Keeping the Narrator in The Driver's Seat and Toning Down the Drama

In one sitting, I wrote about fifteen typed pages. I wrote them in long hand, but once I keyed them in, it was about fiften pages. This is a personal record for me. I think this is because I accomplished absolutely nothing over the last year and I was stewing over the story in my head. I DO NOT RECCOMMEND THIS TO OTHERS. Yesterday's terrific writing output is a very small consolation for almost a year of not working.

Anyway, the fifteen pages are the scene when the *ish hits the fan in the novel. Gwen, the "other" woman confronts Laverne the "wife". (These quotation marks are on purpose because the novel really interrogates these labels.) Anyway, the tricky thing in writing this chapter is that so much of the tension and drama is between Gwen and Laverne and.. well... neither of them is the protagonist. This is the daughters' story. In the draft I have, I tried to keep pulling the story back to Chaurisse, but I don't think I have done a good job. My goal for today's writing is to go through the secene and at every turn ask myself, "What Is Chaurrise doing now? What does she she? What does she smell?". I will also do the same for the other daughter, Dana. I have to be careful not to let me narrator become a mere observer.

Another challenge of this scene is to keep the drama down. I can't avoid the sheer tabloid appeal of it. I mean, the other woman is busting into Laverne's beauty shop to tell her that they have a husband in common. That is d-r-a-m-a. What can I do to make sure that the characters are melodrama queens and not the text? I decided to have one character keep saying, "what is this? a soap opera?" That grounding voice can often take the a bit of the purple out of scene. It's like tamping poweder over your makeup when you have put it on too thick. It sort of mellows everything out.