In the outline there are these two young men who are both interested in the female character, and I’ve gone back and forth about who she would choose. One was a view point character, the other is not, and I thought the character who had a POV would be the person she loved, but I was open to that not being the case and as I wrote, both men came more and more into focus. And then it all fell into place. Now the question is whether suitor number two gets some POV scenes, though perhaps not because he is hiding a secret and I think it’s cheating if you are in a character’s head and the author conveniently never has them think about the thing they are hiding.

All of this had me thinking about Julius and Phillip Epstein the twin brothers and Howard Koch all working together (though never in the same room) who finally brought the script of Casablanca (probably my favorite movie ever) home when they realized that the movie wasn’t a romance. It was about a man regaining his soul and finding a purpose to his life again. Interestingly, there was another writer, Casey Robinson, who wasn’t credited on the script but who in a memo suggested that Rick sends Ilsa away for the good of the cause. Another interesting tidbit is that Ingrid Bergman was nervous because they were filming without a finished script and she didn’t know which man she was going to end up staying with. The director told her to play it evenly which made for a perfect performance. She’s torn between them.