Plot Fluffles & Part 1 of How Elizabeth Survived the Playoffs

Hello everyone!

I thought I’d do something a little different today and talk about plot bunnies. I won’t be giving away any hints about what I’m working on now—but rest assured, I have several things in the work—but rather share some of the fun I have with plot bunnies. So far, my problem isn’t an absence of plot bunnies. Instead, it can be the fluffle bouncing around in my head that creates an issue.

Fluffle is a cute word. I looked up what a group of rabbits in called, hoping for something more interesting that ‘herd’ or ‘colony’, and apparently, fluffle is used in Canada. Who knew? Not me, even though I have lived in Canada since I was a wee lass. But I digress.

I’ve had stories running through my head since I was a child, which is likely why I took to JAFF so readily once I found out about the online communities. Other people were interested in ‘what ifs’ and ‘what came before/after’ the novels of my favourite author? Really? JAFF gave me a way to direct my plot bunnies (although I do sometimes stumble upon a non-JAFF plot; when that happens, I redirect the fluffle towards Austen).

So, what sparks an idea? It has been a song. Long ago, I was trying to find a way to make a group of related scenes that kept dancing around in my head come together in a cohesive mess. I’m using the word mess deliberately here. I ‘knew’ the Elizabeth and Darcy really well, but I couldn’t quite grasp their story in its complete form until I listened to a particular song by a particular Irish group I’ve been a huge fan of since the start of the 1980s. In an instant, I saw it. Sigh. I was cooking at the time, and immediately put down the knife and jotted some notes. The ‘mess’ part comes from the story being enormous in size (about a million—yes, million—words). I posted the story online. I have a two or three plots based on songs in my Master Fluffle File (as I am renaming it).

Other plots come about from what I’m reading or really in reaction to it. When I started reading JAFF, I enjoyed many ‘forced marriage scenarios’ or ones in which Elizabeth accepts Darcy even though she does not particularly like him because it is the practical thing to do. In them, Darcy was already besotted or at least attracted to Elizabeth. What, I wondered, would their story look like if they were forced together before either of them liked, let alone loved, the other? The result was Being Mrs Darcy.

Another plot I’ve really liked reading is when Elizabeth (and sometimes Jane) isn’t a Bennet. I played around with this in my most recently novel, The Truth About Family, in which Elizabeth is a Bennet, but she didn’t grow up with them. I’ll likely come back to this plot in the future.

Plot bunnies appear when I’m reading non-JAFF, too, as it did for The Marriage Bargain, where I ‘borrowed’ from a Georgette Heyer novel.

Quotes will spark ideas upon occasion. I recently heard one from a philosopher who pre-dates Austen. I’m keeping that one to myself. I’ve written a couple of shorts based on quotes from Nancy Drew books that I’ve posted here, including last summer’s multi-part The Travails of Charles Bingley. Snippets of conversation I overhear can be the source of ideas, as can things I watch (including cooking competitions), and many more. When I’ve travelled, I’ve often (okay, maybe always) taken Elizabeth, Darcy, and sometimes other Austen characters along with me.

Years ago, I wrote a one-shot based on a mild frustration I was having in real life, namely hockey. My spouse is a hockey fan and has been since childhood. Our daughter played hockey for quite a long time, too, and dinner time conversation would revolve around hockey until I banned it (or at least cut them off after a few minutes). They would also watch hockey games when the Maple Leafs were playing, naturally talking about the action while they did. I’m not such a big fan of watching sports, but I usually keep one eye on the TV when one is playing. (I also own a jersey—Sundin—which I’ve vowed to wear to show my support when the Leafs finally make it past the first round of the playoffs; it’s bound to happen sooner or later. Right?) As I write this, there is a game starting in just a few hours, so I’ll be listening to if not actually watching the Leafs tonight (against Seattle). In honour of my personal plot fluffle and the gift they left me with that one time, here is Part 1 of the resulting story. I’ll post Part 2 on 21 March.

The story is slightly suggestive in places, but there is nothing beyond a kiss.

How Elizabeth found JAFF or How Elizabeth survived the playoffs

“Every night?” Elizabeth demanded. Her eyebrows flew up her forehead, and she gaped at her husband of ten years. “You are not serious!”

“Well, Lizzy, honey…” Will said, trying to soothe her obvious displeasure as they discussed this latest news and prepared for bed.

“Hockey season is over! The Leafs [1], to no one’s surprise, did not make the playoffs. Again!”

“True, but really, since the All Star break[2]…”

“I know,” Elizabeth interrupted, sounding irritated. “They have done a really good job, Reimer [3] has been fantastic, believe me, I know! I’ve heard it a thousand times. Or maybe two thousand!”

Will chuckled. “The kids are rather enthusiastic…”

“Obsessed, they are obsessed. And you encourage them. Constantly.” She pointed an accusing finger at him. He had no business sitting on the edge of the bed, looking so innocent and trying to pretend this was all out of his control.

“It’s good for them,” he said. “It’s good to see them so interested in something. You’ve said so yourself. Physical activity, yadda, yadda.” He smiled. It quickly faded in response to the stern, thunderous look on Elizabeth’s face.

“For the last six months—no, longer than that,” she hissed, “this house has been dominated by hockey. Ever since Daniel and Emily began playing hockey, it has been hockey, hockey, and more hockey!”

Daniel and Emily were their nine-year-old twins.

“Yes, sweetheart,” Will said patiently, “but really, with two kids, two different teams…”

“I know! Two different schedules, two sets of weekly games, two different sets of practices, I know! Our weekends have been completely given over to hockey. And it’s not just their games and practices, and you know it, William.”

He always knew she was really angry when she started flinging his full name about.

“Let us not forget all the times you took them out to play shinny [4] so they could get extra practice in…”

“It’s important. You want them to do well, don’t you?”

She glared. “Every Saturday evening has been spent watching Hockey Night in Canada [5].”

“Canadian tradition. And it’s good for them to…”

“And,” she said, “watching weeknight games if they started early enough.”

“It’s not like I let them watch the whole game if they have school the next day. Besides, it helps them play better if they watch.”

“I don’t like hockey!” Elizabeth said, keeping her voice, barely, at a moderate tone so that neither of the children would hear. They were tucked into bed already. Probably dreaming of hockey, Elizabeth grumbled silently, but long habit kept her voice low enough that it would not escape the master bedroom.

“Elizabeth, honey,” Will said trying to diminish her vehemence. She couldn’t really dislike hockey as much as her protests suggested. Sure, she wasn’t quite as into it as he and Danny and Emmy were, but still… “It’s part of Canadian culture.”

“I’m just as Canadian as you are, and you know very well that not every one of the thirty-four plus million people who live in Canada is hockey mad!”

“Lizzy, sweetheart,” he said deciding to take a different approach, “I’ve always followed hockey and played it—since before we met. You’ve never complained.”

“Small doses, William, small doses. We have not had small doses of hockey lately, have we? It’s not just you going off and playing once a week or watching the game occasionally when we had nothing else on the go. It has been constant hockey. Hockey, hockey, hockey! Four out of every five conversations around here are about hockey, and we only get a break from it because I insist. Player statistics, hockey history, hockey trivia, hockey news. Lindstrom this, Luongo that, Crosby, Crosby, Crosby, and let’s not forget Ovechkin or Kaberle or Chara, and for the record, I don’t care what round Kessel was drafted!

“I have done my damnedest to be supportive and to pretend as much interest as I could. But Danny and Emily’s season is over, and we actually have a few weeks until soccer season starts. The regular season is over and the Leafs—again no surprise—did not make the playoffs.”

“If they had played the whole season like they have since February,” Will muttered, shaking his head.

“If I hear that one more time, I’m filing for divorce!”

They stared at each other in silence for a moment. He knew she wasn’t serious, so instead he focused on how lovely she was with her eyes flashing and her cheeks flushed. It was not unlike how looked when they engaged in their shared favourite sport.

“The point, William,” she continued, her words issued through tightly clenched teeth, “is that I have been very, very patient. I believed we would be done with the non-stop hockey talk and watching. And now you tell me the three of you intend to overdose on the playoffs? Watching every game you can? Why?”

There were a variety of reasons—to see favourite players, to watch the league’s best in action, or to see how former-Leafs players did—but really the reason was simple. It was hockey, and they wanted to.

“Just how long do the playoffs last?” She glared at him, her eyebrows arched.

He didn’t answer.

“Let’s see,” she said. “Four rounds, best of seven games in each, and we are just starting the first. Six weeks, maybe longer?”

He smiled. “It’s great that the kids and I have a thing we can really bond over.”

His voice was a little squeaky. Elizabeth had said the same thing several times since the early autumn when they first registered the children in hockey. It really wasn’t a fair thing for him to say. It went right to her ‘I am a devoted mother and will do anything—as long as it is safe and healthy—to keep my children happy’ spot. All of the anger drained out of her face and body, replaced by resignation.

“What am I supposed to do?” she whined. “I am tired, so, so tired, of hockey. I’m tired of talking about it, I’m tired of feigning more interest than I feel, and I’m tired of spending the evenings when I can’t bear to watch more of it amusing myself instead of with my family!”

Her genuine distress disturbed Will. After all, he loved his wife, and as much fun as he was having watching and talking and playing hockey with their children, he didn’t want it to be at the expense of her well-being. He also knew, however, that she could, on occasion, exaggerate her feelings just a teensy, tiny bit. Not that he would ever suggest to her that she was doing so. Nope! He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He had done so once or twice early in their marriage—one very memorable time when she was pregnant—and he’d learned his lesson. It did absolve him of any sense of guilt for not suggesting they dial back the hockey frenzy, however.

He stood and put his hands on her shoulders. Making his voice both endearing and imploring, he said, “Just a few more weeks, love.” He smiled. “I’ll make it up to you,” he added with a very obvious implication.

Bad move.

The softness that had been in her eyes vanished. “William Frederick Philip Darcy,” she growled, “you did not just suggest that if I play along, you would be so good as to make it up to me with”—her eyes flickered to the bed—“did you?”

That would be breaking one of the unbreakable rules of their marriage: no manipulating the other into doing things by either giving or withholding intimacy.

“Of course not, honey! No, no, Lizzy, sweetheart, I wouldn’t. Of course not!”

He hoped that covered his faux pas well enough. The truth was he had made his suggestion without thinking. He was a bit like Pavlov’s dog when she got riled up, salivating for the reward that came after having an argument, and he’d forgotten himself.

“Good,” she said sternly, “because that would be very, very wrong. And, I need hardly say, unfair.”

“Unfair?”

“You are asking me to pretend—for weeks—to be okay with something that gives me little pleasure, but gives you a lot of it, with my reward being something that we expect to give us both pleasure. By my count, you get two pleasures, I get one. Besides, you should know by now that watching a bunch of grown men skate back and forth chasing a rubber disc and occasionally stopping to beat each other up does not put me in the mood!”

He blanched. “You don’t mean that we aren’t going to…until after the playoffs?!” He’d give up hockey if that was the case, as much as it would hurt.

“I don’t know. Can you come up with a better reward for my continued saintly patience in the face of my family making me live in a never-ending hockey hell?”

Will looked down into his wife’s brown eyes, furiously thinking. He really had not expected quite so much vehemence, had not appreciated just how tiresome it was to be bombarded with something you didn’t like on a daily basis. Or rather, he had been content not to think about it too much as Elizabeth had been, he acknowledged, very patient and supportive as Daniel and Emily went slightly overboard with their new passion, and he had enjoyed every minute of it.

“Uh…holiday,” he said. “After it’s over, our holiday at the start of the summer. We have some plans, but not that many yet. We’ll do whatever you want. Or-or if that that’s not good enough, we can always take another one in August before school starts again. We haven’t made any plans for that yet. You decide.”

She gave him her dubious look.

“Really,” he insisted and kissed her forehead. “We will all be very happy to indulge you just as you have indulged us so generously. You’ll see.”

He’d have to convince the kids not to complain about whatever Elizabeth chose. Like any self-respecting nine-year-olds, their twins were known to voice their disapproval, sometimes in a very disagreeable manner. He might have to bribe them to get them to behave well. That wouldn’t be too hard; he’d promise to take them to two Leafs games next season instead of the one to which he had already agreed. He might have to promise himself something too, depending on what she decided. Maybe new skates. There was nothing wrong with his present pair, but, wow, were there some great new styles coming out. They might be a bit pricy, but…

Elizabeth considered his offer briefly. “Fine.”

Something in her tone made Will extra wary. “It won’t be anything too…?”

Elizabeth smiled, patted his cheek lightly, and went to brush her teeth.

***

Friday night, while her beloved husband and children watched hockey, Elizabeth looked through the bookcases in their home’s library. She had excused herself from joining them.

“Games, plural,” she muttered. “They’ll be flipping back and forth between three of them.”

She made a noise of disgust at the thought of channel surfing, especially doing it for hockey. Daniel and Emily had whined about her non-attendance at that night’s hockey extravaganza. It was easy to distract them though, and once Will promised them snacks and hot chocolate, they happily shooed their mother away.

Elizabeth was making arrangements for some of the other evenings when hockey would be on the menu, reserving a few to spend, despite her inclination, watching her family. All of her friends were busy tonight, however, and she was on her own, looking for a book. A quiet night, curled up in a chair, reading was never a night wasted.

Her eyes alit on the Jane Austen section, and she smiled. “I can always find comfort in Austen!”

She selected a beautifully bound and illustrated copy of Pride & Prejudice her grandmother Annabelle Bennet had given her as a child, and went to her favourite armchair. As she read about the assembly at Meryton a brilliant idea formed in her mind.

“That’s it!” she exclaimed to the empty room. “After all, we are  going to England in June.”

Both she and Will had family they planned to visit, but they still had a lot of free time for which they had not yet made arrangements. Will had said she should think about what she’d like to do, and it was so obvious. Jane Austen! There were bound to be Austen touristy-type activities. Maybe they can tour some of the houses and places used in the adaptations.

While it wouldn’t be the first thing Will and the kids would pick to do, it wouldn’t be too terrible for them. Elizabeth would never pick something her family would truly dislike, although as she has sat in the midst of another ‘hockey trivia’ conversation at dinner earlier that day, she had fantasised about doing just that. Excited by her idea and anxious to see if it had any merit, she abandoned her book and retrieved her laptop to being researching possibilities.

Elizabeth was by no means an Internet aficionado. Between her career and Will and motherhood and a multitude of family obligations, she didn’t have a lot of spare time, and she’d not yet ‘taken’ to the Internet, let alone social media, beyond appreciating the convenience of email and the ability to quickly find answers to her children’s many obscure questions. She spent most of her free time with loved ones, particularly her elder sister Jane and cousin-in-law Rebecca, who was her best friend, or, as she had been doing, reading.

Googling ‘Jane Austen’ predictably resulted in far too many hits.

“Hmm, what about ‘Jane Austen fan’?” she murmured to the screen. “I must be able to find something that would be fun for the kids too. Before we go, I’ll get them to watch Pride and Prejudice, the Firth version. They’ll love the comedic value of Mr Collins. And I’ll read it to them. That way they’ll appreciate the trip more. Will likes Austen, so he won’t object. It’s brilliant!”

As she perused the search results, she came across the most interesting finding.

“Jane Austen fan fiction?” she said. “Really? Like those books Will gave me for Christmas?”

Elizabeth had greatly enjoyed them and always meant to see if she could find others of the same genre, but time slipped away from her, and she had not yet done so. Deciding now was as good a time as any to do it, she revised her search to ‘Jane Austen fan fiction’ and scanned the results.

“I had no idea,” she said in wonder. “How very, very interesting.”

She hardly knew where to start. She murmured the names of sites as she as she scrolled down the list, trying to decide which one to visit first. Finding one that sounded promising—she liked the name—she clicked the link. As she waited for the site to load, she glanced at the book sitting on the table beside her and smiled. Pride and Prejudice was her favourite of Austen’s novels, and she liked to tell people that she had her own Mr Darcy in her husband. The fact that his name was in fact Darcy added to the humour of the situation. She did dearly love to laugh.

“Register? Over 18?” she exclaimed. She stared at her computer screen with her eyebrows arched. “Why on Earth would you need to be an adult to read Jane Austen fan fiction?”

She didn’t have an immediate answer, but she certainly wanted to find out. The whole thing was becoming more and more intriguing. She devised a username, deciding on ‘D&E’smom’, laughing as she realised D&E could stand for Darcy and Elizabeth, submitted her registration and went to make a cup of tea and grab a cookie before returning to her computer. She would have to wait to have her registration verified; in the meantime, she would check out some of the other sites or maybe return to her holiday-planning. She checked in with Will and kids while she was downstairs, but for some reason, when Will asked what she was doing, she prevaricated.

That’s it for today. Part 2 is coming on 21 March. I hope you enjoyed this little diversion. Thanks for reading! J

 Notes from the original story.

1 Toronto Maple Leafs, the name of Toronto’s National Hockey League franchise. My spouse is a life-long fan, despite the number of times they have disappointed him.

2 The All Star break took place at the end of January the year I wrote this.

3 James Reimer was the Toronto Maple Leafs rookie goaltender, and he really had a great year.

4 Shinny = informal hockey game played in a neighbourhood rink for example.

5 Hockey Night in Canada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_Night_in_Canada.