OK, there was going to be a "Miniature, Part Two," but it ended up just not working in drabble form. Suffice it to say I'm now including it as a plot point in the story, because it just fits. But here's my second effort, also fitting what I thought the topic was going to be rather than what it actually was. Hmm...is it Mary Sue-ing if I work out my own childbirth issues through my characters?

Motherhood

James moved their mother’s portrait to the landing. A new one, of Lucy with Baby Meg, now has the place of honor over the mantel in the drawing room.

Each time Anna climbs the stairs now, she has to stop at the landing to catch her breath. She clutches her gravid belly and gazes upon the mother she never knew, the mother who died not a week after she was born.

Anna has lived too long among the brave not to despise cowardice, all the more so in herself. Yet when she looks at her mother’s portrait, the horror and dread swallow her up. She’d run from this battle, if only she could.

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Anne--showing my art ignorance here, but which painter are you talking about? I remember a painting I've seen reprinted a lot with people sitting at a diner, all lit up in a dark night, that you reminded me of.

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Susan, your piece is intriguing.

And I'm sorry, but this is a tic of mine. Like yours of rein and reign.

I. Main Entry: 1man·tle Pronunciation: 'man-t&l Function: noun Etymology: Middle English mantel, from Old French, from Latin mantellum 1 a : a loose sleeveless garment worn over other clothes : CLOAK b : a mantle regarded as a symbol of preeminence or authority 2 a : something that covers, enfolds, or envelops b (1) : a fold or lobe or pair of lobes of the body wall of a mollusk or brachiopod that in shell-bearing forms lines the shell and bears shell-secreting glands -- see CLAM illustration (2) : the soft external body wall that lines the test or shell of a tunicate or barnacle c : the outer wall and casing of a blast furnace above the hearth; broadly : an insulated support or casing in which something is heated 3 : the back, scapulars, and wings of a bird 4 : a lacy hood or sheath of some refractory material that gives light by incandescence when placed over a flame 5 a : REGOLITH b : the part of the interior of a terrestrial planet and especially the earth that lies beneath the crust and above the central core

II. Main Entry: man·tel Pronunciation: 'man-t&l Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Old French, mantle 1 a : a beam, stone, or arch serving as a lintel to support the masonry above a fireplace b : the finish around a fireplace 2 : a shelf above a fireplace

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Fixed. (And I really had no idea it was a separate spelling--I guess it goes to show I know more about horses than fireplaces.)

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(I didn't know either, Susan. I have the sudden desire to find ever piece I've ever written, ever, that mentions a mantle, and correct it. Instead, I will tell myself the following covers it...)

13 entries found for mantle.
man·tel also man·tle ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mntl)
n. 1. An ornamental facing around a fireplace. Also called mantelpiece.
2. The protruding shelf over a fireplace. Also called mantelpiece, mantelshelf, fireboard.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Middle English mantel, as in mantiltre, beam over fireplace opening (perhaps from its use for drying wet clothing). See manteltree.]

[Download or Buy Now] Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Further down, there's also this:

v. man·tled, man·tling, man·tles

v. tr.
To cover with or as if with a mantle; conceal. See Synonyms at clothe.

v. intr.
To spread or become extended over a surface.
To become covered with a coating, as scum or froth on the surface of a liquid.
To be overspread by blushes or colors: a face that was mantled in joy.

The first definition under the intransitive verb form supports m-a-n-t-l-e (in e-mail).

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Susan, that's a lovely bit about Anna, and I don't think it's Mary Sue-ish at all. I think that Mary Sues happen when authorial self-insertion happens without authorial self-examination, if that makes any sense. Not all authorial self-insertions are Mary Sues. Otherwise, what would that say about Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?

The painter I'm referring to in my drabble is Edward Hopper, BTW. The diner painting is probably his most famous, and it's called "Nighthawks," I think.

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And it's at the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Deb, I'm working on "Famous Flower", and I'm getting obsessed with openings again. Is it assumed that the reader has read the blurbs and knows going in that this is going to be a ghost story, and, as such, is expecting a particular mood and a certain sequence of events? Or is that the function of the prologue, to set the mood?

Also, being as this is part of a series, how much character introduction to do you do? I understand that you can't always count on the reader having read the first book, so you have to lay the character's groundwork, but how do you avoid annoying the person who said, "Hot diggity, there's a sequel! What happens next?"

I have an original novel kicking around in lame-assed first draft form. The front's plot doesn't quite match the back's plot, but I haven't gotten the motivation to fix it yet. And people keep asking for more parts of various fic, so I tell myself "You could work on a novel that may or may not go anywhere, or you could write for the vocal, appreciative audience that's right there and waiting."

Anyway, any hypothetical blurb for this novel would state that the main character is quite rich and privileged, with a secret from her past about to blow up in her face. So a reader would have that knowledge and be waiting for it to happen. How much time should be spent, therefore, on establishing the wealth and privilege of the woman's life? Do you write assuming the reader is a complete tabula rasa?

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Susan, that's a lovely bit about Anna, and I don't think it's Mary Sue-ish at all. I think that Mary Sues happen when authorial self-insertion happens without authorial self-examination, if that makes any sense.

It does. I've been worrying about the Mary Sue thing lately, given that pretty much every major character I write has a piece of my personality, large or small, woven in there somewhere, and that some of my favorite fictional characters bear certain marks of Mary Sue.

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pretty much every major character I write has a piece of my personality, large or small, woven in there somewhere

I think that's pretty much unavoidable, and it's not a bad thing. I mean, how else are you going to create characters who have any kind of depth or believability?

some of my favorite fictional characters bear certain marks of Mary Sue

I know that fear of the "Mary Sue" has caused me to second-guess myself whenever I want to make a character likeable or if I need to make that character really good at something.

Upon more thought, I realized that readers want to be able to admire characters, sympathize with them, be interested in them, and spend time with them throughout the course of a novel.

I think that true "Mary Sue" territory begins at the point where the author relies on an abundance of surface detail: accessories, whether they be clothes or boyfriends; glamorous jobs; beautiful appearance; overabundance of "attitude" that has only one, strident note; quirkiness in the place of character; and so on.

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