The Soprano who was Friends with Charlie Chaplin

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Abstract

e hub of 1930’s society- Charlie Chaplin was a personal friend and regular guest- she longs to confess a terrible secret but loyalty to the dead keeps her silent.</p><p id="6f13">Clara is showing the mementoes of her career to the investigative journalist, Melinda, whose family history ties her to the house and its last great summer sixty years ago, after which the parties came to an abrupt end. Clara shows her a few things then says, ‘but my finest performance was not on any opera stage, ” and goes on to tell a brief version of this story.</p><p id="3d3f">Writing a novel is often a slow process. Perhaps something happens in a later chapter that you didn’t foresee and changes the earlier chapters — oh, so he wasn’t her cousin at all, he was her lover — so you’re faced with a rewrite.Maybe that minor character you dropped altogether on page ten because he seemed to have no business here, becomes a vitally important witness on page 70, so you have to go back and work him into the story after all. It’s very two steps forward and fifteen back at times. But then there are those moments when the muse takes pity on the struggling author and drops a real gem in her lap. This story was one of those gems. I loved the idea of it from the start and thought it would make a g

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reat stand-alone story. Last year it became one.</p><p id="e550">Because the story already existed within the novel, writing it was easier than developing a new idea from scratch. I know Clara as well as I know a member of my own family after all this time. But writing her younger self was interesting when I’d only had to deal with nonagenarian Clara before. I had a good idea of what Clara the younger was like, she figures in the novel in memories and flashbacks to that last summer. Here she steps up into the role of main character. I think she liked having the spotlight turned upon her at last.</p><div id="52c2" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/prima-donna-of-the-underground-65bf4fe0e7d3"> <div> <div> <h2>Prima Donna of the Underground</h2> <div><h3>On the crowded platform she held herself aloof. Posture and expression conveying her detachment from everyone despite…</h3></div> <div><p>medium.</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*wusXuXH03jr4o4_cgs4KcA.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Story Of My HeArt Pure Fiction Challenge

The house where, once, everybody came to party. L’Estrange, Robert Augustus Henry, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

KL Simmons and JA Vassili have set a writing challenge to pick your favourite piece of personal fiction that has been written within the past year. Why are you proud if it? What was your experience of writing it? This is my response.

This story began life as part of a scene in Ghosts, the novel that has possessed my mind, heart and thinking for the past ten years — though you might want to discount the five when I was being treated for cancer and was about as creative as a fruit bat.

Ghosts is the story of Clara, a coloratura soprano who sang in opera houses all over the world from the 1930's through to the 1960's. Now it is 1993, Clara is 95 and still living in the house that was once the hub of 1930’s society- Charlie Chaplin was a personal friend and regular guest- she longs to confess a terrible secret but loyalty to the dead keeps her silent.

Clara is showing the mementoes of her career to the investigative journalist, Melinda, whose family history ties her to the house and its last great summer sixty years ago, after which the parties came to an abrupt end. Clara shows her a few things then says, ‘but my finest performance was not on any opera stage, ” and goes on to tell a brief version of this story.

Writing a novel is often a slow process. Perhaps something happens in a later chapter that you didn’t foresee and changes the earlier chapters — oh, so he wasn’t her cousin at all, he was her lover — so you’re faced with a rewrite.Maybe that minor character you dropped altogether on page ten because he seemed to have no business here, becomes a vitally important witness on page 70, so you have to go back and work him into the story after all. It’s very two steps forward and fifteen back at times. But then there are those moments when the muse takes pity on the struggling author and drops a real gem in her lap. This story was one of those gems. I loved the idea of it from the start and thought it would make a great stand-alone story. Last year it became one.

Because the story already existed within the novel, writing it was easier than developing a new idea from scratch. I know Clara as well as I know a member of my own family after all this time. But writing her younger self was interesting when I’d only had to deal with nonagenarian Clara before. I had a good idea of what Clara the younger was like, she figures in the novel in memories and flashbacks to that last summer. Here she steps up into the role of main character. I think she liked having the spotlight turned upon her at last.