I've been doing a lot of thinking about the process behind Thorstein the Staff-Struck - namely how, if I had done adequate research before starting to adapt the story, I might not have tried. I only realized the real contradiction once I'd finished the first draft. Rather than kill the project, I think it kind of enhances it.
At first, I saw a neat short story, with a small and vivid cast of characters. It offered a great view of the culture and the period, full of detail and the signature understatement and wry insult that permeates the Icelandic Sagas. (This is why Penguin included it in its little collection, as a good entry point to the vein of literature.)
I had initially meant the story to be the comic middle part of a three-Saga play, but two images got lodged in my head: Thorarin's emotional, tragic, and funny meeting with Bjarni, and the simulated horse-fight between Thorstein and Thord...as played by Thorstein and Thorarin. Others images logically followed these - the farmhands, the duel, Rannveig's precise nagging - and before long, I realized that I'd rather write one detailed, interesting piece than a collection of sketches full of lit-geek jokes.
I started writing fast, just getting ideas on paper (well, virtual paper) and trying to lay the foundation before it could start to seem like work. It's pretty much always the most fun phase of a new script, when things just flow, and you go in the direction that seems right. Of course, the structure of the story gave it an overall shape, and most of my work was extrapolating action, character bits, events, that sort of thing. I noticed the mention of Christianity, and worked it into the script, initially just as a detail, and then as a major theme (keep reading to find out why this is way ironic). That phase slowed down and finally stopped, and I actually put off writing for a few months in favor of doing research. However, my research was, well, incomplete. Either that, or I just didn't follow thoughts to their logical conclusions, or something along those lines.
Some time before the call for Fireside Festival entries, I decided to put aside my reading and finish the script, and that's where the real scene-writing slog set in, including a near-complete restructuring of the piece before I could even get the final scenes done. I had put several research questions out of my mind in favor of forward momentum, though Nate Beckman's input had already helped considerably. With encouragement/proofreading by A.C.T. of Squirrels in Love, I hacked the last scenes out in the Performance Network office, just so I'd have something to edit.
And editing meant reading everything I'd written, comparing it to the source material, and going back over my research, resulting in my big "Hey, that's interesting" moment. I don't know how I missed it. Maybe I just hadn't thought about why Christianity was mentioned so significantly, or how neatly the story portrays certain virtues and failings. Maybe I'd glossed over the pieces of my research that make certain inferences about its authorship. Whatever.
In my relative newness to the Sagas, I had thought the story was based on an incident, albeit one that nicely framed the ongoing conflict between farmers and landowners. Turns out it was probably written by priests, who were probably making a point about the virtue of moderation. It's embodied by the resolution of the duel, by the trade of three mean-spirited, gossipy farmhands for one man of worth, by Thorarin's humbling moment with Bjarni, by the fact that Bjarni's home is named Hof...the word for "moderation." Huh. I'd just written a play in which Christianity is addressed rather cynically, as I was fascinated by the fact that, at that time, the religion was legislated in Iceland, without being widely taught. This, in a story that seems to have been written to show Christian virtues.
However, I didn't feel a crisis brewing so much as a philosophical "well, okay, we can work with that." Instead of adapting the story, I'd kind of unknowingly subverted it. Sure, I'd added to it and embellished, but turns out I'd gone further and messed with its thematic origin out of sheer ignorance. With this newfound knowledge, it seemed to me that the only way out was further in, to perhaps draw a line between virtue on a human level, and virtue as mandated. Can't retreat, dig in.
I don't know if I achieved that in the second draft, but the reading audience definitely responded to that element, and I'm all for giving credit to the power of the original story. More than one commenter saw the direct mentions of Christianity as a counterpoint to the main plot, highlighting it while placing events in history. As I've said before, I was prepared to get slammed for it. In fact, I'm still prepared to get slammed for it, along with my use of the Sagas and my use of history. It hasn't actually happened yet, which means I'm going to be bracing myself for a while, I think.
And so far, I'm happy with the play. Revisions are apace, and I have hope that the next draft will be the final one. It's strange to be glad that I started without all the necessary information, but hey, on-the-fly research is part of why I like writing.
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