For more information about this project, check out the earlier posts in the category “Sense and Sensibility and Placage.” This took several drafts, mostly to clarify a somewhat muddled conversation about whether Mrs. Jennings’ gatherings were orderly or not, and delete named references to a couple of characters who are still a little bit before their formal introduction. And also, get Claude to quote Cowper directly. In terms of interesting Claude innovations, the idea of the Willoughby analogue kind of winding Marianne up and watching her go was new to me. It’s not entirely in line with the source novel, where he tends to parrot her literary opinions, but I decided I liked it here, and left it in. I reworded the overly vague last line slightly and reworked Edward’s thoughts about his father to be somewhat differently expressed than the last time the subject came up.

A Literary Conversation

For more information about this project, check out the earlier posts in the category “Sense and Sensibility and Placage.” This was a difficult scene because in the original outline, this was Edward’s introduction, and I decided I wanted him in much, much earlier, as in the source novel. Claude also randomly dropped a woman into the party who I decided was going to be important later, so between that and the emdashes and Robert randomly materializing at Mrs. Jennings’s party, and some other issues, the drafts added up. What you see below is like draft four or five.

Edward and Robert

For more information about this project, check out the earlier posts in the category “Sense and Sensibility and Placage.” Claude’s first draft had some ai-isms that annoyed me, so I asked for a redraft. I couldn’t get it to shorten its sentences much, but decided it worked with the Romance-language background that most of the characters come from. Its long rambling sentences seemed particularly apropos, in this scene set along the Mississippi.

Ride Along the River

For more information about this project, check out the earlier posts in the category “Sense and Sensibility and Placage.” This was the original scene 10 in the outline. But a ‘happy little accident’ produced something that I thought was a nice Edward moment that came before this. Hence, the quirky numbering. In the first draft, Claude ignored the explicit statement in the outline that Elise doesn’t confide her lover’s name to her uncle or anyone else at this point in the plot. Claude also committed em-dashes, for the first time in several scenes. I ordered a redraft, and then trimmed a few bits from the first couple of paragraphs of draft 2. I am really enjoying Claude’s interpretation of Morin (the Brandon analogue). Maybe it’s because Brandon is one of my favorite characters in S&S. Maybe it’s because, at the brainstorming stage, I came up with a background for Morin that I really liked. Whatever. Morin’s a good dude.

Partial Confession

For more information about this project, check out the earlier posts in the category “Sense and Sensibility and Placage.” Claude’s initial draft was okayish, maybe melodramatic in spots but in a way I enjoyed. I had it redraft to add references to the sisters thinking about Edward and the Colonel. I then prompted for a third draft to remove emdashes and reword some awkward sentences. Manually deleted a few establishing details I didn’t care for.

The Ball

For more information about this project, check out the earlier posts in the category “Sense and Sensibility and Placage.” Claude didn’t do great on the first draft of this scene, with a serious overuse of the word “particular,” and no inclusion of Marianne to speak of. For draft 2 I prompted it to address those issues along with some more minor stuff (Morin’s backstory and height, Edward joining the party later in the scene. Draft 3 was basically me wanting it to reposition a certain paragraph about Morin’s reactions to Marianne chatting up his ward, and being too lazy to do it myself.

Meeting Colonel Morin and Élise

For more information about this project, check out the earlier posts in the category “Sense and Sensibility and Placage.” Claude did very well on its first draft, but then I realized Edward needed to be present, so I asked for a redraft. I deleted a sentence and a half about Marianne that were not justified by her behavior in the story so far, and I deleted a sentence about Henry Dashwood’s judgment of people late in the scene. “He was a better man etc” is something I wrote to replace it.

The New Cottage

For more information about this project, check out the earlier posts in the category “Sense and Sensibility and Placage.” Claude did very well on its first draft. For the redraft, I asked it to rework an incoherent description of what the Dashwoods’ mother was doing with her hands during the cart ride, and have Marianne show more emotion. My instinct is that free women of color in this time and place would not have survived long, if they showed the overwrought behavior that Marianne and her mother do in the Austen novel. But Marianne isn’t Marianne if she isn’t the most emo person in any given room. Then I realized this was the right time to introduce Edward, and that led to two more drafts. I manually removed an em-dash rather than ask for another draft.

Journey to Faubourg Marigny