Various 'extra bits' that I created in response to readers who wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes; it would be nice to say that these characters are created with a depth and attention to detail that runs deeper than what actually makes it onto the page, but I'm afraid that, like the backstory in the actual text, these are mostly ( Read more... )

The issue with this story that I had not anticipated (I was worrying about coming across as whitewashing Raoul, or antagonising Americans by writing a grotesquely caricatured protagonist) is that the readers have spent most of the story wanting to know what 'Erik' is up to, what cunning plans he is going to unleash upon his opponents and how he is ( Read more... )

I'm increasingly concerned that Raoul comes across as getting rather an 'easy ride' in this story - a magical snap of the author's fingers, and then he's the Perfect Father and Husband overnight. The trouble is, I think, that I'm basing these chapters on the corresponding scene in canon where he really does miraculously scrub up and vow to do ( Read more... )

In which Jos finally meets Christine Daaé, and she isn't - in several unsettling directions - entirely what he had expected. Chapter 4: Ah, Christine!

Even caught flushed and off-guard in her morning wrapper with a cup of coffee in one hand, Christine Daaé in the flesh was quite some lady. As exquisite as the room that framed her - why, if ( Read more... )

And the other material I've been working on this week...
I'm amused to gather from reviews that what I hear as 'Americanisms' the US readers hear as 'period talk' -- appropriate for this setting, of course, but it certainly dates the material from which I obtained this vocabulary! Chapter 3: Once Upon Another Time

“I guess... what we do don’t ( Read more... )

One thing I hadn't anticipated when I started writing this was that I was going to pick up a genuine French-speaking reader on fanfiction.net! I did do my best on the 'back-translation' for the French-tinged English here, but I hope the outcome isn't going to be too embarrassing...
The language problem is, of course, something that gets brushed ( Read more... )

I see that I finished writing this at the start of October, which indicates just how long it has taken me to push it (and myself) through the 'beta' process!
The original "American-picking" beta eventually dropped out after a series of month-long gaps, not all of which was her fault, and I was very lucky to pick up a replacement who steamed ( Read more... )

I think I've actually finished the Hammerstein-story (which I'm really going to have to find a title for).

I came across the New York Times report on the real first night at the new Manhattan Opera, which ironically enough makes it plain that my hypothesis about the Opera House not being ready and the gala having to be postponed would have been ( Read more... )

Wonderful inspiration this morning: I'd been worrying about how to make sure Christine gets paid if she plans to leave immediately after the gala, given that her contract presumably commits her to perform in the full opening season. I'd also been irritated by Lloyd Webber's sloppy dating, given that the real Manhattan Opera House opened in ( Read more... )

I've just spent a considerable time trying to establish exactly what opera with which singers really did open Oscar Hammerstein I's Manhattan Opera House: one source claims that it was "Norma" (hard to picture Christine Daaé rehearsing the role of Norma) but in fact it seems to have been another Bellini opera, "I Puritani", with the obscure Polish ( Read more... )