A Tangled Blog

I am using some of my time off this week to outline a rewrite of my Blythe By Name story and plan for the sequel, Blythe By Nature. And I am having the HARDEST time dealing with all of these characters! The adults AND their children. With all of the Blythe, Meredith and Ford second generation and all of their children AND the Golden kids, I've got something like 30+ primary and secondary characters to deal with!

I am thinking of paring things way back, by making Sally an only child and taking the Cam, Walt, and Helen characters and making them cousins, giving them away to Jerry and Nan and Rilla and Ken. It goes against canon, since LMM mentions Walter Blythe in The Blythes are Quoted and The Road to Yesterday, but think it makes sense that Jem and Faith would only have one child, given the fact that both Jem and Faith are devoted to their careers. And that way, the other characters could be mentioned from time to time without having to have a major role.

What do you guys think? How do you handle so many characters (especially Adrienne--I think TTTT has the most amount of characters any of our stories!)

Argh! I really want to write this story because I want to write a more "realistic" sequel, but I am feeling so frustrated by this story, I'm seriously considering just abandoning it all together. But the story I have for Sally and Harry is one that I really want to write. So I don't know.

Are you all working on anything lately?

I've been "casting" for my still-in-the-planning-stages Di story, and I need opinions! I have two (both mostly unknown) actresses I'm contemplating for Di, and I can't decide which I like better - or if I ought to pick someone else entirely. I know it doesn't really affect the story one way or the other, but I do like to have that mental image when I'm writing these characters. Funny, I don't need that at all for my non-fanfiction stories, but I do for these.

So, the options:

Olivia Hallinan

















Or:

Josie Taylor

(In case you need a twin reference, I picked Gemma Arterton as Nan)





















What do you think?

Y'all know this is my favorite thing to do, and I couldn't resist any longer! Since Adrienne mentioned it the other day, I can't stop thinking of Irene (Howard) English as Elaine Hendrix, the evil stepmother from the 1998 version of The Parent Trap!


Right now, the only other two characters I have a clear idea on are Bonnie Wright from Harry Potter as Sally, and Elle Fanning (very bottom) as Helen.