Clara verdict: KEEP HER!
This past week I had some of my pool of acting talent test out the Clara subplot I wrote for Vivat Regina. I was not feeling very good about it going in. I struggled a lot with not only figuring out why she would appear, what she would add to the story, but also where the hell to put here. It seemed like there was no place to break up the already-established plot structure that didn't bring the moment to a halt. But I gave it my best shot, and threw it to the actors to see what they would do with it.
The verdict they came to was that it worked a lot better than I thought! They actually loved the character of Clara, and said she added both a spot of humor and the presence of someone who has not drunk the Mrs. Hawking Kool-Aid, so to speak. One thing that really bugs me is when a character is an asshole but none of the other characters ever give them any consequences for it because they're soooooooo special. I wanted Clara to be somebody who was not so impressed by Mrs. Hawking-- who is both definitely very cool, and very much a pain in the ass --that she wouldn't validate everything she does. I was happy to hear she achieved that.
There were still problems, though. Some of the insertion points for Clara's scenes were off, and she wasn't doing everything she could to serve the overall story. But the wonderful thing was that my lovely actors all had ideas to fix it. A little bit of each one's thoughts combined to show me what I could do to make her work better. I think it's incredibly cool that now each of them have their fingerprint on it. I'm so grateful for their help. I'm lucky to have such talented friends, who are generous with their talent.
I've been working on the edit since then. I should have it done very soon. I'm extremely happy that it worked out, because the idea does enrich the story. Yay for progress!