Chapter 1 Scene 4,1

This is the scene in which I introduce the ladies of the Kensington Gore Croquet Club.  I really enjoy writing them and they seemed to muscle their way into the story and elbow their way to centre stage. The trouble is, of course, that the story may get unbalanced. Another problem for the re-write, I guess.

Here the first half of the scene is on Google Drive

Chapter 1 Scene 4.1


I have already gone on about some of the background for Alice Lutwidge. I'll post something about the other ladies later on. In the meantime here are two thoughts.

 Bicycles were important to me.  I wanted to get them into the story. It only grew in my mind as I wrote (what everyone else knew already) that bicycles were an important symbol of Edwardian / late Victorian women's liberation. I mean literally liberating. Women could get around unescorted. Moreover it was a technological innovation that caused it. Both these themes are important to the story I am trying to write so they seemed to flow naturally.

This next thought it going to be a bit harder to explain.  Here goes. All the while I was creating the four ladies of the Kensington Gore a line from 'The Usual Suspects' was going through my head, It was the one that Kevin Spacey, as Roger Kint) says - something like.
'What the New York cops didn't know, and what I know now, is that these men would never lie down, they'd never give in, they'd never bend over for anyone.'
And strangely, that is how I saw the Ladies of the Kensington Gore Croquet Club from the moment they all pushed their way into my head. So all I have to do is to get that down in the writing :).

More about how I see the ladies in later posts.