A new hope

"A woman throws an egg at Camilla Parker-Bowles."
This is the image that I had, the starting point. C B-P, as you may know, is the woman Prince Charles is now married to, now known as the Duchess of Cornwall. The woman he was, apparently, in love with when he proposed to Diana Spencer, Lady Di, the Princess of Wales. The woman he made Diana's personal assistant so that, unknown to Diana, he could carry on the affair.
I was thinking about the death of Diana, and more importantly, the people who mourned her. I am against monarchies, actually. My politics are left of centre, and I hate the English class system. Nevertheless, even I felt disorientated by the death. Like Michael Jackson, her death didn't seem to be possible. It was as though you were hearing about the death of Mickey Mouse, a much-loved fictional character. I couldn't help but feel angry about the way she'd been treated. Most erring husbands, when they have been found out, at least apologize ; but Prince Charles simply decided that he was the Prince of Wales, his ancestors had done the same, and as far as he was concerned, he could do what he liked. I kept telling myslf "It's not real life, it's not real life," although I suppose it was somebody's life.
The reactions to Diana's death and funeral were interesting. The mourners were all assumed, by the hip, trendy intelligentsia, to be stupid (most of them, after all, were working class women). The far left took pot-shots at her. They even tried to invent Prince Charles as some sort of ant-authoritarian pioneer, a modern-day Marquis de Sade, railing against established morality. Living Marxism magazine even described him as likeable and blokeish. Diana, meanwhile, had been too emotional.
But the funeral itself was more than that. It was a focal point for a nation which was angry about the way the country was being run. It was, I felt, against royalty. It was also angry at the cynicism and greed of politicians and businessmen, rising debt, and the soullessness of modern living. But all that was ignored. The mood was exploited. The heritage industry cashed in on her name and celebrity. She became Royalty's greatest hit. Today, you can buy Diana Spencer souvenirs at any stately home gift-shop. In her death, she has made millions for her ex-husband and ex-in-laws, who weren't exactly poor to begin with.
My fiction, though, is concerned with s0-called ordinary people. I began thinking about the mourners, like my wife, my mother, my late mother-in-law. The people who laid wreaths outside public buildings, and lined up outside Westminster Abbey to see her coffin. Who went to Kensington Palace to see her collection of dresses, and who bought Elton John's new version of Candle In The Wind. I felt angry, and angry on behalf of somebody. And I have found, for me anyway, that that is the best starting point for fiction. You need a cause to fight.
I believe that all the best art is born of passion ; but for the fiction writer, that passion needs to be anger. Nigel Watts, in his book Teach Yourself how to write a novel, says that a writer without an idea is like a white knight on a charger, looking for a damself in distress to rescue. And Sheila Yegher, in The Sound of one hand clapping (her manual about writing for the stage), recommends that you start off with an image which has haunted you.
I remember once reading an interview with John Lennon, in which he spoke about the writing of his song How do you sleep (a bitter attack on his former Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney).Lennon said, in effect, that on the day he wrote it, he'd woken up feeling good, but then realized he had an album to make, so he cast around for suitable subjects. In other words, he whipped himself into a frenzy. Personally, I feel angry pretty much all the time about pretty much everything, although sometimes it takes me a while to realize what has made me angry and why.
So : a work of fiction about mourners of Diana. At the same time, I was thinking about writing about something shorter than a novel. But not a short story. I've tried to write short stories before, by they're too...well..short. I can't write short. I don't mean that I ramble, or I try not to. But to fit it all in to 2,000 words...that's clinical. I don't read a lot of short stories either. They seem to abrupt. The literary ones seem to have no plot, and the genre ones seem to have no characterization. The best short stories I've ever read are William Trevor's. And I believe, although I could be wrong, that the best short stories are by writers at the heights of their powers, who have honed their craft on larger works. Short stories are not the nursery slopes.
How about a one-act stage play? It wouldn't need a plot. Or much of one, anyway. You can get away with two characters trying to change each other's minds. I don't want to write a monologue, cheap as it might be to produce. I want the audience to see my characters arguing with each other, so that they can make their own makes up about the characters' veracities. The lowest number of one is two. Two characters.
Two women. Because I read somewhere that there is a scarcity of plays written just for actresses, even though more women that men enter show-business. Another cause to fight. (Also, if I'm honest, something of a marketing point).
Since before Christmas, I have been brewing this plot. I was hoping to have it finished by today. My writing class begins tonight, and I had visions of triumphantly handing around a complete first draft. It hasn't happened, but at the same time, I've been making progress. And there's no deadline for this, after all. And after months and months of no direction, months and months of barren-ness, to feel this charged about a project, to feel this excited...I feel like celebrating. It's almost beside the point how good the finished project is, just to feel a burning to tell a particular story (as opposed to any story at all) is enough. Although I also know, from experience, that if you enjoy writing a piece, there's a great chance that other people will enjoy it, too.
This is one mistake I've been making for years : trying to write something to somebody else's criteria. I've been starting off writing in my notebook "A romantic comedy","A low-budget hollywood film." Because I thought that would be saleable. I've also written "Sympathetic central character" and "happy ending." And one day, I hope to write a hollywood-style romantic comedy with a sympathetic hero and a heart-warming ending. Because I love a good film like that, I'll even sit through a mediocre one. But my approach wasn't bringing me anything meaningful. And it's become clear to me since that when Richard Curtis wrote Four Weddings and a funeral, he also had a message about the state of marriage; and when he wrote Notting Hill, he also wanted to say something about the nature of celebrity. Here, I told myself : the characters can be as unpleasant as possible. Or, rather, I would be objective about both of them. And the ending can be bleak and nihilistic. Whatever seems to fit. And that approach came up trumps.
So : two women characters. From somewhere, the image of a woman throwing an egg at Camilla Parker-Bowles has turned up. It's something many of Diana's mourners would like to do. In fact, they might use something harder than stones. There again, most people, even if they hated someone that strongly, wouldn't try to do anything. My character has got to do something. Throwing an egg...I think, unless events prove me wrong, that if the typical Diana-mourner were to throw something, it would be an egg. Something that would humiliate rather than kill.
One of my women characters, then, is a Diana-mourner. She's in the vicinity of Camilla Parker-Bowles, she has eggs ready, and she wants to throw one, for the memory of Diana Spencer, because she thought C P-B's conduct was wrong. A genteel Day of the Jackal.
Other questions come to me. Why is she in the vicinity of C B-P? Did she know C B-P was going to be there, and came along with eggs deliberately? No, that doesn't feel right (go with your instincts). She's arrived somewhere where C B-P happens to be visiting. An art gallery? Why would you take eggs to an art gallery (or where would you buy them inside an art gallery?)?
Meanwhile,who is the other woman character?A Complete stranger? No, that doesn't feel right. A complete stranger might see our heroine with the egg, and wrestle her to the ground, but that isn't drama, even if it is dramatic. That would just be two women wrestling with an egg on a stage - great for a stag night,possibly, but not for a play. Drama means dialogue, it means one character trying to change another character's mind, either by arguing or lying. And a stage play must be made up of drama, it's not built for anything else, and it doesn't want to do anything else. Because when you see a good play,live on stage, something that touches you, all the gunfights and car chases and collapsing buildings seem shallow, false, unimportant.