I recently posted Chapter 9 of Rhythm and the Blue Line. If you’d like, go ahead and read to catch up. There may be spoilers here. It’s okay, I can wait. 🙂
*waiting*
Okay, I can’t wait anymore. Hope you’re back. I spent a lot of time on this chapter, more than I expected and definitely more than I wanted. I hate having big lags between chapters, and I’m sure you all know from previous comments that my lag had its origins in Ch 7, which underwent a lot of rewriting before I finally posted, and then the 2011 holidays threw me further off track. When I could at last get to chapter 9, I was glad, but let me tell you — that first scene gave me fits (and my beta reader too, no doubt).
It was a good experience overall, though, and hopefully the next time I need to write a scene like that, I will know what to do. Feedback has been positive and all I can say to that is thanks so much. But there’s a “but.” You knew there would be, didn’t you? The “but” is summed up like this: Brody should’ve knock her dad on his ass though!
I see it as a white-knight syndrome. At the risk of spoilers (last warning), let me sum up the scene. Ryan is waiting for Brody to pick her up after work. While she waits, her father unexpectedly confronts her and accuses her of advising her younger brother to throw away a professional basketball career. An argument ensues in which Ryan’s father pulls no punches in criticizing her — he calls her best friend a slut, insults the music she creates, and says all her friends are drug addicts. Ryan doesn’t hold back on her end either, and somewhere towards the end of the to-do, Brody comes up.
Several readers have commented as the one above — they wanted Brody to step up and defend/protect Ryan. Admittedly, I could have gone that way, but why? Why can’t Ryan stand up for herself? Why does she need to be rescued? I mean, this is a young woman who has spent a long time striking out on her own path, fighting her parents’ disapproval all the way. She’s hardly a shrinking violet or damsel in distress. So I think when Ryan says to her dad, “I’m fucking finished with you!” , that’s about all that really needs to be said.
As I wrote the scene, it’s hard to tell how much of everything Brody heard. I don’t think that was intentional, but that’s how it turned out. Another reader thought Brody was too passive, especially for an athlete who plays a fast, hard game like hockey. My beta reader’s take was that athletes are disciplined; they know when to step in and when not to. Brody thought his places was not in the middle, but beside Ryan, to offer support. This is not as proactive as clocking her dad, but it doesn’t mean it was the wrong thing to do. And if Brody isn’t entirely sure what he walked in on, then I think it’s pretty reasonable that he’s not going to get between a father and his daughter. I also think it shows some respect for Ryan, that Brody knows she can handle herself. It’s not for him to step in and defend her honor — she’s capable of that herself.
So if what I wrote wasn’t what you expected, well, I guess I can’t do much about that. All the same, I hope you enjoyed it.
And I’m working on Ch 10, I promise!