Of spies, writers and directors: Yuletide reveal.
Happy New Year, everyone! Here are my two Yuletide tales:
Like the Fellow Says (7425 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Americans (TV 2013)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Philip Jennings & Charles Duluth
Characters: Philip Jennings, Charles Duluth, Elizabeth Jennings
Additional Tags: Unresolved Emotional Tension, Backstory, Character Study, Non-Linear Narrative
Summary:
He knew damn well that without these meetings with Philip, handing over information, trading sarcasm, his life now would be meaningless. He'd known that for a while. But what he hadn't known before was what Philip got out of it. Asset and handler: Charles and Philip through the years.
Last year, one fandom I both requested and offered was Breaking Bad, and the story I specifically wanted was one about Marie and Skyler. Which I got. Only I had been matched with a recipient asking for the very same thing, so I also wrote a story about Marie and Skyler. This year, I both requested and offered The Americans. One of the two things I suggested in my wishlist was a story about Charles Duluth, a minor character who shows up only in three episodes of the show so far, but whose relationship with Philip had struck me as interesting. So you can imagine the sense of déjà vue I had when getting my assignment, which was a prompt about Charles Duluth and Philip. (Next year, I’m not going to sign up for any of my requested fandoms!) However, I ended up writing the only Americans story around, and since I had quite a lot of Charles (and Charles & Philip) related thoughts, many inspired by the discussions I had with my recipient, Sistermagpie, I reall enjoyed creating it.
Charles of course is an imaginary character, but in order to give him a plausible backstory, I used some tidbits from two real life journalists, Christopher Hitchens and Carl Bernstein. (Charles’ anti Reagan diatribe mid story, for example, is almost entirely Hitchens from his memoirs; his very public transition from left to right evidently didn’t make him feel any warmer towards Ronald R.; but Hitchens was British, and Charles is not, hence my cribbing details from Bernstein as well, specifically from his memoir about his parents - both of whom had been members of the Communist Party, and suffered the consequences once Truman signed the Loyalty Doctrine - , though given Charles ends up a KGB agent and not a Pulitzer winning Nixon debunker, I gave Charles’ parents darker fates than Bernstein’s ever had.) What had originally inspired my wish to read (and write) about him was the bar scene between him and Philip in Arpanet, which had a Graham Greene vibe for me, and wondering about the implication of the fact that Philip, who spends the episode being angry with Charles, nonetheless for the first and last time in the season talks point blank, without any circumvention, about the fact that he’s not even sure anymore his ever increasing killing score for the cause has a point. Not surprisingly, the resulting story turned out to be basically a series of conversations, not always in chronological order, and another of my stories that are both story and meta on the show.
Saving Mrs. Fleming (10542 words) by Selena
Chapters: 7/7
Fandom: Mary Renault RPF, 20th Century CE RPF, Alfred Hitchcock RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mary Renault/Julie Mullard, Alfred Hitchcock/Alma Reville, Mary Renault & Clementine Challans, Mary Renault & Alfred Hitchcock, Mary Renault & Alma Reville
Characters: Mary Renault - Character, Alfred Hitchcock, Alma Reville, Julie Mullard, Sidney Bernstein, Clementine Challans
Additional Tags: Mommy Issues, Character Study, Dark Comedy, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Summary:
In 1947, Mary Renault's novel Return to Night won the MGM award. The director charged with filming it: Alfred Hitchcock. Where her book ended, their story began...
Aka the story I’ve been threatening to write for a while, and which Naraht kindly requested. It all started when Naraht hosted a discussion of Mary Renault’s novel Return to Night, and almost simultaneously the movie Saving Mr. Banks, aka the Disney take on Mary Poppins creator P.L. Travers clashing wit Walt Disney over his intended film version of her book, was released in Germany. In the discussion, someone brought up that Return to Night (today practically unknown compared with Renault’s other novels) had won the MGM award and so presumably at some point must have been intended as a basis for a film version. This made me wonder who the director would have been, and more specifically, which director would have been guaranteed to have the most entertaining clash of personalities with Mary Renault. And somehow, my mind produced Alfred Hitchcock.
The idea, cracky as it sounded, absolutely refused to let me go, especially when I started to brush up a bit on both Hitchcock’s and Renault’s lives. Not only were they both creative, interesting people with issues galore and very different attitudes towards creation, but they came each equipped with mother issues, and in Hitchcock’s case, with a partner who was just as interesting but would have been bound to clash with Mary Renault as well. (Sidenote: Julie Mullard, Mary’s partner, was an interesting person as well, but didn’t work with her on her books, and it was the life time collaboration that made the Hitchcock marriage so intriguing to me. So Julie gets a less prominent part than Alma in my story.) At first, I wanted to write an AU in which the film got made, but eventually decided with go with a more “missing interlude” approach.
There was the question of the setting. I gave up my original idea of letting Mary Renault go to Hollywood pretty soon, because once I had read Sweetman’s biography of her, I couldn’t imagine her spending money on such a trip, or the studio paying it for her. Fortunately, Hitchcock actually was in England for part of 1947, the year Renault’s novel won the MGM award (and the year before she left England and moved to South Africa) because of his last movie for David Selznick, The Paradine Case. (Otoh 1947 meant Naraht’s dream casting for Return to Night’s heroine, Hilary Mansell, would have been very unlikely, because Deborah Kerr was still too young then. This was her Black Narcissus era.)
Once I had determined the year and place, the Renault meets Hitchcock(s) ball started rolling. With such vivid characters, the story practically wrote itself. I hoped the result would work both for people who were somewhat familiar with them, and for people who’d never read a single Renault novel or seen a single Hitchcock film. It’s certainly one of the Yuletide stories I enjoyed most writing.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1044038.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Like the Fellow Says (7425 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Americans (TV 2013)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Philip Jennings & Charles Duluth
Characters: Philip Jennings, Charles Duluth, Elizabeth Jennings
Additional Tags: Unresolved Emotional Tension, Backstory, Character Study, Non-Linear Narrative
Summary:
He knew damn well that without these meetings with Philip, handing over information, trading sarcasm, his life now would be meaningless. He'd known that for a while. But what he hadn't known before was what Philip got out of it. Asset and handler: Charles and Philip through the years.
Last year, one fandom I both requested and offered was Breaking Bad, and the story I specifically wanted was one about Marie and Skyler. Which I got. Only I had been matched with a recipient asking for the very same thing, so I also wrote a story about Marie and Skyler. This year, I both requested and offered The Americans. One of the two things I suggested in my wishlist was a story about Charles Duluth, a minor character who shows up only in three episodes of the show so far, but whose relationship with Philip had struck me as interesting. So you can imagine the sense of déjà vue I had when getting my assignment, which was a prompt about Charles Duluth and Philip. (Next year, I’m not going to sign up for any of my requested fandoms!) However, I ended up writing the only Americans story around, and since I had quite a lot of Charles (and Charles & Philip) related thoughts, many inspired by the discussions I had with my recipient, Sistermagpie, I reall enjoyed creating it.
Charles of course is an imaginary character, but in order to give him a plausible backstory, I used some tidbits from two real life journalists, Christopher Hitchens and Carl Bernstein. (Charles’ anti Reagan diatribe mid story, for example, is almost entirely Hitchens from his memoirs; his very public transition from left to right evidently didn’t make him feel any warmer towards Ronald R.; but Hitchens was British, and Charles is not, hence my cribbing details from Bernstein as well, specifically from his memoir about his parents - both of whom had been members of the Communist Party, and suffered the consequences once Truman signed the Loyalty Doctrine - , though given Charles ends up a KGB agent and not a Pulitzer winning Nixon debunker, I gave Charles’ parents darker fates than Bernstein’s ever had.) What had originally inspired my wish to read (and write) about him was the bar scene between him and Philip in Arpanet, which had a Graham Greene vibe for me, and wondering about the implication of the fact that Philip, who spends the episode being angry with Charles, nonetheless for the first and last time in the season talks point blank, without any circumvention, about the fact that he’s not even sure anymore his ever increasing killing score for the cause has a point. Not surprisingly, the resulting story turned out to be basically a series of conversations, not always in chronological order, and another of my stories that are both story and meta on the show.
Saving Mrs. Fleming (10542 words) by Selena
Chapters: 7/7
Fandom: Mary Renault RPF, 20th Century CE RPF, Alfred Hitchcock RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mary Renault/Julie Mullard, Alfred Hitchcock/Alma Reville, Mary Renault & Clementine Challans, Mary Renault & Alfred Hitchcock, Mary Renault & Alma Reville
Characters: Mary Renault - Character, Alfred Hitchcock, Alma Reville, Julie Mullard, Sidney Bernstein, Clementine Challans
Additional Tags: Mommy Issues, Character Study, Dark Comedy, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Summary:
In 1947, Mary Renault's novel Return to Night won the MGM award. The director charged with filming it: Alfred Hitchcock. Where her book ended, their story began...
Aka the story I’ve been threatening to write for a while, and which Naraht kindly requested. It all started when Naraht hosted a discussion of Mary Renault’s novel Return to Night, and almost simultaneously the movie Saving Mr. Banks, aka the Disney take on Mary Poppins creator P.L. Travers clashing wit Walt Disney over his intended film version of her book, was released in Germany. In the discussion, someone brought up that Return to Night (today practically unknown compared with Renault’s other novels) had won the MGM award and so presumably at some point must have been intended as a basis for a film version. This made me wonder who the director would have been, and more specifically, which director would have been guaranteed to have the most entertaining clash of personalities with Mary Renault. And somehow, my mind produced Alfred Hitchcock.
The idea, cracky as it sounded, absolutely refused to let me go, especially when I started to brush up a bit on both Hitchcock’s and Renault’s lives. Not only were they both creative, interesting people with issues galore and very different attitudes towards creation, but they came each equipped with mother issues, and in Hitchcock’s case, with a partner who was just as interesting but would have been bound to clash with Mary Renault as well. (Sidenote: Julie Mullard, Mary’s partner, was an interesting person as well, but didn’t work with her on her books, and it was the life time collaboration that made the Hitchcock marriage so intriguing to me. So Julie gets a less prominent part than Alma in my story.) At first, I wanted to write an AU in which the film got made, but eventually decided with go with a more “missing interlude” approach.
There was the question of the setting. I gave up my original idea of letting Mary Renault go to Hollywood pretty soon, because once I had read Sweetman’s biography of her, I couldn’t imagine her spending money on such a trip, or the studio paying it for her. Fortunately, Hitchcock actually was in England for part of 1947, the year Renault’s novel won the MGM award (and the year before she left England and moved to South Africa) because of his last movie for David Selznick, The Paradine Case. (Otoh 1947 meant Naraht’s dream casting for Return to Night’s heroine, Hilary Mansell, would have been very unlikely, because Deborah Kerr was still too young then. This was her Black Narcissus era.)
Once I had determined the year and place, the Renault meets Hitchcock(s) ball started rolling. With such vivid characters, the story practically wrote itself. I hoped the result would work both for people who were somewhat familiar with them, and for people who’d never read a single Renault novel or seen a single Hitchcock film. It’s certainly one of the Yuletide stories I enjoyed most writing.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1044038.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.