Notes on Mansfield Gothic
Mansfield Park is not my favorite Austen novel. (Perhaps that's obvious?) And Fanny Price is not a heroine that, in my opinion, holds up to our modern standards, at least not like Elizabeth Bennett or Emma Woodhouse. Fanny is just so weak and sickly and retiring, less interesting than beige, unnoticed and unappreciated, and perfectly content to stay at the fringes. Blech. And the novel has plenty of strong female characters to choose from if Austen wanted them, but instead we are stuck with Fanny. Did Austen lose a bet before she wrote this? Is there a less romantic heroine?
And the romantic portion of the original story never sat well with me. (Cousins?! And about all the sexual chemistry of conjoined twins.) I think of Fanny Price as a "late bloomer" when it comes to passion, the opposite of Mariah Bertram or today's stereotypical hypersexed adolescents. And Frankie is like the original in that respect. She is too devoted to her career to be boy crazy so i couldn't just pair her up with someone and make sparks fly as in a modern romance. I tried to show she was growing more interested in Edmund but without knowing what to do about it really, and i like to think i left the possibility for further growth in that area, whether with Crawford, Yates, Andover, or the devilishly handsome Sir Notappearinginthisstory, wealthy scion of a well-known and highly respected demon hunting family. Fanny’s affection for Edmund always felt juvenile and chaste. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, because we all mature at different rates, but it was still an icky thought to think of her married. I just tell myself that when Austen wrote, "I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire," that there was an equal desire slowly maturing in Fanny.
I wanted to try action a step beyond what I tried in FAC. I still think a visual medium is best for action (the difference between reading dialogue like, "You are using Bonetti's Defense against me, ah?" and watching a thrilling fight scene), but I think I'm getting better control over pacing and reveal to keep it relatively exciting although I still have much to learn. Just because it's clear in my head doesn't necessarily mean it's clear to others. (That said, I respectfully beg to differ over what counts as a cliffhanger versus a tease.) (And I would not post more frequently if I was permitted. I enjoy the pace as it gives readers a chance to consume and comment. I do go through the next chapters and make tweaks in response to comments if I want to downplay or to highlight things based on what you let me know stood out for you, nothing critical to the plot but important for mood and opinion.)
I went with the first-person present-tense narrator because the focus is on Frankie and widening that focus could’ve caused problems with keeping the demon’s secrets and dulling some of the suspense. The present tense was something that took long for me to decide on but in the end I went that way because for so much of the story Frankie didn't spend too much time thinking back or ahead. It wobbles hard right after Edmund strangled her, and I tried switching over completely to past tense at that point, but in the end I couldn't do it and had to finish as I started.
One last shout out to Janice for being my comma police, and thanks to those who felt provoked enough to comment online. Between not being P&P, being MP, and being a religious fantasy, I wasn't sure I was going to get more than crickets, so you all have made my day/weeks/month/etc.
So, five down and only S&S to go. Yay me! I'm going back to Emma for the next one, however, as a quasi gift to a friend who has recently been enrolled in the lists of Hymen.
And for the record, I will be most seriously displeased if there is no Caped Crusaders Adventure on Saturday!
