Wedding Belles by Janice Hanna Page A

For, while she was pleased that the ladies would take the time to fancy-up her script, she couldn’t help but feel a little let down that so much work needed to be done. Was it really that bad to begin with?
    “Help me down, sister.” Fanny extended her hands and Lottie and Flossie worked to ease her down onto the quilt beside them. “There now. All set. Of course, getting back up again might be a challenge, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
    “Looks like we have a lot of work to do.” Lottie gestured to the script. “What are your thoughts?”
    “They are many.” Flossie thumbed through the pages.
    “Ah.” Lottie’s heart sank.
    “Now, let’s start with the characters.” Flossie’s businesslike voice kicked in. “One thing you simply must know right off the bat is this: when you create a villainous character—male or female—that character can’t be all bad.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Think about it, Lottie. Think of the most villainous person you know.”
    Visions of Althea Baker came to mind. Lottie didn’t speak her name aloud, of course. Not that Fanny and Flossie would recognize the name, anyway.
    “Your villain has to have some redeeming qualities.” Fanny reached for the plate of chicken and grabbed a drumstick.
    “Redeeming qualities?” Lottie echoed.
    “Yes.” Fanny took a bite of the chicken then spoke around it. “Don’t you see? Your good guys can’t be all good and your bad guys can’t be all bad. Even the worst person in the world has some redeeming qualities.” She swallowed and gave Lottie a smile.
    “Hmm.”
    Flossie turned the page and pointed to a section of text. “And another thing—you don’t want to give your villain away right off the bat. Make the audience suspicious. Plant clues. Lead them astray, even.”
    “True,” Fanny said. “And as for your hero, the more flawed you can make him, the better.”
    “Flawed? But doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”
    “Not at all. For, as we said, good guys aren’t all good and bad guys aren’t all bad. Think of the very best person you know.”
    Lottie thought at once of Gilbert, of course.
    “Surely that person has at least one flaw, does he not?”
    “Y–yes.” Gilbert’s flaw, at least the most apparent one, came rushing to mind right away. He liked pretty girls. Girls who looked nothing like Lottie.
    “The goal here is to make the audience work a bit to unravel the details in their minds.” Fanny wiped her greasy hands on her skirt. “Nothing can be easy. We call it upping the ante. Things can’t be easy for the hero, either. He needs to struggle.”
    “I see.” Lottie gazed in the direction Gilbert and Cornelia had walked and did her best not to sigh aloud.
    “There’s got to come that inevitable point in the show where the audience is convinced that the hero will fail at his task,” Flossie said.
    “Really?” Lottie found this difficult to believe. “I always thought heroes were heroes from start to finish. The whole purpose of adding a hero is so that he can rescue the damsel in distress and end up falling in love with her, right?”
    “In stage plays, not necessarily in real life.” Fanny sighed. “At least that’s been my personal experience. I’ve known many a so-called hero who got it wrong in the end.” She took another bite of the chicken and grew silent.
    “But for the sake of the play, our hero will get it right,” Flossie said. “Only, at some inevitable point, the audience has to be led astray. They must believe he will fail at his task to rescue the heroine and give her the happily-ever-after she deserves.”
    Lottie sighed. “What else?”
    “Since we’re talking about the heroine now, it’s important to add a scene where she’s in some sort of distress.”
    “I thought I did. The scene at the train depot. Did you read that?”
    “Yes, dear, but you didn’t go deep enough into her emotions. It has to be believable. Think back to the last time