Forest conference and Run Away Home

[coughingbear]

If anyone was at the conference and feels like writing a report, please do!

This isn't a report, but it is a description of some of the cut bits of Run Away Home that we were given in a booklet at the conference. There was a discussion on Sunday of whether the cuts were a good thing, which I haven't gone into much - perhaps people can add to this in the comments. We aren’t allowed to quote from the unpublished bits directly, but I think it’s OK if I describe briefly what was included. The plan is to publish them with the papers from the conference.


There were apparently several versions of the manuscript of Run Away Home, and it’s the only one for which the various typescripts survive. Hilary Clare explained that Forest changed the Edward Oeschli character quite a bit; his name was only Edward in the last version, and he was much nastier in at least one of the previous ones. Nicola apparently took against him when he described Peter as ‘that wet’.*

The scenes we were given included one when Nicola got all enthused about borrowing Kingscote’s stage equipment to jazz up the Noah’s Ark play. Karen is pushed into phoning Miss Keith, who invites Giles, Peter and Ann to lunch when they go to pick up the stuff. (This was a bit we didn’t get, though I think Hilary said it was as reported by Peter, not an immediate account. I love the idea of Peter and Giles sitting down for an elegant meal with Miss Keith.) Then they all help clear up the village hall and set up lights. Patrick remembers there were extra blocks under the stage, and he and Nicola investigate it. There’s a brief and wholly surprising (at least to Nicola, who has no other reaction) kiss under the stage, and some discussion of the best way to wash a wall.

One whole section that got cut out quite late was a description of how Chas and Rose tried to get Edward (Daniel in this version) away to Yetland Cove, and the dire consequences for them when Edwin finds out – not that they’ve been helping Daniel, but that they’ve run away from home for a day. Also cut, but probably earlier, is a scene when Karen talks to Giles about them, and Edwin, and the marriage. She tells Giles that Edwin beat both Chas and Rose over their disappearance, and we discussed this at length in the conference session. As Hilary Clare said, we always come back to the Problem of Edwin. A couple of people pointed out that it's not long after Rose ran away to Oxford, so he’s understandably been horribly scared for them, but I think many of us felt it wasn’t quite in character, being too premeditated, unlike the incident with Peter and the riding whip.

Other oddities in the Karen/Giles scene included her describing Edwin as an archaeologist wanting to go on digs, rather than an archivist. She also explained her feelings about Rosemary and the children, and how she’d never expected to find herself looking after Chas, Rose & Fob, even after R's death. I didn’t think that quite sat with Ready-Made Family, because although she may have originally expected the children to stay with their mother, she definitely used their need for a home with their father to push Edwin into marrying her immediately.

Not sure I can quite bear to describe the last scene. Which was rightly cut, and therefore is Not Canon, but even so... clanwilliam, I suggest you look away.





Mr Buster dies, apparently of a heart attack, after carrying Nicola and Daniel to Bacca Cove. All I will say is that I think Buster is in fact a Cyberpony and therefore cannot die. And that Rowan and Patrick are scarily good at tidying away evidence.

*Quote from my memory of Hilary’s talk, so may not be wholly accurate. But it made me rather warm to him.

Comments

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Frankly, Mr Buster's trip is a bit improbable anyway and he'd probably have gone "sod that for a game of soldiers" and tossed the lot of them in favour of some decent grass.

But thank you for the warning.

[ex-jo-blogs.livejournal.com]

A kiss?
*dies*
*comes round*
*dies again*

[coughingbear]

Brief and inexpert and on her forehead, but yes, a kiss. Though with no immediate consequences, it seems, since it would have come quite early in the book.

[ex-jo-blogs.livejournal.com]

FOREHEAD?

Tsk - really Patrick - I thought Claudie would have taught you better than *that* ;)

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Forehead, nose and chin in quick succession (I don't think that's a direct quote, but my copy of the booklet's downstairs and I can't be bothered to go and look).

[(Anonymous)]

There's something oddly art-imitates-art about that kiss. As if Antonia had been writing her own fanfic. Somehow I cannot imagine that kiss actually occurring within the canonical works, nor can I imagine Karen talking to Giles about Edwin beating the children; yet I know we've all projected those things from the characters. It's fascinating, thinking of her imagining scenes between her own characters that cannot possibly occur in print but that she knows, in her mind, would happen.
--Elizabeth
Now writing from The Hague
Wishing I'd been at the AF conference
Wanting some more reports!!!

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Honestly, it never occurred to me that Edwin might have beaten the children until I read that extract.

I'm still not sure whether I'm going to think of them as canon or as 'out-takes'.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure whether I'm going to think of them as canon or as 'out-takes'.

Couldn't they be both? I mean, out-takes, but people take them into consideration when writing fanfic?

[coughingbear]

I don't think anyone should feel they have to take them into consideration for writing fanfic; after all, Forest cut them, and we don't know why. Maybe just for length, maybe because she decided the scene or characterisation was wrong in some way, or wouldn't have happened at that point in the story. The Karen/Giles conversation disappeared at quite an early stage of her writing RAH, if I'm remembering Hilary Clare correctly. But they certainly offer possibilities for people to investigate.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

If anyone was at the conference and feels like writing a report, please do!
This isn't a report, but it is a description The plan is to publish them with the papers from the conference.

I wish someone would - I'd so have loved to go!
By publishing the papers, do you mean for sale or on the net?

[forester48.livejournal.com]

Yes please more reports, even short ones, from anyone who went. In fact think of it as your duty to us who couldn't get there.

[coughingbear]

For sale - I think the plan is for Girls Gone By to produce a book.

[dandyinchina.livejournal.com]

Any idea about the publishing date? I'd love to read more.

[coughingbear]

I think Hilary Clare said they were hoping for next spring.

[owl]

Personally I'm very take-it-or-leave it with cut scenes. Particularly in books as opposed to films, because a time limit isn't a factor.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

I am not altogether surprised by the Last Scene... I was always expecting it, the more the Ronnie Merrick and Patrick et al went on about how old he was. And the other interesting thing would have been, would Nick have cried more about him or her brothers?

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

I suspect that's why AF cut it...

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

At the conference, Sue said that it was AF's publisher (usually hands-off with AF's work) who recommended cutting Buster's death so that it didn't take away from the possible deaths of Nicola's brothers. Apparently the death was to be postponed to a later book.