ago, and enjoyed it. I had actually been wondering afterwards if I’d misremembered the book – I’d the idea the book only left me with a strong impression as to what had happened, whereas the film has a definite end.
There’s fairly little about Briony’s development as a writer, but the basic plot is unchanged – and I thought it was beautifully shot – the Dunkirk scene was fabulous. I’d recommend it.
As to the other – I really don’t imagine what happens after the end. I don’t think I can – I lack that creative DNA. If someone does it for me, I’m delighted (as long as it’s done well) – part of the attraction of Laurie R King was in seeing an afterlife for Sherlock. And I loved the Jill Paton Walsh books about the Wimseys for the same reason.
(And good fanfic can do the same thing – fill in the what ifs, and the but-what-was-he-thinking?)
October 8, 2007 at 4:58 pm
So glad to hear you hear you enjoyed “Atonement”. I’m really looking forward to it (it hasn’t opened in the U.S. yet). The book has two endings, but the second is in a sense only an impression based on Briony’s words at the end. I’ll be interested to see how they handle it in the film (Vanessa Redgrave plays the older Briony, right?).
I think fanfaction is wonderful for filling in the missing pieces and what ifs and exploring alternate scenarios (I’ve seen the same fantifc writer explore different options for how something might have played out). I find it particularly interesting in tv shows, where often so much is left the imagination between episodes.
October 9, 2007 at 4:03 pm
I wouldn’t have said that I imagine alternate ending, but then reading this post, I realized that I do.
I remember thinking as I recently reread Secrets that if Melanie had revealed the truth in a less stressful time, it would have been much harder for them to keep their marriage intact (if they could at all).
But more than alternate scenarios, I find I love alternate viewpoints. I love books with multiple narrators, which let the reader see the protagonists through various sets of ‘glasses’. (For instance, in the opening of Silent Moon, Gisele reveals a very different view of Charles than was seen in Secrets.) I feel like I know all the characters better by the end of such a novel. You can tell a lot about somebody (real or fictional) in their attitude to another person.
October 9, 2007 at 4:13 pm
“I remember thinking as I recently reread Secrets that if Melanie had revealed the truth in a less stressful time, it would have been much harder for them to keep their marriage intact (if they could at all).”
I actually started plotting with Mélání;s secrets and knowing I wanted them revealed early in the book, and then I knew I needed a crisis that would force them to work together, which was when I came up with Colin’s abduction.
“But more than alternate scenarios, I find I love alternate viewpoints.”
I do too! (It was fun writing Gisèle’s take on Charles). Dorothy Dunnett does this brilliantly, rarely using Lymond’s pov, but showing him through the eyes of multiple different characters, all of whom see him differently. She does much the same thing with Nicholas, though she gets in Nicholas’s head a lot more.
October 9, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Somehow, my final scenes fall into place rather early in the process, so I can’t alter the end and never felt the urge. But the way there is a lot of fun. 🙂
I love multiple POVs (though I’ve read a few epic stories that work in first person), and I love to use them to play with the reader’s mind.
October 9, 2007 at 10:22 pm
I outline extensively in advance, so I basically know where my story is headed from the beginning and often have the final scene in mind (I had an idea of the final scene in “Beneath a Silent Moon’ very early, when I was still working out plot mechanics). When I play “what if” and imagine alternate scenarios it’s not that I’d actually write the books that way, it’s imagining what might have happened to the characters in other circumstances. Odd perhaps, but definitley part of the way my mind works ;-).
Definitely agree that multiple povs are a great way to play with the reader’s mind! :-).
October 10, 2007 at 12:02 am
Tracy, on another matter: I get an email every time someone comments on a thread in your blog where I have commented as well, and I don’t see a way to switch that off.
October 10, 2007 at 7:28 am
Sorry about that, Gabriele. I always email when I reply to someone’s comment–you mean you also get an automatic reply whenever anyone comments? I’ll talk to my web designers about that. Give me a few days. Thanks for letting me know, and sorry for being so clueless!
October 10, 2007 at 3:07 pm
It looks like an automatic reply.
Some blogs have a Notify Me Via Email feature which on bottom of the comment field which you can click off, so I thought I had forgotten to do that, but there is none. 😉