How I wish Love Never Dies had gone

[betweensunandmoon]

Imagine, if you will, an alternate universe where Love Never Dies still exists, but isn't quite like we know it...

Erik, after making a name for himself in vaudeville, is still pining away for Christine, and wonders if he would be happy had she stayed with him. Cue ballad full of regret and longing. He's been training a young singer—a replacement Christine, you might say—on the grounds that she never ask him about his past or attempt to see his face. She's developed feelings for her mentor, though he doesn't seem to return them. He actually does, but has never acted on those feelings—because, after all, she's not Christine.

When Erik hears that the renowned opera singer Christine de Chagny is coming to New York to give a special performance for Hammerstein, he can't resist the opportunity to see her again. And when he sees Christine—successful, happily married, and a mother—it becomes clear to him that he could never have made her as happy as she is now, and that he made the right choice in letting her go all those years ago. Cue duet between Erik and Christine about the choices they made or something like that. He realizes he now faces a similar choice with his new apprentice. Said apprentice, having met the de Chagnys and learned the truth about Erik's past, must decide whether to stay with him or abandon him.

Does it still sound like bad fanfic? Yes, but it doesn't warp Raoul and the Girys out of character, strip Erik of everything that made him sympathetic in the original, or make Christine a cheater. Which is something, at least.

Comments

[betweensunandmoon]

I like the idea that the Other Woman actually learns about Erik's past from Christine (who, in this scenario, is presumably relatively well-disposed towards him, since the last time she saw him he repented and let her go) But I don't think you've got enough material -- or conflict -- for more than one act here; it would be a short epilogue to "Phantom", reaffirming the finale, rather than an entire show.

You're probably right. What do you suggest adding, then?

And one of the things that I thought was very effective in the original (and which I imagine was among Lloyd Webber's major visions for LND, since he was prepared to consciously mangle the timeline in order to make it possible) was the vision of the Phantom reigning in Coney Island as King of the Freaks -- the one place where oddity becomes a potential asset rather than a liability. Yes, it puts him in a pretty invidious situation vis-a-vis Christine, because he is still wallowing in self-pity despite the fact that having 'gone legitimate' he now has it all: money, obedience, power, respect, crowds eager to flock to his door, an acknowledged outlet for his creativity. But that reversal, in which the Phantom now *is* the management and the Chagnys are the outsiders without recourse, is at least an ingenious place to take the story.

It is a good idea, when you put it like that, but the way it was executed just made all the characters look bad. :( What would you have done with it?

[igenlode]

I don't think you've got enough material -- or conflict -- for more than one act here; it would be a short epilogue to "Phantom", reaffirming the finale, rather than an entire show.

You're probably right. What do you suggest adding, then?

If I knew that, I'd have an entire plot waiting to be written! Something I can really do without right now -- I've already got the "Christine" Stephen King crossover idea plus the ghost of a "Sunset Boulevard idea" (and I'm not sure I can even remember the gist of that one, except that it was four(?) separate scenes, one for each character, with the canon ending averted and everybody thinks they're doing the right thing for everybody else, but it turns out Norma simply kills herself instead).

But you've probably heard me say already that 'it takes the intersection of two ideas to make a plot'; it's a favourite fiction-writing dictum of mine. One idea gives you no more than an opening scenario -- a mistake that all too many fic-fiction writers make -- but, generally speaking, it needs to interact with another piece of canon divergence/background lore/unexpected activity in order to produce a complete story. It's the spark between the two that generates the content. (I don't remember most of mine, but for "The Daaé Case" it was 'Why doesn't Hammerstein try to find his missing soloist?' plus 'If the detective encounters Raoul getting drunk in the bar, the whole bet won't happen', with the consequences arising from the *second* idea which wouldn't have existed without the first.)

In this case, I think the putative story needs a B-plot of some kind. My immediate instinct would be to give the protegée some backstory, because that's the way I work -- some kind of existing connection or goal of her own, so that she doesn't just exist as a cipher on which the Phantom can play out his desires, but has her own goal or concerns which can conflict with his. Maybe she has a brother who needs her to do something her master wouldn't like (shades of Marguerite and Armand St-Just). Maybe she had an ambition to do something else with her life before her new mentor discovered her singing talent, and something happens to remind her of that. Maybe a possibility that she gave up on years ago reopens by chance when she runs across somebody she used to know who has gone up in the world (the starving seamstress who used to live upstairs in the tenement and take care of her when her mother was out at work turns out to have found success and become Madame Arbuti, a famous Fifth Avenue designer -- and she still remembers the little girl whose dream was to make beautiful creations out of jewel-bright fabrics).

Or maybe your B-plot comes from giving greater depth to Christine and Raoul, instead of just having them turn up all shiny and happy and successful. Nobody's life is ever as perfect and trouble-free as it seems to the envious outsider. They have children -- maybe one of them is crippled, or epileptic, or suffering from one of those convenient Victorian terminal ailments that cause the sufferer to decline beautifully, and the secret reason why they have come to New York, not of course made known to the public, is because Christine is desperate to see if an American specialist can help where the doctors at home have all failed?
Maybe they have problems back home that the Phantom knows nothing about (a misunderstanding that has laid the family open to blackmail? Raoul is worried about Christine becoming tired and irritable from trying to take on too many roles in one season, and she sees this as him being 'over-protective' and/or resenting her success? Arguing over an offer for a resident season abroad that will involve Christine leaving her family behind, as Raoul doesn't want to abandon his home?) Maybe they are facing an issue that the Phantom could actually potentially do something about (possibly by less-than-legal means) if he knew, and one or other of them doesn't want to tell him, either because Christine doesn't want to tempt him back into underhand ways or because Raoul doesn't want her indebted to him for anything of the sort?

So the Phantom is busy looking at their lives and thinking how perfect they are, and meanwhile they are worrying about trying to solve a completely different set of problems that have nothing to do with whether he might still be in love with Christine or not....