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Thoughts for a Period Piece Drama |
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Brainstormin'/Outlinin': Millie is one of the many servants at a grand manor. She is in love with the son...the ELDEST son, Edward. Definitely a no no of the social statuses. It is made even more complicated because he is engaged to a young lady of fortune. Millie is not sure if he is in love with his fiance, or if he is just going along with the pretenses of his family.
Edward has always been the down to earth sort. He consorts with the servants and was even Millie's friend growing up. Their mutual friend, another servant of the house (a guy), is now one of Edward's best friends and closest confidants. I shall temporarily name him Joseph.
Is there a servant who is in love with Millie? Is he nice, or mean? Leaning towards yes, and nice, but NOT the same person as Edward's confidant, Joseph.
Perhaps a foil to Edward could be his cousin. A bit older than him, more of a partier, and much more forward with the women. He would arrive to the manor on a visit (perhaps his family wanted him out of town till a scandal died down? Perhaps that is a twist for later). My inspiration for him comes from Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility as well as the older brother in Mansfield Park. He would be more crude and fiendish than even Willoughby could be.
Millie is an orphan. Her mother died soon after her birth (and I have a twist about her mother). And her father has either died recently, or will die in the course of the story. Either way, he must be dead when her long lost uncle arrives. I vote for him dying in the story, so that he can reveal some, but not all of her mother's history.
The only thing she has of her mother's is a locket that she cannot get open (that the uncle will show her how to open as it was a gift to his beloved little sister from him).
Her mother was actually a rich man's daughter who fell in love with a poor boy. When she found out she was to be engaged, she ran away with Millie's father. (They will live with his sister who owns an inn) They got married in the eyes of god (since they could not get legally married, lest her family find her), and lived as a couple does. Her family finally found her just days after Millie was born. Her father tells her to forget Millie and her husband and he will not make life hard on them. She does so, for their sake, and goes home with her father. But she cannot forget the man she loved, nor the vows she made. She runs away to return to her husband and Millie. But she is still weak from childbirth, and the journey is long and cold. She gets pneumonia and dies soon after arriving. Her family disinherited her and forgot all about them. Soon after Millie's mother's death, the father takes Millie and they move away to a place where he can forget the past. He gets a job with Edward's family, and there Millie grew up.
Millie's mother's brother (the Uncle) was away at school abroad when all of this happened. He has been searching for Millie and her father ever since and only finds them at the end of the story when Millie is an orphan. Everything was left to Millie's uncle. He has no children, and he loved his sister very much. He decides to make Millie his ward.
So at the end of the story she is faced with leaving Edward to become a rich lady.
Anne Onymous · Tue Oct 06, 2009 @ 02:41am · 0 Comments |
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