Yuletide Fanfic Commentary

[calliopes_pen]

This is the compilation of notes discussing deleted scenes, and how the story almost went, as well as other little tidbits.

-After it was written and uploaded, in the final two days before the stories were revealed, I rewrote a piece of the beginning, added the snowstorm, rewrote a bit of the séance, and rewrote Alan’s possession. Given the reaction from my recipient, I made the right call with that last one. Oh, and I added two new lines to the final exorcism and changed the title from Out Of Marrow And Bone; Out Of Hearth And Home to Let The Shadows Become Your Shroud.

-The potential titles outside of (the original one) Out Of Marrow And Bone; Out Of Hearth And Home and (what it became) Let The Shadows Become Your Shroud were the following: Tenebre, May The Moon Light Your Journey, We Can’t Live In The Shadows, Darkness Writhes Beneath The Skin (which I’ll explain further down), The Shadows Cast Upon Their Souls, and In Their Darkest Dreams, The Answer Lies.

-During all the writing, I stumbled across this timeline for the events from when the clay mines opened before Lucille and Thomas were born, through all the years they were alive, and the general time frame they died. It proved helpful.

-For a while there, I was going to do a proper ghost hunt for Alan and Edith, by sending them to the Winchester Mystery House. The place is a maze with hallways that lead nowhere, and doors on the second floor that lead to outside and a long drop. However, Sarah Winchester didn’t die until 1922, and after that is when it was opened up to the public. 1903 being too soon, that idea was scrapped. There were also plans for the Bell Witch—but that was eventually mentioned in passing to be an option for the Spring ghost hunt for Alan and Edith.

-I did far too much research on Spiritualism and methods of attempted communication with the dead from the 1800’s through the early 1900’s. I also researched mediums. Both were already topics I had an interest in. Mediums faked ectoplasm with cheesecloth and various other tricks. Edith having attended several séances in the two-year gap, I assumed that if there was actual ectoplasm drenching the halls during her possession, she might be fascinated. Horrified, mind you, but fascinated. Think of the library scene in Ghostbusters with slime dripping off the card catalog, and that’s pretty much it. I also must credit this New World Encyclopedia entry for giving me the idea of automatic writing during the séance.

-Edith’s mother is never given a first name in the film. It was never mentioned in the novelization either, so I made one up: Madeline Cushing. Guillermo del Toro claimed one of his inspirations for the film was The Fall of the House of Usher. However, after purchasing a copy of Crimson Peak: The Art of Darkness after writing was completed, I discovered the woman’s full name was Eleanor Wyndham-Beckford Cushing. Which meant I had to switch out names, both for Mrs. Cushing, and for a servant who I already named Eleanor, as my own nod to The Haunting (1963). (So she became Madeline—the servant doesn’t appear for more than a passing mention, so it wasn’t too much of a correction.)

-The servants of the Cushing residence are references to other Gothic Horror or horror related things. There’s Madeline, already mentioned in the above paragraph. Wilhelmina—a reference to Dracula’s Mina Harker. Quentin—named after Quentin Collins, of Dark Shadows fame, as he is already a reference to The Turn of the Screw. Annie is canon, and so far as I’m aware, she isn’t a reference to anything. Daphne—a reference to Daphne du Maurier, as well as Dark Shadows in one go.

-The “I believe you. I believe in you,” line from Alan to Edith was the very first thing written, on Halloween night right after assignments went out.

-The "ghosts are real" bit of Edith's dialogue as she and Alan recover comes from the closing moments of the film. It sounded like something Edith could use to plead her case to Alan. I decided that it was also the first lines of her novel, which is mentioned when Thomas asks about Cavendish later on in the fanfic.

-Alan speculating on “the right spark of some heretofore undiscovered element which made her suitable for seeing such things” was written rather late in the process and originates from another idea I had from when Lucille eventually possessed Edith, which wasn’t used there in the end. This would have been the paragraph:

His gradually forming theory was it was simply easier to possess someone with a natural affinity for seeing ghosts. Edith's body may contain some heretofore undiscovered element, which made the action simpler. Her body could contain the essence of another, even as it depleted a normal host's reserves. Like the state he was in, in the immediate aftermath of when Lucille had invaded him. The body used to seeing the dead could adapt to the invasion. Alan was thinking as a doctor and not a husband or a friend, or he would end up pleading with Lucille to let Edith go. He had to remain stoic.

-Deleted Scene: I actually did write up the scene of Alan finding Edith sleepwalking through the kitchen (head in the bread box, ice box wide open) and stealing his watch and failing to climb onto the kitchen counter. It didn’t fit anywhere given the time skip, so I cut it and it was mentioned in passing. I almost made it a second bonus chapter, but decided there was more than enough. It was very sweet, even if Edith was speaking nonsense and poking Alan's face, because she thought he was growing mushrooms on his face. He offered to shave, put her to bed, and took up his position on a nearby mattress so he could be certain she was safe.

-In my outline, the opening of the story was originally going to have Lucille attacking whoever it was that ran the depot. Lucille was going to burn the place to the ground while possessing the postmaster, before flinging his screaming body into the flames, and flying out as he was consumed in graphic detail. She would then head onward to Buffalo, with a trail of moths in her wake. That was too dark, so I decided to scrap that. She just caused some minor “terror in the town” with her appearance. Someone there dropped a lantern and started a fire in reaction. Yes, a story where Alan is possessed and traumatized before Edith gets possessed and tormented in her mind in Allerdale Hall before being put in an illusion of a snowstorm wasn’t too dark for my way of thinking, but that looked to be one step too far. (Sean agreed when I discussed the idea with him, which would have all been in Lucille’s POV.)

-In addition to the Thomas POV scene, there was originally one for Lucille. It didn’t fit with the rest, so it was deleted before it made it through the beta process. Basically, it seemed like she briefly was overcome by terrible logic and instead of flying away in a trail of ghostly moths…she was going to walk across the moors. Slowly. This would happen while she was laughing madly, because apparently I was just tired from all the writing and lost her characterization for a little while. I decided no to that plan, and off she flew to terrorize the town off panel. Presumably being linked to her items in the box helped her get to Buffalo instantaneously from there.

-After the séance, I don’t think I ever actually stated it outright. Lucille was still there when Thomas left. She entered the room invisibly. It was far better for the implications to be left up in the air, with the thought that maybe…just maybe…Lucille was watching and waiting to swoop in. She could be standing right there in the room. Just standing there behind them, waiting for them to split up. All that time…and she was. Waiting to get the vulnerable Alan alone. Making Alan’s earlier comment about playing peek-a-boo with Lucille that much worse, because she was doing just that. She was listening to him.

-There was an alternative séance scene written, where Thomas stuck around and said more before the automatic writing. He knew it was too dangerous and too tempting to remain in control of Alan for too long, but he wanted to speak to Edith. While it was sweet, it went on for far too long. A couple of things that happened in that version, would have led to the alternate ending. It also contained this line of Thomas sort of flirting but not, which I couldn't use in the end: “Being both of your husbands instead of just your late one is a unique opportunity, Edith.” Instead of that, in the actual story, the line is a mixture of Alan and Thomas speaking: "Being two people at once is very baffling, Edith.”

-I almost had Finlay die in the two years between events. In the end, I couldn’t do it. Instead, he just cried over Thomas’ body, and held him a nice, beautiful—and small—funeral once he managed to get in the room where he died. Anyone that wasn’t afraid of the chance of a ghost crashing it attended. Finlay was too overwrought to send Edith a telegram about it. And given his poor eyesight, when he didn’t notice Lucille’s ghost, it’s because he just couldn’t see her. For once in her life, Lucille chose not to bother him. It’s either mercy, or she was so annoyed by the fact she couldn’t terrorize him that she just left.

-"An unnatural sleep claimed her in seconds." At one point, I considered having Edith feel (but not see--she's face down on the bed) Thomas stroking her hair soothingly as she lost consciousness. I thought it might ruin a reveal.

-A line cut from Alan’s possession scene, from Lucille’s mind before the singing starts: “I wanted to get you alone. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve grown tired of waiting.”

-Ghostbusters inspired the moment when Lucille is hovering over Alan before she possesses him, after also listening to the lullaby on Youtube a few times more than I probably should have. Alan didn’t come out of that nearly as happy as Ray did.

-Alan getting possessed, which Thomas senses: The door swings both ways, folks. It was hard to resist the urge to write that particular phrase in the story, given how well it fit the situation. I also ended up quoting Doctor Who by accident, until another rewrite (before it ever went to a beta) fixed it. (From The Girl In The Fireplace: “A door once opened can be stepped through in either direction.”) But yes, they were linked—what happened to one, the other felt because Thomas was a bit hasty about his exit. It was fixed when Thomas was tearing out Lucille.

-I have some black moth ghosts somewhere in there, which Thomas was baffled by. It almost led to some true body horror for Alan, with the ghost moths that followed Lucille getting inside him, too, because they were folded up inside and part of her. She was protecting the dead little things. That was one step further than I wanted to go. Only Edith would have seen them writhing beneath his skin, due to her ghost sight. She would have been horrified, and Alan would have been tortured by the sensation, while Lucille thought it was quite pleasant, actually. (This briefly caused a title that wasn’t quite right, but that I had on my list of options: Darkness Writhes Beneath The Skin. So literally, really.)

-There were numerous versions (I typed up most of them) I wrote of Alan’s possession, as I tried to get the right tone. Version 1, he’s only possessed for a few moments and then gets freed by Thomas—flees up the stairs, angry and upset, and gets clubbed unconscious (two strikes to the head, actually, poor guy—Thomas signals things are fine, please stop) by a scared Edith brandishing a bronze candle holder. (Which is why there’s a mention of the thing being too heavy) He wouldn’t get up for a while. This was written while I was still trying to develop the plot. Version 2 is what you have in the final product. Version 3 is he made it up the stairs while possessed, and tried to kill her in the moments after her dream sequence with Thomas. But while Lucille was still settling in, his eyes and movements resembled a confused and frightened sleepwalker, and Edith briefly got through to him, before Lucille took over completely.

Version 4 is he doesn’t use the ouija board and just goes upstairs to his bedroom after finding himself passed out over the book. He hears a noise, and asks whatever it is to come in. He assumes it is Carter or Thomas. And that’s where Lucille takes him while singing the lullaby as he cries out in fear, after being flung backwards by wind onto a bed…Edith is just a few doors away, in the dream with Thomas, and awakens as he cries out. Edith has trouble getting into the room, it’s freezing, and Lucille isn’t fully used to moving about yet, perched as she is in Alan on the bed, as Edith “came too soon.” Some of the beats from that (like Lucille floating above him, singing the lullaby, and Alan thinking something threw him when it didn’t) eventually made their way into Version 2.

There may have been four or five other versions, but they weren’t memorable, aside from one where Lucille slides into him while he’s sound asleep at the table—they made it to the kitchen and stockpiled knives and rat poison. Edith walks in, he almost stabs her, and Thomas stops it and—since her father knew the best knots, and taught Edith well—she ties Alan up quite thoroughly. Thomas briefly did something to get Alan back in control so that could work, but it didn’t last long.

Another version came too late to be of any use, and involved Lucille taking him over, but not going after Edith until after she used Alan to burn the pages in the book (and any notes) that could possibly bind her. She made him replace those books with useless ones in the pile, and put the useful ones in the basement. She had him hide the ouija board, in case that could be used to exorcise her. She sort of allowed him enough control that he was hazy, but she told him everything to do.

Then Alan faked being normal for a time, in Lucille's bid to get Edith when she wasn't expecting it...but Edith had been warned by Thomas, and it became a weird little moment of each knowing what the other was doing, but nobody openly admitting it for a while. Until Edith and Thomas corner Lucille/Alan in the foyer the next night, and after quite a few threats that Alan could already be dead, Thomas tears her out. He's fine after a few minutes, but mentions Lucille sent a telegram inviting Eunice to "a very special tea party" for the next morning.

-All of the above versions make it feel like the story could have easily become a Choose Your Own Adventure for poor Alan, where so many things lead to possession. I loved Alan. Granted, he didn't have the best plans.

-Alan isn’t struggling by the time Edith gets downstairs during his possession. In one version of the scene, she was to have shouted at him: “Look me in the eyes, Alan McMichael! I will not be a widow twice in but a few years! I won’t let her do that to me. I won’t let her do this to us, not if I can do something. Stay with me. Please stay with me.” Lucille then assumes full control and her laughing (or just smirking) in Edith’s face would have followed this.

-A deleted moment, after Alan’s possessed but Lucille isn’t fully in control was her sort of making him think in the same way she did when Edith almost stabbed Thomas. Specifically, these words would have hit him while he’s on the floor struggling: Kneel on Edith’s chest, Alan. Wring her neck, and let her know it’s you behind the pain. Paint the walls with her blood before she’s cold. Do it while there’s still a pulse, and watch her fear increase. It would be beautiful, don’t you think? As you’d expect, Alan would be horrified even more than he already was in that scene. The kneeling portion went into her speaking through him and painting the walls with her blood became a direct threat to Edith.

Deleted Moment: After Edith asks if Alan said something, as she walks down the stairs. I couldn’t use it when Lucille briefly faked being Alan, and asked about the cane:

“Alan has said a great many things this night,” Lucille said distractedly as she played. “So have I. A lullaby, a threat, a plea to be let go as I took control of his body inch by glorious inch—which of us do you mean, child?” She locked eyes with Edith, enjoying the delicious gasp of fear at the sight of the change in them. “This is what he is now, dear Edith.” She said it with a bored tone, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Me. Mine. For as long as I wish it, he will be...mine.” She briefly held up Alan’s arms, like a conductor before an orchestra, or a child showing off a brand new coat they barely cared anything for.

“What shocked you before? His eyes? Ah! They’re mine now, too. Perhaps he will be until long after his bones have become dust. Perhaps not. We’ll see.” With no hesitation, she continued exactly where she had left off on the piano. “You missed the show, Edith,” Lucille whispered, as though she were telling a secret. “You missed him struggling and trying to reach you. Trying to be so brave, when he was ever so scared,” she smiled pleasantly.

ETA: As of 2/2/16, I gave in, and put a teensy bit of the above back into the story because I just thought it needed to be there. Just the "Alan has said a great many things this night," bit through "which of us do you mean, child?" with nothing else changing.

-Edith thinks she's seeing something that isn't there, and that she is only imagining Alan has briefly surfaced--she was right, that was him for an instant. Even he didn't realize Lucille's grip had loosened for the barest second, before he was trapped again.

-During the time that Lucille is using Alan's body at the piano, and Edith wants to get her out peacefully, one idea that I had and removed before it went to beta was that she might suggest that if she willingly moved on, Lucille could see her baby again. Lucille would never believe it could happen. The thought of Edith using that against her just made her angrier after a very brief and confused meltdown. I didn't want to trigger anyone. It also wasn't necessary.

-Oh, and I almost blew up the piano along with the grandfather clock. In the end, the sight of it will haunt both Alan and Edith unless he gives it away to one of the servants.

-The one for sorrow, two for joy thing that Edith’s mind shied away from? It’s a reference to a limerick that eventually continues “seven for a secret never to be told.”

-The paper moth toy is a reference to the novelization. In it, Thomas makes it for Lucille after she receives a terrible beating.

-The simple wooden doll with two faces is from the movie, in Thomas’ workshop. Just the little wooden head is seen, as Thomas hands it to Edith. Due to that, I made the head detachable, and the body was being mended sometime before Thomas died.

-Edith pricking her finger on the garnet in the hilt while possessed (down in the Allerdale Hall maze) was an accidental nod to Sleeping Beauty. I noticed later.

-I almost put a warning for Character Death on the story, when I uploaded it. Then I realized it might not even count as that, since Lucille was already dead when I had her exorcised from all of creation.

-An actual question I had at one point: How does one warn (in the tags) for mind control leading to attempted murder of someone already dead, while simultaneously trapped in a maze in the center of their mind and possessed? I eventually settled on just Mind Control, because it happens to Alan (minus the maze) for a second there, too. Also—Mental Maze tag was created.

-In the maze reproduction of Allerdale Hall, there’s this thought from Thomas: You will never touch her again, Lucille, Originally, the entirety of it would have been: We poisoned her in life; you torment her further still in your death. You will never touch her again, Lucille. I don’t know why I changed it, aside from perhaps it was a bit clunky.

-Deleted scene: I originally had the scene in Edith’s cell go on for longer, with Lucille blatantly controlling Edith after giving her a candle. So that she could see all the insects creeping around on the ground in a hallucination, before Lucille took over Edith and made her blow out the flame with a laugh. And left her alone with her fear, before somehow making her forget she was still in her power once Thomas got her out. It went really far down a darker path than I intended. I kept the mind control, just not right then.

-Another deleted moment: Thomas thinks he found an alternate way to get out, by heading to a room that leads to the cage elevator. But it turns out it’s a gaping void of howling nothingness, before it ripples and turns into a massive gargoyle stone statue atop a tombstone with the date of Edith’s death. Not bothered in the least, Thomas closes the door and walks away while Edith stares in horror, and begs that no doors be opened again. His only comment is “she’s done quite well for herself, hasn’t she?” He almost admires it, before he realizes what he just said. Edith says she’ll lead the way to the escape from then on, since they’re at the brink of getting out anyway. Some dark humor there. I might edit this snippet (or the sleepwalking) into this post later, if someone wants to see it.

-Also scrapped? The idea of all their wounds (those done by Lucille) reopening and bleeding during the exorcism, before it’s revealed to just be a scare tactic on Lucille’s part and not actually happening. Once you wipe away the blood, there’s no open wound, but scars. So the slice on Edith’s cheek and wherever else would reopen, as would the stab to Alan’s armpit. Stigmata, Crimson Peak Style!

-The memory flash of how Thomas and Lucille’s father died is a merging of the novel explanation and the explanation from Crimson Peak: The Art of Darkness. One version gives one name for the man, and says he died of poison. Another gives him another name, and says he died in a hunting accident orchestrated by Lucille, where she used Thomas as a lookout while she did whatever she did in the barn. I combined those two, and added firethorn berry poisoned tea.

-There is an alternate ending I wrote, which was developed a bit too late to rework everything. The words in the Spiritualism book that Alan has could have just not worked. So Alan has an idea, and he willingly lets Thomas possess his body one more time, after slowly and deliberately stepping out of the safety of the circle. He first assures Edith that this is all his own idea. Thomas needs a body to do the binding in this worst case scenario plan. They (Alan and Thomas—mostly Thomas) also chanted something else to give Edith’s mother the signal to hang onto Lucille—instead of Thomas’ little speech in the uploaded version. The words used in the binding were older than Latin, since in that version Thomas found more things just in case.

Instead of simply getting shoved in the toy, there was screaming from Lucille, as she was dragged away by some kind of wind, before she was sucked into it.

The problem with this version is Alan doesn’t get to scrub away the circle so mother and daughter can reunite, because it might burn his body while Thomas was possessing it. Edith’s too focused on everything happening to have the moment with her mother. I have written it up just so I could get it into another Word document for posterity. Thomas gives Alan control back for a moment, so Alan still gets his final words to Lucille. Thomas gets one last kiss from Edith, with Alan’s blessing. (And since Thomas leaves right about then, Edith has to deal with trying to hold Alan up as he adjusts to being back in control, without dropping him.) It causes a terrible delay when it comes to exorcising Lucille.

-Alan’s mentioned party trick of being able to quote huge passages of Edith’s novels is the last remaining shred of a deleted scene that would have originally gone in the end. It was patching each other up before comparing notes on their possessions. However, since the story was resolved that portion really didn’t need to be there…especially given the fact I had already cracked 32,000 words. It also kept referring to another deleted scene, with the previously mentioned bugs and mind control. Edith would have upset Alan with talk of centipedes in the dark, before she broke the horrified mood of his with the party trick. “A house as old as this one…” “Becomes, in time, a living thing.” Which is the line that inspired Lucille (who would have read a page as it burned when she was alive) to make the walls pulse and bleed in the Allerdale Hall reproduction.

-As a sidenote: The above line of “A house as old as this one” would have been from a deleted line from the trailer, which originates in a seemingly deleted scene that according to the novelization comes from Thomas reading a bit of Edith’s novel at the depot.

-The green fire during the exorcism is just a little nod to Fright Night (1985)--which I wrote a story for last year.

-Lucille urging Edith to sit, and her replying she would rather stand could be considered a minor nod to Legend (1985). I wrote a story for it 2 years back.

-The one icon I'm using for this post was the inspiration for the entirety of Edith escaping from Allerdale Hall while Lucille grabs at her, making it through the snowstorm, and stumbling into the light and freedom.

-As I first wrote the final exorcism of Lucille, I realized it sounded oddly familiar. I Googled it and realized that some of the words came straight from season 2 of Buffy--I Only Have Eyes For You. Within a few moments of this realization, it grew far beyond (and kept growing for a while, as the characters ended up really into it) just those words. The exorcism in that episode was this: "I shall confront and expel all evil. I shall totally confront and expel all evil. Out of marrow and bone. Out of house and home - never to come here again." Mostly "out of marrow and bone" by the end.

-If Lucille had just had more time in Alan's body, she would have ventured off in search of a pair of black leather gloves to try to conceal the cold side effect of her inhabiting his body before her plan went into motion. Yes, I thought too much about this.