The Beautiful Girl and the History Class (CK)

[Cap Ologist]

cough, cough

[Izulde]

I know, I know.

Unfortunately, ever since I moved back to my hometown after graduation, I haven't been in the narrative AAR mode.

[Izulde]

I unconsciously gasp along with Melody and the rest of the crowd. He didn't.. he.. damn it, Caveman! Why?!

There's the sound of running and shouting as the black-suited security comes rushing into the area. They're about to converge on Caveman, when another voice rings out.

"Stop! You will stand down, men. I will keep an eye on things. As you were."

The Baron, who gave the order, makes his way through the crowd to stand beside Melody, faintly grinning down as her daughter, who smiles back in a way that I can't quite sort out how I feel about it.

I turn back to the possible combatants, wondering just what it is I've gotten myself and, indirectly, Caveman, into.

"On what grounds?" Chet is relaxed, almost amused as he looks at the tight-lipped Caveman.

"On the grounds of...", Caveman takes a breath and starts to sing, very badly and offkey.

Tune every heart and every voice,
Bid every care withdraw;
Let all with one accord rejoice,
In praise of Old Nassau.

In praise of Old Nassau we sing,
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
Our hearts will give while we shall live,
Three cheers for Old Nassau.

Let music rule the fleeting hour,
Her mantle round us draw
And thrill each heart with all her power,
In praise of Old Nassau.

In praise of Old Nassau we sing,
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
Our hearts will give while we shall live,
Three cheers for Old Nassau.

And when these wallls in dust are laid,
With reverence and awe,
Another throng shall breathe our song,
In praise of Old Nassau.

In praise of Old Nassau we sing,
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
Our hearts will give while we shall live,
Three cheers for Old Nassau.

Till then with joy our songs we'll bring,
And while a breath we draw,
We'll all unite to shout and sing,
Long life to Old Nassau.

In praise of Old Nassau we sing,
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
Our hearts will give while we shall live,
Long Life to Old Nassau.

The lawn's silent as the last cracked note comes out of Caveman's mouth. Someone starts an awkward clap, but nobody catches on to it.

"What's he on about?", I whisper to Melody.

Chet answers before she can, his eyes solely on my fraternity brother.

"So, this is a Tiger-Bulldog thing, eh? Very well, I accept. Baron Suchet, do you have a sword I could borrow?"

I'm still confused and from the looks of some of the others in the crowd, I'm not the only one.

The Baron smiles reassuringly at us and steps forward into the clearing that's formed by the newly-reconfigured circle.

"Of course, Chet."

He stops in the middle of the space and raises his voice, his tone changing to one of authority, an authority I imagine he's acquired naturally over the years, or maybe he had it from birth.

"Ladies and gentlemen! This man has challenged Chet Astor to a duel on the grounds of the time-honored Princeton-Yale rivalry! Mr. Astor has accepted and so they will fight to first blood! In other words, whosoever draws blood from their opponent first will be the victor!"

...What? This has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Fighting over a rivalry that last mattered sometime in the early 1900s? Caveman doesn't have a good reason to fight Chet. I do, though.

"I object."

A sea of eyes turns to me as I step forward, breaking away from Melody to join the group in the middle. I don't like this kind of attention, but it has to be done.

Caveman and Chet are both smirking at me, the Baron smiling a little as he replies, "And why do you object, Mr. Hunter?"

"Because fighting with swords over where you went to school is silly. If you want to argue about the rivalry, watch the game together when your school's teams play each other and get into a ribbing contest or whatever. To literally bleed for where you happened to get your education makes no sense."

I don't know if I even made any sense, but my words set off a murmur in the audience. Baron Suchet waits until it settles down before he speaks again, his face studious now.

"Then on what grounds should they fight? The challenge has been made and accepted, you know."

"I don't pretend to know anything about the rules of duels or anything like that, sir. All I know is that if anyone has a legitimate reason to fight Chet, it's me."

The air crackles with electric tension. I know I've just stunned everyone watching except for Caveman, the Baron, Melody and Becky, but I don't look at any of them. Instead, I turn to look Chet straight in the eyes.

I don't know him and I've never even met him until now, but I hate him. Not just because of Melody, but because he just seems to reek of the stereotypical snobbery I hate in his and Melody's class. Yes, I'm being as guilty of class typing as Melody right now, but in this bastard's case, it fits.

"I love Melody and she loves me, too. You're standing in the way of us being together. I'll give you one chance to step down. Break off the engagement. Find some other rich girl to marry. Let her and I be happy together."

A roar rips through the crowd and pandemonium reigns for a few moments before the Baron raises his arms to call for quiet again.

But it's not completely quiet, because Chet's laughing in disbelief, his eyes scornful as he stares back at me.

"And who are -you-? I've never even seen you before or even heard of you."

"I'm Nick Hunter and I'm going to fight for the girl I love. Unless you're too scared of losing to an ordinary guy like me."

Chet recovers from his laughing fit and sniffs disdainfully.

"Scared? Not at all. I accept your challenge as well. I'll even let you choose your weapon. But first--"

"I withdraw my challenge. Mr. Hunter has made me see the error of my ways", Caveman jumps in.

"Very well. It appears we have an agreement. Mr. Hunter will be contesting Mr. Astor for my daughter's hand in marriage", announces the Baron, his eyes bright with what can only be described as glee, "Mr. Hunter, your choice of weapon?"

"Bow and arrow. But not here. I know the perfect place in town, if Chet isn't afraid to go there."

"Of course, I'm not afraid", Chet replies with a haughty air I'm fast growing to despise, "Wherever you like! And I'll have you know that I'm not bad at all with a bow."

"Then it's decided! Mr. Hunter, lead the way!"

I glance over at Caveman and give him a look under cover of the hubbub that follows.

He nods and slips off into the darkness.

He knows what he needs to do and so do I.

[Cap Ologist]

Nice to see you back in the saddle.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

Nice to see you back in the saddle.

Thanks, though I'm not that happy with how the scene turned out. But I knew I had to write something before I lost the feel for the story completely.

It's been a tough writing environment since I've come back home for the summer, due to a certain very unwelcome houseguest who will fortunately be moving out in a couple weeks, which should get things back to normal.

[rjolley]

Nice turn. This should be a storyline in a tv series or somethin.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by rjolley

Nice turn. This should be a storyline in a tv series or somethin.

Thanks.

[Wolfpack]

Hmm...given the choice of weapons, should someone be blaring "Shot Through the Heart" by Bon Jovi in the background of this contest?

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

Hmm...given the choice of weapons, should someone be blaring "Shot Through the Heart" by Bon Jovi in the background of this contest?

I'll have to look up that song, though the title certainly sounds fitting and given the band, the tempo and sound is probably right for this sort of competition.

[Wolfpack]

Originally Posted by Izulde

I'll have to look up that song, though the title certainly sounds fitting and given the band, the tempo and sound is probably right for this sort of competition.

D'oh! I'm an idiot. Chose the wrong part of the chorus as the song title. It's actually "You Give Love a Bad Name". Still, seems to fit given the romantic entanglements going on.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

D'oh! I'm an idiot. Chose the wrong part of the chorus as the song title. It's actually "You Give Love a Bad Name". Still, seems to fit given the romantic entanglements going on.

I still have yet to check it out, but duly noted.

[Izulde]

"Come on, Nick. You'll have to lead the way because none of us knows where we're going."

I'm embarrassed at the idea of having my ancient beater leading all these rich cars, but to my surprise, the Baron puts his hand on my shoulder and steers me away from the parking lot. I don't question him because I know he's not the sort to be deterred from something when he gets an idea.

We go past the still shining mansion and a couple more smaller buildings that I didn't notice before until he turns, blazing the path across the darkened grass and pavement into a garage.

And waiting there is the most beautiful car I've ever seen.

It's a sleek, silver Porsche Carrera GT, a gorgeous thing that makes Melody's Boxter look plain in comparison.

I stand there, staring and gasping, much to the grinning Baron's amusement.

"I always did prefer Porsches. Ferrari has the Enzo, but it's too loud to me, the Buggati Veyron is uglier than sin and while the Shelby Ultimate Aero is nice, there's just something about the Carrera's quiet elegance that appeals to me over everything else."

I can only nod my dumb agreement and I'm further shocked when Baron Suchet tosses me a set of keys from his pants pocket.

"What?"

"You drive Nick. You're the navigator after all."

It feels like I'm dreaming as I get in the driver's side and just gaze in awe at the dashboard and the beauty of the car's interior. I never thought I'd ever see one of these in person, much less actually get the chance to drive one.

"Are you sure about this? I mean, what if I wreck it or something?"

Jean laughs as he settles in beside me, winking with that familial mischief in his eyes.

"Then I'll just have to get another one, that's all."

Unbelievable.

But the unbelievable is reality as I slowly and carefully drive the Carrera out on to the driveway, following the Baron's instructions to the main road and the forefront of the rapidly forming caravan.

With all the limosines, Porsches, Ferraris, Jaguars, Lamborghinis, Shelbys, and so on, it looks like the world's greatest carshow. A mobile carshow that I, Nick Hunter, am the parade marshal for.

We head out, the pace slow as I'm still cautious while we go up and down the hills before reaching the flat road and then on to the highway.

Once we change from two lanes to four, the Baron turns to me and smiles.

"All right, it's late at night and you're going to have open road for a good stretch here. Open it up and let's see how fast this car can -really- go."

A tremor passes through my hand at the thought of that kind of speed, but he's right and hey, it's his car.

I grip the beechwood gearknob and start opening it up as he says. The speedometer starts climbing at a smooth rate. I can't convert from kilometers to miles, but I know we're going faster and faster.

And it's a heady feeling.

By the time we hit top speed, I'm shivering with the delight of it all, the blurring of the horizon, as we surge through the highway in excess of 200 miles an hour.

Ecstacy floods me and all my nerves are alive and singing with the sensation of superspeed. For the first time in my life, it's feel like I'm actually flying, like we could launch into the night sky and journey through the stars.

I risk a glance at the Baron as we continue to stream over the empty space of highway. His eyes are half-lidded and he looks as blissful as I do. What a man this guy is, the kind I'd love to have as a father-in-law. After tonight, I'll know for sure if he will be.

I'm so caught up in the feeling of flying that we shoot past our exit.

"Damn!" I swear, "I missed the turn!"

The Baron opens his eyes, chuckling, "So slow down, turn around and go back. The others still have a ways to catch up."

He ends up being right, for even after the balatantly illegal U-turn and wrongway driving to get back to the exit and another turnabout to head for the ramp, the others are just coming up on the horizon once we're back in place.

Evidently they didn't fly. Too bad for them.

The sense of exhiliration gradually shifts to nervousness as I downgrade to a sedate level of speed to drive into town. I, who have never tried for anything, -really- tried, now have the test of my life before me.

F.W.'s shop is lit to the hilt as we pull in. Apparently Caveman either got there in time before he closed or he found some way to wake him up to open up again. At this point, I can no longer remember the range's hours.

Hell, I don't even know if I can remember how to shoot now, as the enormity of the upcoming competition weighs down on me.

I take a deep breath amidst the sound of car doors opening and slamming, the nobility and the esteemed chatting quietly amongst themselves, some of them gazing curiously about.

I have to be calm.

Everything, and I mean everything, is riding on this.

"Mr. Hunter?"

"Oh, right. Sorry, sir. Right this way."

And so we approach the unassuming door leading to the range.

[Cap Ologist]

nice to see this picked up again

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

nice to see this picked up again

Thanks. Updates will be slow, what few remain that is, but they will come, eventually.

[Izulde]

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Right this way, please. The bar's open and we're serving a variety of drinks for your pleasure this evening."

Drake's dashing in the same outfit he wore for Formal and as my eyes adjust to the change in lighting, I see that every single Theta Sigma Phi active is there, as well as a good number of alumni who stayed in the area.

"Open bar tonight! Drink as much as you like!" The Baron calls out, drawing a round of applause as this impressive assembly makes its way into the range. It's rather surreal, seeing the kind of upper classes you only read about in the news mingling with a group of fraternity men, most of whom either are or will become middle class.

I wonder which group will be my fate. Before this semester, I knew I'd be part of the second. Now, the first is tantalizingly within reach and as I subtly shudder with the realization, I begin to see what Melody means about the distinction between the two. Which isn't to say I agree with her and her mother's views. I don't. But the first time, I can understand a little where they're coming from.

The press of people makes it impossible to find Melody, but I doubt I'd be able to spot her anyway because my eyes are caught by another shocking sight on this night of surprises.

F.W. in a white tuxedo that looks like it came out of the '70s and is so rumpled it looks like it was last worn about then.

Nonetheless, he's grinning, advancing upon me with his ambling walk.

"Good evening, Nick. Looks like we're going to have an interesting time of it, no?"

The glee in his eyes is unmistakeable as he claps on the back with a laugh, leaning in to whisper, "About damned time you got off your duff and stood up for something."

"Who told you?" I ask in a low tone.

"Caveman, of course. He rallied the troops and between him and Drake, they got everyone here in a jiffy."

I can't help but shake my head in admiration as the infamous fraternal networking and brotherly assistance prove themselves once again. It's a common cliche of recruitment to cite those things as advantages and here they are in full evidence.

Once everyone is inside, has their drinks, served by a couple alumni who are managing the bar, and is settled, F.W. clears his throat for attention.

"I understand we have an archery duel tonight between two gentlemen. Mr. Hunter, Mr. Astor, if you would please... Come with me to the office so we can discuss terms."

Chet emerges from the crowd and we walk side by side, but apart as we follow F.W. into his office, a small, cramped backroom littered with archery paraphenalia and the huge collection of trophies won during his competitive days.

I see Chet's face take on a look of guarded respect as he looks over F.W.'s hardware while the boss gets settled in his overstuffed, foam-bursting roller chair behind the battered steel desk.

"All right, boys. What type of duel were you thinking of setting up?"

Chet and I look at each other warily. Neither one of us seems willing to take the lead here. I know I don't, though I'm hard-pressed to say why. Nervous, maybe, or maybe I'm feeling a little overwhelmed seeing all F.W.'s trophies. I mean, I knew he was good, really good, in his day, but it's something else altogether to be faced with the evidence of it.

F.W. lights a cigarette, chuckling when we don't answer.

"All right, all right. Let's try a couple suggestions. Now, my own personal opinion is that you boys are better off postponing this thing until tomorrow and we can set up a clout shoot."

"No", we both answer simultaneously, so quickly that it takes all three of us by surprise.

"It has to be tonight", Chet insists.

"He's right", I say, "Besides, a clout shoot would be fun, with this large a group of people, but it'd take a lot of work to find a place big enough and set one up. I mean, how many 180 yard places are there in the area that we could get on this short a notice?"

That look of odd respect passes from F.W. to me now. I think Chet's realizing that he's in for more than he bargained for when he challenged me.

"All right, all right" F.W. sighs with a short laugh, "I suppose you're right. What about a wand shoot? We could get the campus police to allow us to use the football stadium. That's 100 yards and we could pack people in the stands to watch."

Chet's silent, so I take the lead in replying.

"No. Even with the floodlights on, it'd be hard for people to see the strip and besides, a wand shoot is boring in my opinion."

"Well, we can't have a normal competition", F.W. retorts, "I know how good you are, Nick, and Mr. Astor, if you're anywhere close to Nick's level, we'll be here all night and people will be getting tired after a while."

"So what do you suggest then?" Chet interjects with a touch of irritation. I don't know if he's asking me, F.W. or both, "We're wasting time here. Melody belongs to me in the first place, so if you ask me, this whole duel is silly. She accepted my proposal and I have the legal upper hand here. I'm only doing this to be nice."

The thought of Chet being nice strikes me as hilarious, but I choke back my laugh and just shrug.

F.W. closes his eyes, taking a drag of his cigarette and exhaling slowly before he slowly grins.

"All right, I've got just the thing. Will you two both agree to the terms I set? It'll be a standard setup, here in the range, tonight, but with a little twist."

"Fine. Let's just get on with it", Chet answers. I voice my agreement, even though my instinct says I shouldn't trust a sneaky old man like F.W.

"Good."

And so we all exit his office, the milling, chatting crowd stilling and turning to us as we appear.

F.W. sets his cigarette in the nearest ashtray and rolls up his sleeves.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached an agreement. In accordance with international rules regarding finals round competition, we will be shooting four rounds, or ends, of three arrows each at the maximum distance this range allows. We will be adding a little twist to make things interesting, however."

The audience and I listen and watch with baited breath.

"The contests will shoot... blindfolded. They will each have two practice ends of three arrows to acclimate themselves to the new conditions."

...Oh God. I'm in for it now.

[Izulde]

Oh ho!

It doesn't look like neither Mr. Hunter nor Mr. Astor were expecting that one, judging from their expressions! Brilliant play by the old dog, who I'm beginning to think is a man after my own heart.

F.W., as I believe his name is, is coming over here now after distributing blindfolds to the two men and informing us that in keeping with Olympic competition rules, both of them will be using recurves.

"Your Lordship?"

"Call me Jean."

He grins, nodding, "All right then. Jean it is. Since you're the father of the young woman being dueled over, I'd like you to do the scoring, if you don't mind. You probably already know, but just to make sure there's no confusion, I'll go over it with you again.

"All right", I agree, though I do know.

He points to the nearest target.



"There's 10 circles and it's a 10-point scoring system here. White are worth 1 and 2 points, black 3 and 4, blue 5 and 6, red 7 and 8 and yellow 9 and 10. I'm going to have you put up a paper target just like that one after each contestant shoots an end, so people who don't have a good view of the target from here can see how they did. Mark Nick's arrows in green and Mr. Astor's arrows in grey. Also, in the event of a line breaker, where an arrow is on the line between two circles, the archer gets the higher of the two scores. As the owner of the house, I make the final judgement call on all disputed scores. Also, I'll be explaining all this to the audience while the boys are taking their warm-up shots. Sound good?"

"Sounds splendid."

"Oh, one more thing. They'll have to stay blindfolded the entire time, even when arrows are fetched and even when the other one's shooting."

*****************

They say that an arrow shoots straight.

But they're wrong. Arrows wobble as they go through the air, which is why it's almost impossible to split an arrow in half with another arrow.

They also say that when one of your senses is taken away, your others become better to compensate for it.

And there they're right.

I hear murmurs, shuffles, coughs and the squeak of shoes and footsteps all around me. I hear snatches of conversation too, individual words that have no meaning for me and F.W.'s explanation of the scoring while Chet and I take our practice ends.

After every shot, F.W. apparently looks back, because he calls out "3!" "6!" "1!" and so on.

It's more difficult than even I figured shooting like this. Even as I can visualize the target perfectly in my mind, figuring out just where precisely they're landing and what adjustments need to be made take the full extent of my practice shots.

But by the end of warmups, I think I have a good idea of what I'm doing and from the calls of Chet's scores, he's not far off the mark either.

"Nick, as challenger, I, as match official, am giving you the option to choose who goes first."

"Chet", I answer F.W. as the crowd falls to a hush.

I take a few steps back to give Chet room and as the whirr of his first arrow sounds in my ears, a familiar perfume drifts in my nostrils.

"Nick, I don't know what to do. Caveman wants me to forgive him and to try for a relationship, but I just don't know if I can go through that pain again."

"6!"

"He may be my fraternity brother Becky, but he treated you like shit. You deserve better than that."

Her small hands grip my arm and anxiety is there in her voice, which I realize now I like, but could never love.

"4!"

"I know, but... I do love him."

I sigh as Chet's third arrow reports off his bow, "I've got to shoot. Ask me after this end, okay?"

"7!"

"Okay."

********



I think Nick's in trouble. I mean, he's my best friend and everything and I know he's a good shooter, but this is something completely different.

"I can't believe everyone here! The board is going to be so jealous! Drake, you -have- to take pictures of me with people if they let me okay?!"

"Sure."

It's tough sometimes having a celeb nut for a girlfriend, especially when your best friend is trying to win the girl of his dreams and your girl is gabbing away about Prince so-and-so and movie star her-and-her.

**********

Deep breaths, deep breaths.

Be the arrow.

As the arrow, this is me notching myself to the bow, sniffing out the eye with my point.

I think I've found it and fire.

"2!"

Damn it! My hands slipped right when I released! I need to calm down. Just relax, Nick... Just relax.

Lower, much lower. Fire.

"3!"

...Fuck! Okay, okay. 2, then 3 and I went lower. That means I'm on one side or the other. From the way my hands went, I think I go left... this much. Aim. Make the release smooth. F.W. forgot to specify a time limit after all.

"8!"

Yes! Getting closer!

***************



"Come on, Becky. Why won't you give me another chance?"

Caveman just doesn't get it. But can I really blame him? He doesn't know anything about love and I didn't either when I let him have my virginity. But I've seen how great, how caring a guy can be from Nick and I want that in my life now.

"It's complicated, Bobby. I mean, how do I know you won't turn into a jerk on me again?"

"I've changed! I swear! Why can't you just give it a shot?"

"Because you had your shot. I'm going to go give Nick a pep talk.

"....Do you like him or something?"

I don't answer. He doesn't deserve to know.

**************

All right, so I'm 5 points down after the first round. I can still pull this out depending on how Chet does.

"Nick? I made my choice. I'm not letting him back in my life."

"Good. It's for the best."

"5!"

...Damn it.

"Don't tell me where he's shooting or how it's going, please."

"Okay. Listen Nick, I just wanted to thank you for everything you've done me and I mean that and like, about everything."

"5!"

Whew. I was scared there a moment.

"I'm just glad there I could be there for you."

"6!"

"You can do this, Nick. You deserve Melody a lot more than Chet. He's a jerk, just like Caveman."

I can't help but laugh.

"Thanks, Becky."

**************



"Looks like your Mr. Hunter's in a spot of trouble."

"I know."

"What are you going to do if he loses?"

I shrug. As much as I love my father, he's entirely too inquisitive for my tastes at times. At least my mother has the decency not to care unless it concerns her personally in some way.

Even now, she's not watching the duel, but instead talking with that boring cow friend of hers. It's ridiculous, really. She married a Suchet and talks like she knows what it means to be one, but sometimes she acts like the Dumbrowski fools she came from.

********

Don't think about the score. To be honest, I don't even know what the score is at this point. I just need to focus on shooting and shooting well.

The break between ends makes this a much more equal contest with the blindfolding, because while I and I suspect Chet too to some extent, have some memory of the last end, the exact physical memory of hands, bow and arrow is hard to remember at first.

Slow breath, pick a point and shoot.

"7!"

Good start, but now that I'm thinking back to the last end, it felt like I was leaning to the right, so I move over to the left a few degrees and fire again.

"9!"

The place goes crazy with roars, cheers and applause, but I don't even really hear it as I notch again, shift left a slight bit and fire.

"And we have our first perfect 10!"

"YEAH NICK! YOU GO BOY!"

Drake's screaming above the crowd and all the Theta Sigma Phi's spontaneously break out into one of our fraternity songs.

But I'm not celebrating just yet. We're only halfway through and anything can happen from end to end.

**********



"Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take a 5 minute break to give our contestants a chance to relax a bit and to let everyone get a refill. After the first two of our four ends, Mr. Hunter leads Mr. Astor 38-33."

[Celeval]

Great to see... home stretch, Iz!

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Celeval

Great to see... home stretch, Iz!

Thanks And yep, home stretch we're in!

[Izulde]

I'm sweating and because I'm blindfolded, I feel each individual drop sizzling my skin. It's too crowded in here and I'm starting to feel the full weight of the pressure. A five-point lead is pretty sizeable halfway through, but by no means guaranteed.

A hand takes my arm, Drake's voice coming into my ear.

"Let's get you of here for a bit. You're looking pretty stressed, man."

He leads me outside and I hear another pair of footsteps behind us. For some reason, I'm not surprised to discover it's Caveman.

"You need a smoke, Nick?"

"...No. I need something to drink. Get me a shot."

One of them, I don't know who, runs back in and comes out a few moments later, shoving a shotglass into my hand.

I toss it back without bothering to ask what it is. Whatever it is, it's delicious, with a sweet grape flavor dominant, notes of what tastes like vodka and rum underscoring it.

"Thanks."

"No problem", Drake answers.

"You sure you don't want a cigarette?" The sound of Caveman clicking his lighter on echoes through the silent, dark night, the licorice scent of Djarum Black wafting in my nostrils.

"No, I'm good... and I don't mean to be a dick, but do you think you could go back inside with that? The smoke's bugging me right now. I'm just trying to concentrate, you know?"

A sensation of icy hostility hits me, but it fades as Caveman's feet shuffle back through the door.

Drake chuckles, "Man, I don't get that guy sometimes. Sometimes I wonder why we even pledged him."

"Because in spite of all his faults, he's a good guy. ...And he's smart as hell, which is good for our chapter GPA."

"True enough", Drake replies as we wryly laugh over it together. Any fraternity chapter worth anything emphasizes academics, because one of the biggest selling points we have against the Greek stereotypes is that generally speaking, the Greeks have higher GPAs than the average student. It's a vital weapon against the war of anti-social sorority and fraternity misunderstanding.

We're silent for a time while I let the pleasurable liquor flow through me, the taste and the booze mixing in with the silence to calm me, flushing out my nervousness and worry.

"Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I'm proud of you, Nick. Although I was always pissed at you for not running for office, you're more than making up for it here by doing this. Win or lose, you've officially become a chapter legend and your story will be told for years after."

"Thanks, but you know I never cared about that kind of thing. I'm just a guy who does his part for our chapter and for our fraternity."

And it's true. It's one of the fundamental differences between me and guys like Caveman, who stress and worry so much about wanting to be one of the top dogs that they never will be one. It strikes me, far too late now of course, that maybe I should've tried a little harder, done a little more. I'm ashamed to realize now that I wasn't the best Theta Sigma Phi I could be.

Drake must be able to read the look on my face, because his hand claps my shoulder, "Hey, don't worry about it. Like I said, you're making us all proud tonight. Just go in there, do the best you can and get that girl, all right?"

"All right."

******

"Ladies and gentlemen, take your places. We're about to start again. Mr. Astor? Whenever you're ready."

I should not be losing to that inferior twit. Not me, not Chet Astor. My family is known for doing great things and to lose here would be to shame my name.

But enough thinking, for thinking leads to defeat and doing is the way to victory.

"8!"

"7!"

"8!"

Let's see him beat that.

*****



"Oh no! Poor Nick!"

"He can still do it. I have faith in him."

"So do I. Oh! I almost forgot! Baron Suchet and Viscount Duchovny both agreed to have my picture taken with them, so we can do it right after the duel?"

"Sure."

Man, she owes me big for this. Hmm, maybe I can finally talk her into playing priest and nun one night.

*****

Shit, shit, shit. Not good, not good.


Okay, remember, deep breath. I can do this, I can definitely do this. It's just me shooting practice rounds. No stress, no worry.

I step up to the line with F.W.'s vocal cue, take another breath, take aim and fire.

"5!"

Okay, a little -too- loose there. I tighten up and try again.

"2!"

...Way too tight.

I close my eyes behind the blindfold, letting the target and its details come into view. My hands and arms follow my eye and once I think I've found my spot, I shoot.

"10!"

YES! REMEMBER THAT!

They're going wild with applause, even more so than last time, but it's a distant memory as the sweating pops back up again and my heart's pounding as F.W. reports the score.

"Going into the final end, it's Mr. Astor 56, Mr. Hunter 55!"

*****



"Ah, Mr. Hunter's just one point away."

"I see that."

My father looks at me, trying to read my face, but I just twirl the ring on my left hand and pretend great interest in the play of the room's light on its diamonds.

No one can know what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. Not yet. I'm the prize to be won, after all and so must maintain perfect neutrality.

So I keep a composed, indifferent face as I watch Chet Astor line up for his final end.

"9!"

"8!"

"10!"

"Door's open, but only a little bit. It'll be a tight squeeze for your boy."

Father, do please shut up.



******

....I have to be perfect, or so close to perfect I have a very slim room for error. Suddenly I wish I hadn't taken that shot, because my stomach's raging and my hands are shaking.

I can barely concentrate as I step to the line, I'm so tense. Shit! This is why I don't do this shit! This is why I play it safe and never challenge for anything!

The stillness of the crowd is oppressive as I raise my bow. I can't even visualize the target, I'm wigging out so bad.

"Nick! Wait! You've got a phonecall!"

...What? I'm confused as everyone else, a murmuring rippling through the hall as a cell phone's pressed into my hand.

I blink beneath the blindfold and set my bow down to hold the phone to my ear.

"Hey, buddy! How's my favorite fellow ladies man?"

...No. It can't be.

"Terry?! How the hell did you-"

"Drake called me and told me about the little duel you've got going on. Listen, I just wanted to say that if this girl's worth it, you'll find a way to win. I'm actually kinda jealous of you, bro. I mean, yeah, I'm banging supermodels and starlets left and right out here, including my second wife, but there's no love in it. Guys like us, we fall in love maybe once in our lifetime, even if that. This is your chance, your love. Don't let it fly away man."

And just like that, all the stress evaporates in this sudden feeling of wonder. Terry McClintock of all people, jealous of me.

"Thanks, Terry. I owe you one."

"No problem, man. Just win one for the Theta Sigs and win one for yourself, all right?"

"Will do."

I blindly hand the phone back to the hand that reaches for it and take up my bow once more.

Now the target comes into view again in my mind and I'm able to aim and fire right where I want it.

"9!"

Okay, okay. No pressure, even though I need to hit both shots in the 10 spot to win it...

It felt just a touch high, so I lower the point a little and shoot again.

"10!"

I smile as I hear the wild screams of the brothers and alumni. I've got this. All I need to do is keep the same pose and fire... just like...

NO! NO! NOOOOO!

My hands, still slick with sweat from the exertion of it all, slip as I let the arrow fly and I'm screaming inside as I hear the arrow fly down and scuttle across the floor.

I don't even wait for F.W.'s grim-faced zero to tear off my blindfold and stare, just stare at the fallen arrow.

This can't be real.

It's just a dream, that's all it is.

Just some nightmare I'll wake up from.

I can't have lost her, I can't have lost her now. Not when I was so damned close, not when she was... "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

My scream roars out of my mouth, but I don't care. I don't care how much an idiot I look. I've let myself down, let Melody down, let all the brothers down, let everyone down! I'll never be able to live with myself for this.

"Nick. Stop."

A cool breeze. Melody's voice ringing out commandingly through the crush of people as she steps forward, calm as ever and so pretty in her white dress.

I'm panting, but I stop, looking up at her from the floor I don't remember falling on. Everyone else is watching her too.

"I have decided not to accept the terms of the duel."

"You can't do that", Chet cuts in, "You've already agreed to it and that's that."

She turns and looks at him with all the nobility and aristocracy that her ancestry no doubt instilled in her, her face positively regal.

"Is this not the United States? Does not America, with its traditions of democracy and individual liberty, dictate through that long heritage that I have the right to choose who and under what terms I marry?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Caveman open his mouth, no doubt to interject, but Drake kicks him in the shin before he can say anything.

"All right, fine. I can be generous enough to allow you that, I suppose. What are your terms?"

Melody slowly and majestically turns about again, her movement so graceful and so natural, she would look incredible on the stage. Maybe it's her father's theater blood in her or maybe it's something that's uniquely her. Maybe both, but she takes my breath away just watching her.

"Nick. Stand. Come here. Chet, you too."

And here we are, spellbound like sailors to a Siren, like the mythology story Caveman told me about one time. We follow her command and stand in front of her, each of us on either side, because I know if we get too close, I'm going to strangle that smug prick.

"The one who marries me will be able to answer this question. What does the word Paraiba mean to me?"

"What? That's a stupid ques-"

"I know what it means."

Chet starts and glares at me, his face a mixture of confusion and hostility, while Melody smiles serenely, waiting for me to go on.

"It's where you found the thing that's most precious to you, when you were sweet sixteen and begged your father to let you go digging in the mountains, something nobody would imagine you of all people doing."

Her smile widens, brightening and enlivening the whole room as the crowd laughs appreciatively at the image of this pretty, elegant girl traipsing about in the dirt.

I step forward to grasp her hand before she can speak, ignoring Chet's furious gaze plunging daggers into my back.

"And that's what you are, Melody, the most precious thing in the world to me, even more than my brothers, even more than fishing or making pancakes or hot tubs.. even more than the fraternity. You're my Paraiba tourmaline."

She answers me with a kiss, the kind of deep, full, love-flavored kiss that you see in movies and wonder if it'll ever happen to you. It's happening to me now and all the cheers and all the faces fade away in the bliss of this kiss, this confirmed love that will be mine forever after, until we breathe our last and the world knows only memories of us and our story.

I break away from her with a smile, my fingers closing about the ring on her finger.

"May I see this?"

She nods and I pull the ring off. After a moment's inspection, I walk out on the range and pick up my bow and the fallen arrow.

With everyone watching, I toss the ring high in the air, line up my shot and fire.

The arrow goes whistling through the air, the head catching in the loop of the ring and striking the bullseye of our duelling target.

The crowd breaks out in applause, the ring whirling around the arrow twice before settling. I grin, draping my arm around Melody as a furious Chet stalks out to retrieve the unwanted jewelry.

I don't know what's going to happen after this, but I do know that I've found my beautiful girl at last.

And there is no sweeter history than that.

~The End~


(OOC Note: Authorial Afterword to follow)

[Cap Ologist]

nicely done, enjoyed the ride

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

nicely done, enjoyed the ride

Glad you enjoyed it And thanks for prodding me at various times in here and PM to go keep going.

[Izulde]

Authorial Afterword

When I first began this AAR in late January 2007 (hard to believe it's been over a year and a half!), I had only very vague notions of what it was going to entail.

Melody and Nick, the primary characters, were literally mere wisps of pencil sketches in my mind.

My original intention was that Nick would be this cocky ladies' man who would, through Melody, face a reversal of the condition he'd inflicted on so many of the girls who'd loved him but he hadn't loved in return. Of course, it wasn't going to be a deliberate plan concocted by the girls he'd spurned (as I think one reader suggested). That seemed too contrived to me for one and for two, it was completely against the spirit of the story I wanted to write. Rather, I wanted to have it contain the imprint of destiny, no matter how it turned out.

Of course, that isn't exactly what happened. Yes, Nick fell for Melody like girls had him, but the time he realized that he was in love with her, he had long since ceased to be my first concept of him and instead revealed himself to be more of an Everyman kind of character. I think this worked to the story's benefit, because it created a narrator that readers could empathize with, because he was just a normal guy.

As for Melody herself, her appearance and the idea of a beautiful girl in the history class were inspired by a beautiful girl in my Japanese History class the semester before. But outside of that, I didn't know anything about her.

Then, as I began to write more of the story in the early stages of Morengay's background lectures, I came to understand her, to realize her background and just how complex and conflicted an individual she really was. Naturally, she retained some aspects of mystery, both to the readers and to myself as the author, but her multi-dimensional qualities started to show through and became absolutely essential to keeping the story from falling into the triteness trap. It would've been very easy to write her strictly as an object of desire or solely as a class snob, but she turned out to have much greater depth than that. And I think it's that depth and that complexity that engineered a lot of the fierce debates over just who Melody is, outside of the mysterious aspects of her.

Professor Morengay was the easiest character to figure out. From the very beginning, he was what he was, a composite of different aspects of professors I've had, particularly in history classes, and the natural and logical storyteller for the history class (CK portion) of the story.

The Baron and Baroness were also very quickly realized figures in my mind, once I'd determined what Melody's background was. In fact, I had the scene where Nick meets the Baron at the party written in my head literally months before it came time to post it.

With regards to the others, each one has their own individual point of origin.

I intended Drake to play a larger role than he actually did. He was modeled in certain ways after one of my own fraternity brothers and I wanted him to serve as the main focus for the fraternal side of the story.

But then Caveman, who I took a few aspects of my own personality and appearance and lampooned to an exaggerated level to form the basis for, quickly became one of the most popular characters with readers and I realized that he made a far more effective foil for Nick than Drake. He also acquired a much darker nature than I thought he would and became much more integral to the story than I imagined. Quite a far cry from my first vision of him as the comic relief character in the story.

Becky was an accident. She was never planned for, nor, when she made her way into the story, did I ever mean for her to become as major as she did. Yes, I'd toyed with the possiblity of having Nick become involved with another girl as a rebound after Melody's rejection of her love for him, but I didn't expect the situation to script itself so fluidly that Becky would entangle herself with him. But it did and in my opinion, it worked beautifully.

In fact, it worked so beautifully, that for a very long time, the original ending of the story was at the dance during the party, with Nick choosing Becky and one or the other of them remarking as the closing line, "So, you think we should introduce Caveman to Melody?"

Of course, that's not how it turned out and the reason it didn't was because I came to realize that Nick simply doesn't love Becky romantically. Instead, it's a very close friendship/platonic type of love, the kind that so many of us have the misfortune of having been familiar with in our unrequited loves.

All of which brings me to Chet. If I have a regret with this story, it's that I didn't develop him enough. On the surface of it, he seems like a stereotypical rich jerk, but as I go over his scenes again, particularly the short blurb where he reveals his thoughts during the last end, I see someone who's been made bitter by the expectations that come with his family name. I find myself wondering why that's so and I think there's a lot more to him than we've been able to find out here.

I think part of the problem is that he doesn't make his first appearance until almost the very end. This wasn't intentional. Originally, I planned for Nick to find out about the engagement (which I knew about pretty early on) by running across Melody and Chet in the local shopping mall, or by Chet visiting the fraternity house due to a cousin of some kind being in the chapter. I had some very amusing scenes written for both possibilities, including Nick knocking Chet out with a well-placed punch.

But these scenes, like the original ending and like the very brief, but quickly discarded consideration of the greatest cliche in narrative romantic history (I'm so loathing of it, I won't mention it by name), didn't occur and I think the story turned out better for it.

The duel itself was tacked on very late, as in, I didn't know I was going to do it until I was writing the dance scene itself kind of late. Again, my plan for the story called for it to end there, but somehow, I don't remember how, the duel interjected itself before I fully realized what was happening. I perceive a reduction in the quality of writing for those final scenes and I suspect the duel's unplanned quality had a lot to do with that. Of course, my audience may disagree with me on that point and they're quite welcome to.

Overall though, I'm quite happy with how the story turned out, so much so that I think it's very possible to engage in literary criticism and analysis of it. (One paper topic that came to mind off the top of my head is the idea of Drake, the Baron and Terry serving on a symbolic level of the three possible endpoints for Nick's life). I think the fact that it -can- be analyzed is a testament to the story's quality, something that shocked me when I first realized it and gives me hope for my future writings.

Speaking of which, some have mentioned throughout the AAR that I should turn this into a published story. It's a nice idea, but it's not going to happen. Much of the story's strength comes from the parallel structure of the CK narrative with the "real-life" narrative and the alt-history involved is so alt-history, I don't foresee any publisher accepting it, even if it weren't considered already published by virtue of being posted on the Internet (which it is).

Finally, this story owes a great debt not only to Paradox for publishing CK and to the readers for commenting and giving me the energy to keep going when I hit lulls, but a range of literature and music that either directly inspired or are quoted in it or helped me get in the mood for specific updates or arcs. To that end, I present the following lists, titled "The Literature and Official Soundtrack of The Beautiful Girl and the History Class"

Literature
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
--The traffic stop scene was ripped wholesale from the novel, as in, it's virtually the exact same scene. I also borrowed Nick's first name from this.
"The Rich Boy" - F. Scott Fitzgerald
--Nick's last name of Hunter came from this story, as well as some of the material for describing Caveman's relationship with the Dutch girl, which I'm sorry that I didn't expand more on later in the story as I'd intended to. Some readers may see other influences as well.
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
--In my opinion, the greatest novel ever written and a primary influence on a lot of my own creative writing.
"Hungry Stones" - Rabindranath Tagore
--Cited in its entireity within the story, with some obvious parallels to the Nick/Melody arc that some pointed out. One of the most brilliant short stories I've ever read, by the way.
"The Wasteland" - T.S. Eliot
--The hyacinth girl passages are quoted in part in the story. I just thought it fit.
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" - T.S. Eliot
--I don't remember if I quoted it or not, but I was definitely thinking of it when writing some scenes.

Official Soundtrack
"Far Away" - Nickelback
-Quoted at the formal, I believe. Nick and Melody's theme song. Regardless of what you might think of it or the group, I think most would agree the lyrics are quite fitting.
"Because I Am A Girl" - JiNi/K.I.S.S. (English version/Korean version)
--The original was in Korean, performed by the K-Pop group K.I.S.S. and later sung in English by JiNi, one of its members, after the group broke up. Becky's theme song, obviously and sung at formal. Also the single saddest music video I've ever seen. I highly recommend you Youtube the Korean version.
"Thinkin' Again" - Clint Black
--Quoted in one of the posts following the note Nick gets from Melody. I found it rather apt.
"So Close" - Jon Mclaughlin (sp?)
--The dance at the December party song. And yes, I had that scene written in my head before the movie Enchanted came out. It just so happens that the ballroom scene and the song fit perfectly for my own scene, so I shamelessly stole it.
"Unbreak My Heart" - Toni Braxton
--Not quoted, but I listened to it often to get myself in the mood to write an update.
"Nobody Knows It But Me" - Tony Rich Project
--Also not quoted, but a song I listened to nonstop when writing the Note post and the ones following it.

There were other songs that played a role, but these six were the ones either cited or most often listened to in terms of writing.

I may have missed a song that was quoted or a text referenced in the story and if I did, please feel free to let me know and I'll update the lists.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention one more thing.

I deliberately never specified a place or a school where this story is set. At first, I wasn't sure just -where- it took place and then later on, I thought it would have a greater universality if I didn't place it in a specific spot other than somewhere in the US. The time, is, however, present-day and there's ample markers to establish that.

Thank you again, everyone who read and/or commented or voted for this AAR in the AARland Choice Awards, or who accorded it some other distinction. It means a lot to me that it achieved this type of recognition and acclaim, particularly since I still struggle with doubts as to my talent level in writing.

You guys have helped make this story what it is and for that, you should be proud.

[rjolley]

Excellent story, Iz. Enjoyed it and looked forward to the next installment. I didn't think I'd like it, but took a chance and started reading. I definitely think it's worthy of being a published short story with a clean up of the parts you don't like.

[Celeval]

It's been a great read. One of the few online stories of any sort that I've gone back and re-read a number of times.

Side effect of getting me interested in CK, but that's beside the point. :-)

[DolphinFan1]

great job. thanks

[Izulde]

rjolley: Thanks. I probably won't ever publish it, but at least I know I can start a long-term writing project and finish it... I wasn't sure if I could before.

Celeval: Wow, that's amazing that you've read it multiple times! Thanks for the compliment. And of course, I'm always happy to hear that my dynasties get people interested in a game.

DolphinFan1: Thank -you-.

[Izulde]

Jestor's Interview (Of Sorts) With sterlingice

SI sent me a wonderful list of questions, and I thought everyone might be interested in seeing my answers, so I've posted them here.

First, I started reading on the Paradox forums as it's so active but I decided to walk away for fear of spoilers. How much did audience participation sway where you were going with the writing? I even saw polls or posts about which country to follow (inconsequential to the story) and if he should end up with Melody or Becky. The latter I would never leave in the hands of the audience as it's just too critical, but it makes me think of being a GM in an RPG where you roll dice behind the screen and summarily ignore them because you know how you need the battle to turn out to push the plot forward. I will probably spend the next few days reading what was written there now that I am done with the story so hopefully the rest of the questions are not so redundant.

The biggest direct impact the audience had was in choosing the original county, which in turn became responsible for Melody's slightly Francophone tendencies. I say slightly, because the French-Italian nature of the de Semur empire meant there was more of a fusion of the two to create its own cultural identity (somewhat like Catalan, in some respects). Other than that, I used the audience participation as things to consider and play around with in my head, but there wasn't any truly major impact.

Wait, I take that back after going further down. The audience had a significant role in Caveman's blossoming into a mid-major character.

I've never written anything very long but it feels like there are two distinct schools: plot or character, both with strengths and weaknesses. Either you work from a fairly rigid plot outline or you start from scratch and let things evolve naturally with maybe only a few pivotal scenes in mind. The former has tighter plot while the latter has tighter characters as that's the main focus of each. Unfortunately, the weakness of each is, of course, the opposite. For plot-based stories, the characters seem inorganic as you have to fit square character pegs in round plot point holes while the character-based suffers from plot meandering and the plot ends up far afield of where you started with no good reason or explanation. How do you tend to write and how did the writing process work for this story, in particular?

Character/organic. Plot is too artificial because then you're writing to a plot rather than to an actual living, breathing world and its inhabitants. In my MFA program, several of our workshops with one of the faculty ended up discussing the difference between plot and story, and how story is more important than plot. To put it another way, it's very clear when a work is plotted and when it's a story. The difference can also sometimes help distinguish between genre/popular fiction and literary fiction. Most of the former is plotted; most of the latter is story, with the strengths and weaknesses of each methodology.

For example, plot-based narratives are usually much better at pacing and tend to have far more satisfying endings. Character-based narratives often struggle with pacing and, as reading through any number of literary magazines can tell you, are frequently terrible with endings. (Which is why I often call short stories in workshop literary magazine-esque - usually as a negative term that involves a weak ending and oftentimes bland characters ironically, but they'll be very technically polished. Sometimes *too* polished at the expense of vibrancy.)

The writing for this spread across a year and a half during a busy part of your life. Did you get tired of waiting for inspiration and just plow ahead? I ask as I saw two scenes as disjointed. The first is the ending, tho, perhaps you always had the framework in mind. The second was the engagement to Chet: did you have that in your mind all along? Or did that just develop throughout the course of writing? Were there times when you had a great idea for a cliffhanger for a session with no thought or regards on how to complete it (the X-Files model)? If so, were there ever plot twists you regretted taking after putting them down but couldn't since this was done in a dynasty forum? What are the difficulties with taking so long to write a story?

Yes and no on the just plowing ahead. Mostly no, but sometimes if I had just a fragment of an idea in mind and it'd been a while since I updated, I just ran with that fragment rather than letting it develop as I did with some other scenes. The ending, yes, I do regret that. As I believe I said somewhere along the way, my original intention was for the story to end with Nick making his choice at the dance. I should have just gone with my first hunch rather than tack on the second ending.

It reminds me of Jack Nicholson's comment to Elijah Wood after the screening of Peter Jackson's adaptation of Return of the King: "Too many endings, kid. Too many endings."

I was not requesting this of the story but have you ever considered rewriting any stories you did in the past, knowing how it turned out in the end? You can't do that with a living story that is out there as we've that even insignificant changes to Star Wars can get fans up in arms but what about unreleased stories? Have you ever gone back, retconning some items in the past: emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain characters or removing some "fake" foreshadowing to events you never went anywhere with/adding true foreshadowing to items that actually occurred? I think narratives, in general, in the last 30 years have been more and more stripped down to their core plot essence, which in my mind, is a good thing as it adheres more towards the principle of Chekov's gun. An Agatha Christie novel would try to hide a single gun in plain sight with a few red herrings but as you read more and more you're able to think meta-fictionally about those things to defeat the author's system. But now, "post modern" writing turns that on its head with something like "Lost" where they just scatter 100 guns on stage so you stop trying to guess which one will go off. However, this invariably ends poorly as people are more disappointed at the 80 that fail to go off than pleased at the 20 that actually do.

Rewriting, yes, including throwing out entire chapters of my MFA thesis and completely rewriting them from scratch. I don't rewrite as much as a lot of people I know, though. I'm just not that type of writer. Others will go through five or six drafts of a story before they're happy with it. For me, I tend to work within one original document and revise from there. It's too exhausting a process to rewrite anything longer than a chapter or short story from scratch for me personally.

The historical, spiritual, and paranormal disappears as you go along: was that a conscious decision? Also, that's not to say there ever was anything concrete but we had hints about Melody's family, the Hidden Stones story, and all sorts of rich family lore. Early on the story could have been about anything, and please forgive the cliches as I'm trying to talk in broad literary tropes that would have been more capably fleshed out, from Melody or even Nick being a long lost de Semur (I was certain we'd at least end up there) to her being a Bram Stoker variety vampire to her parents being Illuminati. We could even have had something as fanciful as the Romeo and Juliet model involving each being of the supernatural warring houses in de Semur going back to the 1100s. It's certainly not the road traveled but the pieces were there. So were there any plans to go that route or just hints dropped to add mystery to Melody?

Hints dropped to add mystery to Melody for the most part. Although by the end of the story, I think the reader should have a pretty strong grasp of Melody and her background... or at least as strong as the narrative allows. "Hungry Stones" I threw in there just because I absolutely love the story and I thought the readers might draw some parallels between Tagore's tale and the narrative. That and Junot Diaz's "Aurora" are probably my favorite short stories of all time (that I can remember off the top of my head anyway).

For the most part, I don't like the supernatural in stories. Well-done magical realism, yes. Varying degrees of fantasy, if well-handled, yes. Supernatural/paranormal, no. While there does tend to be occasional hints of magical realism popping up now and again in my work, it's never a primary focus.

Melody is the star of the show: she is what is new and unique. I'm not much of a character reader so Melody the person is not what is captivating to me. However, the glimpse into the rich and powerful world is fascinating as is the way it molds her character. I have no idea if it's even vaguely realistic or where I would turn to literature that studies true longstanding wealth in more than just cliches but it's what makes the read for me. Her knowledge that she can control the world in an old money "this is how it has always been and will always be" way is new and interesting. Slamming Caveman and then dragging Nick around, drugging Nick, showing the letter to the cop: these are not the calculating ways of the nouveau riche who know they could go back to who they were at any time. So where did the motivation and source material come from to write her? I saw hints of Gatsby but there has to be more than that.

The physical source material, as I've said elsewhere, came from this absolutely gorgeous girl who sat next to me in Japanese history class at my final undergraduate school. (Interesting side note - I asked her to Formal during my pledging semester and she said yes, then backed out two days before because her boyfriend was coming into town for a friend's birthday party.)

Gatsby, and Fitzgerald's writings in general, have always had a strong influence on me, along with Nabokov and, in the last few years, Haruki Murakami. So Gatsby is a definite influence. The other is my own personal history of becoming attracted to upper class girls without realizing they're of a higher economic status. Granted, they're nowhere near Melody's level. They're not even nouveau riche. Rather, they're what we might call well-to-do. And yet, these rich girls are littered throughout my fiction, alongside mock-heroic diction.

Eventually I need to find the right story for this sort of girl, get it published, and then move on to something else. Or maybe I don't. Who knows?

To me, writing Melody would be a paradox. She's going to be less and less interesting the more you know about her and, inherently, as you write more and more about a character, they become more and more approachable. Compounding that problem, frankly, you're going to run out of things you can identify with and personal experience you can draw from as no author is from that world. Someone like that wouldn't deign to write a story for the masses about living that life, she or he would just go out and live it. A real strength of the story is that you supremely succeed in the task of making her moments "onscreen" jump off the virtual pages (the only notable exception for me is when she goes from icy to desperate, talking to Nick after getting engaged- it seems very out of character), even if just in a note or voice. But the struggle comes in where all the others around her need to fill in the plot holes that she can't when she's not around. In short, she sucks the air out of the room so that everything pretty much has to be about her whether she's there or not. How did you try to balance the reveal on a character that clearly benefited from her mystery?

I made the revelation come at a moderate pace. I wouldn't say no author is from that world, depending on the world you're talking about in terms of the upper-class strata (Note: Despite aristocratic thought-tendencies, I myself am that most common of creatures - a Midwesterner from middle class stock). This is also where you start getting into things like research, which clashes with my writing methodology. For some authors, research is great and works out well. Not for me.

It's interesting that you highlight Melody as the star of the story and an overwhelming presence. That's traditionally not the case with my female characters, who some readers don't consider to be real, distinguishable or believable. Then again, most of those making this charge tend to be women in their 30s, for whatever reason. Older women and younger women do buy in, so I'm wondering if this isn't an issue of the women in my generation (since I'm also in my 30s). In fact, in an early draft of the first couple chapters of my eventual MFA thesis at Arkansas, one of my professors noted that I'd captured the voice of a certain type of high school cheerleader "perfectly. Perhaps too perfectly." and mentioned that this was the sort of girl she herself had hated in high school.

The fact that she *is* so powerful is a good thing, though. It's precisely the effect I wanted for her, once I figured out who she was.

I don't know how best to word this so I'm just going to come out and say it: why Nick? You mention some of it in the afterwords, that he's an "everyman" so we can relate to Melody. But that role could have been filled by any of dozens of archetypes. In the end, Nick is the narrator but this story is not even half about him unless we're talking about the Nick-and-Melody relationship unit. I don't think he's the unreliable narrator that Holden Caulfield is as there's nothing wrong with Nick mentally any more than the rest of us but that does make it suspect that Melody would choose Nick. I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop: Nick was a de Semur, Nick was from a rival family in Europe, Nick was originally just a plot device for Melody to piss off Daddy/make someone else jealous/be slumming with the "common folk", etc. I even thought we might go somewhere with the archery angle but it was used in the current plot not for any backstory. In short: I get why Nick liked Melody but I never got why Melody liked Nick. He was necessary in that he served the rhetorical purpose of being the stand-in for the reader but I'm not sure he could ever grow into a capable foil for Melody. My best guess is that either you know a lot of Nicks or feel you have some of those qualities so you can most easily write in a foreign situation with a familiar voice. But that's just an off the wall guess, so: why Nick?

You've hit on the biggest problems of both this story and my MFA thesis. In both cases, nobody could really figure out why the girl would be interested in the protagonist, and it was a huge issue in the latter case for a lot of people. Several people also struggled with having a real sense of who the protagonist really was as a character or felt that he wasn't strong enough yet to be a worthy character within the narrative. Clearly, these are consistent problems in my writing that I need to work on or watch for. I tried to explain it here by having Melody say there's no explaining love, but that didn't quite work, unfortunately. My MFA thesis, I defended it by pointing out that it was only half the novel.

The easiest solution to these recurring narrative problems would probably be to get a girlfriend or twenty, and figure out more logical sources of attraction from there.

What goes into picking the supporting cast? It sounds like from the afterword that you pick what fits best for the situation and then assume you can fit them in to the larger picture later (ala Becky). The Becky subplot never quite works for me because, like everyone and everything else (Nick, Becky, Drake, Caveman, the history class)- their primary purpose is to be vehicles to tell Melody's story. Silly as it sounds to say it this way but if she were to end up with Nick, it's not "The Beautiful Girl and the History Class", it's "That Girl He Met Because He Couldn't Go Out With the Beautiful Girl from the History Class". The story, as a whole, slows down when it's about something or someone else. And this view is probably why I'm no good at writing characters: I'm a plot writer to a fault and my characters suffer for it. I'll try to write utility characters that end up fairly boring as I know they serve no greater plot so I don't want to waste words on them. However, by the end, Becky, Caveman, and even Drake all have some character heft to them so I think this all comes back to the character/plot choices made early on.

The Becky ending almost happened. It's a common enough theme in fiction, both literary and film - the guy's dream girl turns out not to be the right girl, but a second, (usually, but not always) less pretty girl who has more compatible or kinder traits turns out to be The One. But the more I thought about it, the more I said fuck that. Too damn much of American fiction these days is about settling, rather than reaching for our ambitions (even if I myself have shown worrying signs of starting to settle with a life, but that's neither here nor there).

I think the Becky problem is mostly one of pacing - The rebound happened too quickly for some readers, which I can see. While such rebounds have been known to happen, they need to set up better in fiction, with light touches beforehand (this starts getting into the wiring metaphor one of my mentors used, but that's getting a touch off track).

The supporting cast and minor characters in my fiction appear naturally. Sometimes they expand to a larger than intended role like Caveman. Sometimes they end up much more minor than I'd originally anticipated like Drake. Personally, I love developing minor characters. They're often the ones I find myself wondering most about and remembering most clearly after reading others' work. The perfect example of this is Count Greffi in A Farewell To Arms. So it's not really a matter of conscious choice that minor characters appear - they're organic too.

I'm going to agree with the afterword about "a reduction in the quality of writing for those final scenes". Did you know how you wanted to end it at any time before the end? I feel like Melody's story starts out grand and mysterious but gets dragged down to the reader's level as we go along. What other endings and plot twists did you have in mind? I'm hesitant to put this as it's unduly harsh but: Were you just trying to finish? There was a jump from 3P-limited-Nick for the entire story to other narrators. I like the idea of blind and heightened hearing as that could be used as an effective plot device but I found it hard to follow what was going on. We had people coming up to him while he was trying to shoot in this high stakes game? Was he just hearing voices far off? I think it was a mixture of both but I'm not sure. The problem is that I'm not sure how I would have finished the story either: I liked the idea of a duel and even could have seen it on the grounds at the mansion. However, going to range seemed really contrived, just to keep the CW scene from just being extraneous. On that tangent, do you keep a list of plot items just hanging free, waiting to be connected back up? It was something I thought about while reading this and am strongly considering doing it for any longer works: basically, spare character and plot parts I can use later.

The whole archery duel was literally an idea that came to mind as I was writing what I intended to be the original ending - where Nick makes his choice at the dance. It's one of those things that was a damn cool idea in theory, but in practice, it was a trainwreck, especially since the multiple voice perspective was handled so damned clumsily. What happened was I got away from the original way the story worked and tried to go full-on cinematic route (I literally pictured these scenes in my head as it would appear on film) and I got so fixated on that it completely threw everything off.

I *might* have made it work if I'd taken more time with it. On the other hand, it could be, as one of my mentors like to put it, that it would have been "breaking the contract you've established with the reader in the beginning of the story and the rules by which the story operates". This happens sometimes, even in celebrated fiction (The Jungle, I'm looking at you). While I don't think the disruption was nearly as bad here as it was in Jungle, the disconnect is still clear.

I noticed the sequel just kindof died. At first I was happy there was one but a bit disappointed as I read: the intro is very morose and only gets a little glimmer of hope in the last entry where she is being whisked away from her life. I feel like it was heading down the road of the modern serialized tv show arms race (think The Shield or The Sopranos or, tho I have not seen them, what I've read of The Wire or Breaking Bad). There's a need to continually ratchet up the tension because viewers start getting immune to the previous tension level. The narrative relies on shocking the audience but you have to always have to push it further. It's just not where your strengths as an author lie and I suspect why you had difficulty motivating yourself to keep writing. Just look at the treatment of Caveman: I think it was a little harsh in the first story to the effect of pushing Becky towards Nick but in the second, you skewer the poor bastard. The challenge of following up an epic with another epic is awfully daunting. In my mind, to make a sequel, you're going to have to reinvent Becky, introduce a new character or challenge bigger than Caveman, and do that all with the shadow of the Melody-Nick juggernaut story looming the whole time. As a writer, that would be a challenge but not one I would relish.

Believe it or not, I had plans for this, and reading over it now, it's still possible to go forward with it, so I'll hold off on commenting further on it other than to say that the shock of the initial scenes wasn't going to continue going forward. Rather, it was designed to... well, I'll wait on that until I decide whether or not to pick it up again. I will say that it was written during one of my worst semesters at Arkansas, which probably affected the story to some degree.

Would it/will it be as good as the original? No, probably not. It's dangerous to go back to the same well, particularly in fiction, unless it's a setup clearly designed to be a series. This is where Junot Diaz's This Is How You Lose Her has gotten slammed, I think. Bringing back a short story collection based around Yunior was going back to the well originally drawn for Drown, and while I'm enjoying TIHYLH a lot, in terms of technical prowess and sharpness of narrative and character, it's clearly inferior to his first short story collection, which had a genuine masterpiece or three in it. I've not gotten the same sense from TIHYLH at all.

And as long as I'm mentioning Diaz again, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, his award-winning novel, is one I have mixed feelings about, but I'll refrain from launching into a diatribe about that.

Thank you for the time in reading this and I hope for a thoughtful response. I hope anything negative is taken as constructive criticism and genuine interest. I wouldn't have written this if it was just another work of fiction but it definitely got in my head for the couple of days it took to read it. It also really helped me put my theory of writing cap on for some other projects I've been considering for a long time. So, again, thank you for any thoughts on any or (hopefully) all of these questions!

Thanks for taking the laborious effort of reading this and providing these excellent questions. They personally gave me some own food for thought in my writing, both in terms of this story and in terms of other projects.

[Cap Ologist]

What was the name of the sequel again?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

What was the name of the sequel again?

I don't think it was posted here but I saw it on the Paradox boards:
Ten Years After: The Lost Girl and the History Book

Also, I'd love a peek at that private writing forum to see what the brainstorming there but I missed my chance, discovering the dynasty about 5 years too late.

I am enjoying going back and seeing the comments in the Paradox forums for this dynasty- it feels sortof like reading an annotated version.

SI