A Room With A View
Creating Drama by Writing to the Point
by Bill Johnson

A Room with a View is a delightful film that speaks to a central issue of creating drama in a story. This story speaks clearly and to the point about who its characters are and what they want, and what they think they want. And by speaking so clearly and to the point about its characters, the story's characters are naturally put into conflict when who they are cannot stand in the face of the story's plot or the desires of other characters. This quickly and forcefully raises that most compelling question of storytelling, how are the issues these characters bring to this story going to turn out?

This issue of writing to the point is a subtle one, but it goes into the heart of why some writers are able to create vivid stories while others struggle. Because struggling writers often write away from making a clear point about who their characters are - what they want, and what is driving them - their writing becomes a collection of passive details. What characters look like. What the environment of the story looks like. Details about what's happening. Because such scenes are composed of details that fail to suggest how they impact a story's characters and plot events, collectively they fail to create the dramatic impact of a full-bodied story told in a vivid, direct way.

To know what it means to express a dramatic point through a character or event, and to express that point in a vivid, potent way that draws an audience deeper into a story's world, goes to the heart of the art of storytelling. Someone who can't write a vivid, potent scene that forcefully expresses a dramatic purpose, won't be able to turn around and write a novel, play or screenplay that accomplishes that effect through an assemblage of scenes that lack dramatic vigor.

Someone who can't write a potent, vivid scene will struggle to write sentences that are active, well-constructed, and engaging.

It's part of the enjoyment of a story and film like A Room with a View that it is so vividly and potently written to its point about the nature of repression, expression and love. It sets its stage around these issues quickly and cleanly.

This is not a suggestion that writers cast themselves head-long into an essayist-type of writing meant to explain their stories to audiences. It's meant to suggest that one doesn't convince an audience that a character is angry by writing something like "John looked angry." One suggests anger because characters clearly want something, are willing to act to gain what is desired, and the storyteller or other characters block them from getting what they desire. Anger is the natural outcome of such a situation. But setting characters in motion in a way that generates an expression of anger requires either an intuitive or conscious understanding of the craft of storytelling.

The subtle issue here is that when characters are in motion around fulfilling goals or desires, the actions of such characters can also name what a story is about, as A Room With a View demonstrates.

As with many well-told stories, A Room with a View opens with suggestive music. We're then introduced to each character with several suggestive graphic images. Again, the story gets right to the point. Here are the story's characters. Note how the graphic adds interest to the presentation of names.

We then see a sign on door, Pensione Bertolini. What's behind the door?

Answer, window lattes open revealing a nondescript street view. A woman in a hat looks down on three people walking away. This is a quick set up. Who is she? Is this the view mentioned in the title? Another woman appears behind her. Who is she? They appear upset, repressed. This speaks to the purpose of the story.

Dialogue: "This is not at all what we were led to expect." Quick set up, what were they led to expect? Lucy (Helena Bonham Carter), "I thought we were going to see the Arno." The first line of dialogue speaks to the story title. They have been given a room with no view. What will become of this? In a subtle way that only becomes clear later, it comes out how limited is the view of these characters. The very title of the story 'names' an important issue for its characters. The title gets right to the point. The opening image amplifies, sets out the dramatic point of the story.

Lucy and Charlotte talk about how a senora promised different rooms with a view. So the story opens with a sense of looming conflict. Charlotte, "She had no business to do it; no business at all."

These characters are introduced in a state of wanting something done about their lack of a view. Characters in stories are more vivid when they appear to an audience to have a purpose. It's hard to convince an audience that characters who are dramatically inert -- who appear to want nothing, are driven by nothing -- are 'alive' in a story.

Lucy and Charlotte enter a formal dining area. Old women look at the young Lucy. Lucy notices a young man at the table. He has food gathered on his plate in an odd shape. He turns the plate until Lucy - and the audience -- can see the shape forms a question mark.

This raises a question. What will come out of this meeting between the young man and Lucy? We're already being drawn forward to want to know. And, who is this young man? Because this story explores romance between a repressed young woman and an expressive young man, it quickly brings its main characters - Lucy and this young man - together in a suggestive way. And by having Lucy and the young man the only young people at the table, it's clear the storyteller is setting up an expectation in the audience that something will come out of their meeting. A point has been made. Having several young people in this particular dining room would have risked masking the point of this meeting, setting up an expectation that George and Lucy will come together somehow.

An older man - very expressive -- tells a woman not to drink lemonade. This is Mr. Emerson, a man who always speaks his mind in any situation. Charlotte fusses about her room, about the food. The audience is cued that this is a colony of English tourists in Italy.

Lucy, "We have no view."

Mr. Emerson introduces George, his son, the young man with the question mark on his plate. It turns out they have a view of the Arno from their rooms.

Mr. Emerson, "Women like looking at a view; men don't. It's ridiculous these niceties; they go against common sense.... My vision is within, here is where the bird sings." This dialogue is oddly ironic, because Mr. Emerson is so bullish. He tells George to "Go after them" to get Lucy and Charlotte to accept George's room.

Charlotte, chaperone for cousin Lucy, fusses with Lucy, that they should leave the pensione rather than become enmeshed somehow with George and his father. Then Lucy and Charlotte run into another border, a vicar, who turns out to be the new vicar of the church Lucy attends back home. When others mention the issue of the room, Mr. Beebe, the vicar, offers to make the arrangement. Charlotte fears there will be some expectation raised through an exchange of rooms. She fusses that Lucy wants her to turn these men out of these rooms. She's a fuss budget. She fusses a great deal in the movie, and everyone around her comments about it. It makes her character clear and vivid.

Charlotte manages the exchange of rooms with the help of Mr. Beebe. She offers to thank George's father in person, but George lets her know he's in the bath. This puts a funny little twist on the exchange, that George is so open about what his father is doing. This issue of bathing also plays out in other ways in the story. What appears to be a background detail takes on a stronger purpose in the story. But part of developing that stronger purpose is to make a point in passing about bathing here.

Cut to moving into the room. Charlotte, "In my small way I'm a woman of the world..." Yes, in a very, very small way, the audience is set up to think. This is an example of the audience having an understanding about something different than a character. It's part of what makes a story pleasurable for an audience, this sense of having a strong point of view about the action and characters of a story.

Charlotte, continuing,"...and I know where things can lead to." She's emphasizing the set up here for the audience about George and Lucy. By having Charlotte fuss about it, the point is reinforced for the audience.

In the room being vacated by George, there's another large question mark left on the back of a framed portrait. Again the concrete suggestion of a question here to be answered. Very, very to the point. In every moment in this film the storytellers are writing to the point they want to make, not away from it; raising questions, providing answers, answers that raise new questions that also arise from situations that speak to the conflict between repression and expression.

George wordlessly comes through and turns around the frame so we now see the portrait, not the question mark. Great work.

Lucy smiles. This moves Charlotte to a heightened state of fussiness. She - and the audience - see the sense of something developing between Lucy and George. It's a subtle process, but it's clearly been set into motion. The storytellers write to make that point.

Cut to Lucy in a bed with a shaft of sunlight playing across her body. She opens her window to bells ringing. With Lucy we see her new view courtesy of George and his father. This foreshadows events in the story. It's the first, subtle step in Lucy's eventual transformation.

Charlotte enters and tells Lucy to dress or "the better part of the day will be gone." Irony here, because Lucy was experiencing a wonderful moment in her day all without Charlotte. The point is quickly, neatly made. The audience is being led here to want Lucy to be with George and away from Charlotte.

Cut to Lucy practicing on the piano. She plays somber, passionate music.

Two old ladies enter the building and climb a staircase and listen to the music.

George and his father put flowers in the old lady's rooms - fulfilling something suggested by Mr. Emerson at the earlier dinner about the older women wearing flowers in their hair. The old women are both delighted and flustered at this attention.

Back to Lucy playing passionate music. Question, is she as passionate as the music she plays? Even this detail speaks to the point of the story, suggests something about Lucy's character. It's in the story because it speaks to a point.

Mr. Beebe claps. He's alone with Lucy, although that wasn't clear as Lucy played. It gives the scene a dramatic shape, a small revelation.

Mr. Beebe, "May I say something daring?" This suggests he would like to be closer to Lucy.

Lucy Honeychurch - even her names suggests what kind of person she is -- parries his thrust, that was he writing a novel as well? (One of the English women at the pensione is an author.) He counters that if he were, Lucy would be his heroine. This raises a question: what will come out of this interest of Mr. Beebe in Lucy? It's a small issue, but every scene in this story plays out across the different levels of the needs in play for each character. If a character has no need in a scene, no purpose, it confuses the audience to be told about them. They only clutter the scene, mute its real sense of purpose.

Lucy says she's going out, but not far when Mr. Beebe protests. Lucy cannot escape people who want to restrain her choices.

Lucy exits and an elderly lady comes on the scene with flowers in her hair. Mr. Beebe comments on the flowers in her hair in a tone that suggests mild rebuke. The audience is being shown here the deep contrast between George, Lucy, George's father, Charlotte, and Mr. Beebe. It's quick, neat work in the context of a story idea, will Lucy be able to create her own room with a view, within herself, with George?

A title card comes up to tell us where Lucy is sightseeing. She is the innocent abroad.

Lucy visits a monument to Dante. A man approaches speaking Italian. He is clearly a tourist guide who wants her to join a group, but she finds him unsettling.

George's father comes onto the scene and speaks in his usual blustery, gruff manner.

An English priest who caters to English tourists comments on how the church at San Croce was built by 'faith.' George's father comments that that translates into the workers not being paid. The priest rushes up to Mr. Emerson and tells him the church is too small for two parties, and he departs with his charges.

Mr. Emerson speaks to Lucy. "My poor boy has brains, but he's very muddled." He continues, "I don't require you to fall in love with my boy... but please help stop him from brooding."

He's speaking quite directly to what the audience already suspects is up. An example again of building up the drama of a story by speaking directly about the issues in play, not away from them. Lucy is taken back by Mr. Emerson's directness.

Mr. Emerson, "Then make my son realize that at the side of the everlasting Why, there's a yes, and a Yes, and a YES."

Lucy, "Does your son have a particular hobby?" She's still trapped in convention, which sets up the question, will she be able to break out of it? She clearly can't even comprehend what Mr. Emerson is talking about.

Lucy talks about her hobbies, as if that's the point of the conversation.

Mr. Emerson, "Poor girl." He's speaking to the point that Lucy doesn't even understand what he's talking about. This spells out for the audience the length of any journey for her to become conscious of her life.

Dialogue in a well-told story serves to set out the point of the story in a way that shows where characters are in terms of acting out the story. This helps the audience to track how far the story has advanced. Dialogue not written to some purpose, however elusive, can leave an audience feeling adrift, wondering about the purpose of scenes.

Another English lady, the novelist, tells Charlotte that she and Lucy are on an adventure. She warns Charlotte that Lucy is attracted to sensation, to be on guard.

Again, the spelling out of the issue. Knowing this, Charlotte looms as a stronger force to potentially block Lucy's transformation.

As Lucy walks across a square, cut to images of passionate statues, two men walking along with their arms around each other, a sudden, violent fight. Lucy is being subjected here to violent emotions. The question, how will she react?

A bloodied man falls at Lucy's feet, dies. Lucy swoons... just in time for George to catch her.

That's the main point of this scene, to bring Lucy and George together, and to bring this about by exposing Lucy to intense feelings. If this violent scene hadn't taken place, there wouldn't have been the thrust that ends with Lucy in George's arms. The scene both exposes Lucy to violent emotions while the outcome of her reaction furthers both the story and its plot.

The bloodied man is taken to a fountain by a crowd. Close by, George sits with Lucy.

"How are you now?" he asks. She nods silently, then says, "Absolutely well." She speaks like an automaton. She's clearly repressing her feelings, the point of this exchange of dialogue, so it isn't hidden.

George says, "Let's go home." Lucy asks him to find her dropped photos. When he goes to look for them, she tries to sneak off, but she goes down a dead-end street. This is a sly commentary about Lucy's life heading toward a dead end. George catches her. This need for George to confront her makes this moment more intense, dramatic. She's clearly trying to get away from George and these violent emotions.

The man at the fountain is carried off. George looks on. People wearing hoods lead a funeral procession.

The Italians clearly feel everything moment to moment, expressively, deeply.

Lucy asks George to not mention what's happened to anyone. Lucy wants to repress the truth.

George suddenly throws away her photographs. Why? He tells her they were covered with blood, and he didn't want to tell her.

George, "Something tremendous has happened." It's clear he's falling in love, but Lucy wants to return to her old life.

We see the photos going from calm water to rushing water, suggestive of the rushing emotions here of the characters, both George and Lucy.

Cut to the group of English tourists in carriages driving out to see a 'view' in the countryside, arranged for their benefit.

The English priest asks Lucy her purpose in traveling. While the priest points out views, the driver behind the priest kisses his girlfriend. The priest finally sees what is going on and excitedly forbids it and orders the girl off the carriage.

No passion allowed here.

Cut to group moving up a stony path. George waits for Lucy. She walks past him. She's clearly determined to not let George know she's thinking about him.

Cut to George climbing a small tree, which is a comical sight, and calling for Beauty. His father and two others comment casually in the foreground. It adds to the humorous effect of the scene. Then George falls out the tree while his father comments, "He's calling on the eternal Yes." Very funny. Note how it contrasts with the previous, more violent scene. The audience here is not rushed pell-mell from one highly-charged scene to another. They are allowed by the varied pace of the story to relax, to take things in, to ponder, to feel, to reflect. This helps keep the audience fully engaged in the world of the story.

This scene also acts just how expressive George is. Unlike his father, George reveals himself in stages. This makes his character interesting, scene by scene, as events reveal new facets of George's character.

Now cut to the women - Lucy, Charlotte, and the lady novelist - not reacting to George. The novelist offers them a comfortable seat on the ground, but she only has two ground covers. Charlotte says she doesn't need one, but in a way that shows her manipulating the situation to get one. Charlotte acts out a kind of repression that does not say what it wants, but still gets the point across.

Lucy decides to go off and find Mr. Beebe. Charlotte questions the lady novelist about another woman who married an Italian man ten years her junior. Excitement clearly sounds in Charlotte's voice.

Looking for Mr. Beebe, Lucy speaks to the handsome carriage driver. He leads her away to find Mr. Beebe. The guide clearly admires Lucy's sweet form in her white, pure dress. She struggles to walk down through a field of high grass toward what... It's George, not Mr. Beebe. George sees her and goes to her. He immediately kisses her. Lucy doesn't respond, then starts to respond, but suddenly Charlotte calls, "Lucy," and Lucy pulls away with a dazed look on her face.

This story is always advancing, scene by scene. We're shown George is attracted to Lucy, then he acts on his feelings. He doesn't stay at just being attracted to her. By acting on his feelings, the story advances into uncharted terrain. What will Lucy do? What will Charlotte do? The audience is being drawn forward to want answers to these questions.

Cut to a view of the city from a distance.

Lucy is taken away in a carriage while George looks on. George elects to run/walk back to the city. He offers his father his hat, which his father thinks is his own, and tries to put on over his own hat in a comic moment.

As thunder rumbles, George runs down a hill, leaping over stone walls. The thunder increases. A heavy rain falls. The others are sheltered while George runs in the rain. He's living this moment fully. George is swept up in the storm of his emotions. The question, is Lucy? What will she do when they meet again?

Cut to Charlotte combing out Lucy's wet hair. She wants to know how Lucy will deal with George. Charlotte expects George to brag about kissing Lucy, that the situation must be handled. Charlotte, "What would have happened if I had not appeared?"

She voicing a question the audience would ask as well.

Charlotte talks of taking the morning train, of having failed in her duty to Lucy's mother to protect Lucy.

Lucy, "Why need mother hear of it?"

This suggests that Lucy is waking up. That she realizes she doesn't have to tell her mother everything, that she can have her own life.

Lucy reassures Charlotte that she will never speak of what happened to anyone. Charlotte also agrees to be silent about the kiss.

This exchange about secrecy plays out in the story in an odd, pleasurable twist.

Charlotte informs the woman of the hotel that they are leaving.

The important point here is that the events of the story are impacting its characters. George kisses Lucy, a clear advance on their relationship. But it raises a new question. What now? And what will happen? When a story's events fail to impact its characters, the audience is left to feel uninvolved. If a story's events don't impact its characters, why should they impact its audience?

Cut to George ringing the bell at the door of the pensione. He's still clearly feeling alive, not moody as he appeared when first introduced. He wants to see Lucy, but Charlotte intercepts him. She tells him she would speak to him in the drawing room.

We then cut immediately to a title card that says, "Home."

This card tells us the upshot of the conversation with George, so that conversation is not acted out. To act it out at this point would be to delay the advance of the story. This story moves forward with sure confidence.

We cut to a bucolic country home.

A young man and girl talk on the lawn. It is Lucy. The utterly serious young man takes her hand.

A woman watches from a window, and talks about her expectation of this young man asking for Lucy's hand. A young man in the house comments the young man on the lawn asked him his permission to marry Lucy, and he turned him down. It's clear this is Lucy's brother, the older woman her mother.

Question, what's going to happen? Will Lucy turn him down? By staging the scene this way, the audience is set up to feel drama over the answer to the question, while Lucy's family is introduced during this moment of dramatic tension.

Note that Lucy's brother has a head of hair that sticks out wildly. This makes a visual point about his character. He's expressive. Like every other character in the story, his characters arises from the deeper issue examined in the story, expression versus repression. This is what helps creates the sense of these characters ringing 'true' in this story.

The young man enters and speaks in Italian. He is prudish, prim and full of himself. This naturally raises a question, can anything deflate this pompous ass?

Mr. Cecil Vyes says that Lucy has accepted him. This seems odd and incongruous. What will become of George? Lucy's feelings? Did that have an impact on her decision to accept this young man?

Cecil as a character is a full contrast to George. It's part of the design of the story that each character is so clearly defined, and by how they are defined, they stand in contrast to each other, and are naturally in conflict with each other.

Cecil tells Mr. Beebe he and Lucy are to marry, which surprises Mr. Beebe, who has just mentioned Lucy's potential for life. It's clear he has his own feelings for Lucy.

We now have a card, Officially Engaged. Again, the story advances quickly. It doesn't bog down in details, how people react to the news of the engagement, etc.

A group of older people and Lucy speak. A character even more pompous and useless than Cecil makes several witty, droll remarks. He clearly outshines Cecil in this department, which clearly upsets Cecil.

Lucy is clearly uncomfortable and asks her mother to go for a walk.

Lucy and future husband go for a walk. They come across Mr. Beebe. With every utterance, Cecil proves himself an ass. Even Lucy comments.

Lucy and Cecil pass a Villa for lease. The audience is being set up to anticipate George to be in residence soon.

Lucy and Cecil sit by a pond where Lucy once bathed until she was found out. This suggests that when younger, Lucy was more expressive.

Cecil, "I want to ask you something I have never asked before." Question gives dramatic shape to this moment. He asks for a kiss.

Lucy, "I can't run at you, you know."

They kiss, awkwardly, comically. It's a commentary on her kiss with George, and also on the life she would have with Cecil. The awkwardness of the kiss, then, is aimed directly at the audience.

Lucy now has a flashback to George and their kiss in the field. The audience is being shown whose kissed had the largest impact on Lucy.

Lucy sends out a letter about the Villa for rent to the two elderly women she met in Italy.

Cut to Lucy playing passionate music on the piano Others now listen. Cecil smiles as if proud of his possession. This creates an odd contrast for the audience, because how could the passionate Lucy be with such a passionless man as Cecil? So even a detail like the music Lucy plays has significance in this story. All well-told stories use their details in the service of each story.

Lucy's playing impresses Cecil's mother. He talks about raising their children like Lucy, sending them to Italy to learn subtlety. This scene again suggests to the audience the great depth of Cecil's banality. It's the point of the scene, that the audience is set up to have a laugh at his expense, to share in the moment of having a sense of who Cecil is that is radically different than his own self-assessment.

Cut to Lucy and Cecil together. This time she takes off his glasses so they can actually kiss without drama or comedy.

Lucy, Mr. Beebe's niece and Lucy's brother play with glee on the lawn. It turns out the two elderly lady are being replaced as tenets in the villa by the Emersons, who met Cecil in London.

Lucy leaves in a huff.

She asks Cecil about bringing in the Emersons. It turns out Cecil also met them and told them about the cottage to get back at the other country gentleman who outdid Cecil at the engagement party. This adds another level to this plot twist, that Cecil brings in the Emersons.

Cut to the meeting of Cecil and George and his father in London. This is clearly a coincidence, but because the underlying dynamics of the story have set the story into motion and sustain that motion, the audience is inclined to accept this improbable event. Since the event brings about a desirable situation - George drawing nearer to Lucy - the audience is inclined to go along with the contrivance. Writers struggle when they offer their audience no compelling reason to accept plot events as a natural unfolding of the story. In weak stories, even the most probable plot events can generate nit-picking, because they don't ring 'true' to the audience.

Cut to Cecil lecturing Lucy about democracy. She has an outburst about his being disloyal in his actions in bringing in the Emersons to rent the villa, when Lucy wanted it offered to the two elderly ladies. Cecil is clearly unsure how to respond.

This outburst by Lucy suggests the passions building up in her. The impact of George being near shows in her actions.

Mr. Beebe and Fred, Lucy's brother, go to pay the Emersons a visit. Mr. Beebe comments on Emerson's, which include The Way of All Flesh, a book about a vicar. Mr. Beebe has never heard of it, a small joke for those familiar with the novel.

George goes off with Mr. Beebe and Fred. George talks about his finding this villa near Lucy to be fate. Mr. Beebe explains that it's all a series of coincidences starting with the meeting of the principles in Italy. George responds that Mr. Beebe can name what's happening 'Italy,' but George prefers to call it 'fate.' This speaks to this issue of the story, about the question of soul mates - George and Lucy - finding each other in spite of any obstacles. By having characters speak about these issues in a natural, unforced way, the audience hears the dramatic purpose of the story. Some writers expend so much energy to never have characters refer to the dramatic issues of a story, the audience can be left adrift. This isn't a call for being obvious, just that either extreme can lead to weak writing, particularly when a writer has no sense of what constitutes either extreme.

Note how Cecil naturally serves as an obstacle to George and Lucy being together, and how his proposal of marriage - and its acceptance - heightens the dramatic impact of the story's plot. With George on the scene, the action of the story becomes more intense.

Fred asks George and Mr. Beebe if they'd like to share a bathe. George agrees. The men travel to the pond. George dives naked into the pond, and Fred invites Mr. Beebe in. He strips and joins the young men. The three men play. It is a passionate, feeling time for the three men. They are open about who they are, what they are. All is feeling and expression, without repression.

George playfully chases Fred. All three men play and chase each other.

They are living this moment fully. Through them, the audience also lives this moment fully.

Lucy, her mother, and Cecil come along. This sets up a delicious expectation of what will happen when their paths cross for the audience.

Fred and George, naked, appear on the path shared by the others.

Fred covers himself, but George shouts and jumps up and down. He will not repress himself for these others.

Lucy and her mother then come across Fred again. Fred is irrepressible here, although, unlike George, he uses a branch for modesty.

Lucy and her mother laugh. Cecil is clearly discomfited. This scene of open sensuality and nudity plays strongly against the reserved, well-covered, prudish characters of other scenes.

Cut to a scene where marriage plans are made. Lucy asks that Charlotte not be invited. Cecil chimes in. It's clear he doesn't like Charlotte. This is subtle, but the relationships of these characters shift and change as the story advances. By making visible and concrete the changes in relationships here, the story's audience is able to track the advance of the story.

Fred plays the piano, a comic song. His hair is wild. His music drives out Cecil. Cecil clearly cannot abide this display of a lack of culture. Lucy goes to him.

Lucy's mother and Fred see Lucy talking to Cecil outside. Set up, what are they talking about?

Cut to Lucy explaining to her mother that Cecil wasn't being uncivil when he sneered about Freddy's music. The pressure builds on Lucy as it becomes clearer that Cecil disdains her mother and brother. Then Freddy talks about inviting George in for tennis. If Cecil's being a twit, he'll bring around George. Action/reaction. Thrust/counter- thrust. The audience is set up here to want George to make an appearance based on how Cecil has responded to Lucy's family.

Freddy tries to energetically dance with Lucy, until their mother takes Lucy away.

Lucy talks to her mother, pouting, that everything seems to be going oddly. Lucy's mother gets a commitment from Lucy that Charlotte will be invited to the wedding. Lucy is clearly in a state of flux.

Charlotte arrives and she bumps into George at the train station. She is clearly taken back, not expecting to see George.

Cut to Charlotte on the back of a carriage. George rides his bike in funny patterns behind the carriage. George simply won't be conventional in any way.

Cut to Charlotte breathlessly telling Lucy about George. Even Charlotte is coming to life here, her feelings coming out.

Cut to the family watching Charlotte trying to get change to pay the driver who brought her to the house. In the end, Cecil takes some of the money, which suggests he might be a poor prig, that he's not what he's trying to appear to be.

Lucy finally gets the necessary change for Charlotte, who, as soon as they are alone, asks if anyone knows about George and the kiss. Lucy says that George doesn't seem to really care for her. This suggests Lucy is thinking about George.

Cut to Lucy outside her house. A book is on the ground. Lucy's mother asks her to pick it up. Question, what book is this?

Lucy goes off with her mother and Charlotte in a carriage. Cecil comes out to say good-bye, and Lucy glares at him. It increases the drama around the question, what was in this book?

We then hear Cecil reading from a book of poems while Freddy and George play tennis.

Cecil, George and Lucy sit together on the lawn. It turns out that Cecil is reading a novel written by the women novelist Lucy met on the trip to Italy. Cecil speaks about an absurd view in the book. Lucy asks George what he thinks of their view? He counters that one only has a view of the sky over one's head.

Lucy and George spar.

Cecil reads a passionate passage about two young lovers kissing in a field in Italy, while Lucy and George look at each other with longing. Hearing about the kiss in the book, Lucy breaks it off and suggests they go in for tea. She hurries off, with George right behind her. As soon as they are out of sight, George kisses her. Again she starts to respond, then breaks off before Cecil can see them.

Lucy corners Charlotte about the book Cecil was reading. Lucy insists that the scene Cecil read was based on George kissing Lucy in Italy. It means that Charlotte told the book's author about what happened in spite of her swearing to tell no one the story.

This is a great plot twist that could not have been foreseen, but it works with great power. Lucy promised not to speak about the kiss, but she did not expect to need to ask Charlotte not to speak about it. Lucy is getting lessons in life here.

The story is building to a climax.

Lucy asks Charlotte to 'go and call him.' Cecil? No, George.

Lucy steels herself. George enters. She tells him to leave and never come back.

George speaks passionately. "I would have held back if your Cecil was a different kind of man." He's upset that Cecil doesn't want Lucy to be real, in the way that he loves Lucy.

Outside, Cecil behaves stupidly, emphasizing George's point for both Lucy and the audience.

George, "Nothing must hinder us ever again."

He speaks of true love here.

Lucy is still not conscious. She still wants George to leave. Now it's Charlotte who doesn't want George to leave, but he does. Charlotte, "I shall never forgive myself." Lucy, "You always say that, Charlotte, but you always do forgive yourself."

Wonderful dialogue.

We're seeing here that Charlotte isn't quite what she has presented herself to be. This gives her character another level.

Lucy tells Freddy that George has left. Freddy asks Cecil to play tennis, but he passes on the request in his usual, priggish way.

Cut to graphic, "Lying to Cecil."

This gets us right to the point again. This story is a demonstration of writing to the point of a scene, not away from it. Putting characters into conflict, not away from it.

Cecil, "Because I wouldn't play tennis with Freddy?" It's clear that Lucy is breaking something off. Lucy, "We're too different." They weren't as the story began, however.

Cecil, "But I love you. And I did think you loved me."

Lucy tries to explain her feelings, using George's language. She walks away. Cecil follows her. What will he do or say? He asks her reasons for not marrying him? "You wrap yourself up in art, and books and music and you want to wrap me up. That's why I want to break off my engagement."

This is a wonderful moment, with Lucy using the reasons George gave her to explain to Cecil why she can't marry him. The audience has been set up to fully enjoy this moment.

Lucy keeps insisting that she isn't interested in someone else, even though Cecil never suggests that.

It's clever, engaging dialogue.

Cecil, "I must actually thank you for what you've done... for showing me what I really am. I admire your courage. Will you shake hands?"

This is an interesting transformation. In most stories, a character like Cecil hits one note only. Here, he's allowed to become something else, to react to what is happening in a new way. It adds another level to the story, to any story when the events of the story clearly have some transforming impact on its characters.

Cecil sits on the stairs and puts on his shoes. All his foppish mannerisms are gone.

One of the elderly ladies writes about going to a warmer climate again. This contrasts to the way this story has been heating up the local cold climes.

Mr. Beebe comes across Freddy and Cecil. He has a letter from the elderly ladies about a plan to travel to Greece.

Mr. Beebe borrows some matches. Fred runs after him to get them back, and tells him about Lucy breaking off the engagement with Cecil. This clearly excites Mr. Beebe.

We get another title card about Lucy telling more lies.

Mr. Beebe speaks to Lucy. He tells her she's doing the right thing.

Lucy suggests she would like to go to Athens with the two elderly ladies. She asks Charlotte's help to get away.

Lucy doesn't want George to get any ideas if she stays with him around.

This heightens the drama around the question, will she and George get together?

Lucy plays a song at the piano, but doesn't put much feeling in the words.

Charlotte goes out into a blustery wind which is akin to the emotions of the characters. She lets Lucy's mother know about Lucy's travel plans. We don't get an outcome, just that the mother is surprised.

Cut to George and his father, apparently getting ready to leave the villa. George's father is disconsolate.

George goes off in the rain on his bike.

Lucy and her mother meet with the two elderly ladies planning the trip.

Lucy's mother clearly ends the meeting early.

The two old ladies talk about Lucy after she's left, that she didn't look like a bride to be. It's both comic and observant. One lady finally decides Lucy lacked radiance. Like Cecil's transformation, allowing these two ladies to be 'real' in their observations adds depth to the story.

Charlotte stops by the villa and asks to wait there. She finds out from Mr. Emerson that he never knew what happened in Italy. That George was the only one involved with the kiss to not tell others. She finds out that George does love Lucy. Charlotte tries to excuse herself, but Mr. Emerson asks her to stay. She reveals that Lucy has broken off her marriage plans.

Mr. Emerson becomes quite animated and happy at this news.

Cut to Lucy and her mother. Lucy reveals she'll be coming into some money in a year. Her mother accuses Lucy of being like Charlotte, which upsets Lucy, but it also tracks that she is changing.

Lucy asks for the top of the carriage to be let down. It affords a view of the villa being vacated, which is news to Lucy.

Lucy becomes lost in thought.

Cut to Lucy appearing at the Emerson's. George's father says "it's all his fault," because he told George to love openly.

Charlotte leaves the villa for the carriage, but now Lucy isn't with her.

Lucy tries to convince Mr. Emerson not to leave, that she is leaving. He talks about how much George loves her. He tells her that she thinks she's going to Greece because she loves George.

Lucy breaks down crying.

She feels it's impossible to not go on the trip.

Mr. Emerson, "The only thing impossible is to love and part."

Mr. Emerson is an interesting character, because at this point in the script he pulls back from seeming merely eccentric, just as Cecil has grown.

Lucy feels she has to go because the others have 'trusted' her.

Mr. Emerson, "Why should they? When you deceived everyone, including yourself."

Lucy is not used to this kind of truth. The audience has been prepared from the first meeting with Mr. Emerson that he would speak the truth. It's natural here, as well as forceful.

She runs out of the villa and tries to catch up to the departing carriage and her mother and Charlotte.

They see Lucy. She smiles now.

Great set up. What will happen?

We cut to Charlotte in bed reading a letter. The voice over is Lucy, talking about traveling to Florence and staying in the same pensione that opens the story, where Lucy sees a mother and young girl like herself, upset that they doesn't have a room with a view. George responds, "We have a view." He smiles and takes the hand of the smiling Lucy.

Cut to George and Lucy kissing while a view out the window goes unviewed. Her hair is down. She finally responds to his kisses with open passion as bells ring.

Lucy now has both a room with a view and a life that has been opened up to a new vista she was unaware of when the story opened. Again, in every way and every scene, this story speaks directly to its dramatic purpose. Can Lucy's life be opened up? Can she experience real passion? The story takes its audience on a dramatic journey to the answer to those questions.

This story creates drama by setting into motion clearly defined characters, defined in ways that puts them into conflict, that impact other characters. As characters collide, they reveal who they are in a way that advances, propels the story.

The storytellers also begin this story in a direct, clear way. It opens with Charlotte and Lucy in a room with no view, but in a way that suggests their view of life is repressed. By beginning with a question, will they get a room with a view?, the story begins in an active voice. The story, about repression and expression in conflict, is in view in this scene in a subtle, playful way. The plot, about how and whether Lucy will, first, get a room with a view, then a deeper, inner view of life, goes into motion in this scene as well.

A joyful, intelligent story to view.

©2000 Bill Johnson