The Nutcracker Bleeds Commentary

I wrote this because it’s always nice to go back and remember exactly what it was that made me write a certain thing. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I lose track of why I created something specific in a story. Once I move onto another tale, my mindset completely shifts and leaves the story I just completed. I wrote this so that I wouldn’t forget it, and if anyone is interested, they can have a look at it. I found much about the inner workings of this novel particularly interesting.

The Beginning:

When I first began this story in very early March 2003, sitting beside the window in a small psychology class so I could look at the snow and not the teacher, Olivia was, in fact, meant to be the main protagonist of the story.

I wrote the first six chapters of it (which I later combined to be the first two chapters) up until the point where Olivia was to become sucked into the toy world.

That was where I stopped.

I looked ahead into the story a bit to see what I could see – looking for some point I could write up to, like connecting the dots. There were no dots.

Olivia was a sixteen-year-old, slightly disturbed girl who was to be brought into the world of the toys and mice because of a curse, in order to be used for a ritual that would insure that the Rat King could continue to have eternal life. The nutcracker was to protect her and try to keep her from the Rat King; she was supposed to be in love with him and so on and so on. I tried for that, looking further, and do you know what I saw?

Dead-end after dead-end.

Olivia’s mental state made it impossible for her to truly understand and appreciate all the horrible things around her. I could see her running off and doing all sorts of things that a saner person would know they certainly should not do. I saw the nutcracker running after her time and time again, saving her from herself. And to what purpose? That made his character completely flat. No personality at all. I couldn’t do that to him. It’s not what I wanted for him at all, because he had so much more potential than that.

That was when I decided that everything I had written was boring and not worth continuing. The story was meant to be a longer, more original sort of fairytale that I was going to try and publish. But it wasn’t worth it.

In October of 2006, I decided that I was boring. I’d been writing (I never really stop) but I had the urge to twist another fairytale. Instead of making a new one, I decided to go back through my files and see what was there – stories that I had laid out ages ago but never took very far. Stories based on Snow White, Ba Ba Blacksheep, Three Blind Mice, Red Riding Hood, a story based on the tale of Chicken Little… Then there was always finishing Neverland, but I wasn’t ready for that yet.

I wound up picking up Red Riding Hood, which I’d already started off on three different versions of. Then, I couldn’t get very far in that, so I stopped it too. I thought “How many different versions of Red Riding Hood are out there? And, come on, what can really be done with it?”

That led me back to reading what I had written on The Nutcracker Bleeds. I read through a bit, and that was when I saw Anne.

I had forgotten about her – a character overshadowed by Olivia, who is the complete focus, not only of the story at that point, but of some aspect of every other character’s life that had been mentioned. Her parents are afraid of her, Todd lusts for her, Liam adores her. And Anne hates her. She hates her but she protects her because she has nothing else but that girl.

I thought to myself: “How much more creepy would it be to not throw the insane girl into a world she already accepts, but instead to throw a completely sane woman into something she can’t accept and refuses to?” It was perfect. Anne was my character.

Even though I decided this, I couldn’t quite bring myself to scrap the chapters I had already written. I liked them, and what was more, how boring would it have been to get all that beginning stuff from Anne’s pov? So, in Chapter Three, I simply decided to swap one character for the other.

There were several reasons I did this. The reader needed to get to know Olivia. They needed to know about Todd. They needed to know about Liam. And they needed to see Anne as she is in that life: as a background character in Olivia’s life. Also, once the reader knows Olivia, they can fully understand what trouble Anne is in when it comes to light that Olivia has been made the ruler of the toys. Anne tries to convince the girl that they have to fix themselves, but of course the reader already knows that Olivia doesn’t want to be fixed.

Without those chapters on Olivia, and had I simply plugged in the girl after talking about Anne and put Olivia in the seat of a ruler, would the reader really understand Olivia, since now Anne has finally become the center of attention and Olivia has faded into the background? Those were the reasons I did what I did, and by making Anne the lead female, I also broke a pattern of mine, which would be having nearly all of my main characters a bit disturbed in some way. That was my twist, and I was quite proud of thinking of it. The story could go on.

Most people reacted very well to the swap and liked it very much. It was unexpected from the very beginning, and so I sent my message:

Expect anything.

Now that I had Anne in the front, I began to see so much more of the story unfolding. There were so many more horrors for her! The jester puppet was born straight from her, and the idea of making Olivia the Lady Sovereign came from all that. But the greatest part for me was that Armand became more of the sort of character that I wanted. Before, he only functioned at Olivia’s side, and didn’t have much for himself. With Anne, he was free to grow as a character and have a role all his own.

Raising Anne:

Anne is more like me than any other character I’ve written about. Everything that she thinks is directly linked to what I imagined that I would think. Everything from her loathing of Olivia to her no-nonsense attitude to her attraction to Armand, even though he’s terribly cruel to her. Granted, she’s not exactly like me (as in, her back story) but I feel much closer to her than most other characters that I simply can only look at and understand from a distance.

I wanted the reader to know that Anne was flawed. Characters are better when they’re flawed, I feel. I wanted to make people hate Anne, and yet cheer for her at the same time. I think I got what I wanted.

The Nutcracker:

As I’ve said before, I love Armand. He always looked the same in my mind, even at the beginning. He was never a traditional nutcracker, because he had been made out of a human. I wanted him to hold his more human look, so I made the metal, cracking parts on his arms. That also made him a stronger sort of character in my mind. Besides that, I always like my romances, and I just couldn’t see someone as obsessed with dolls as Olivia or someone as conceited as Anne actually falling for a large, wide-eyed, bearded toy with bared teeth. He had to be attractive in a toy way and in a human way. He had to be pretty like a doll and strong-looking like a soldier. But most of all, he had to be a bad-ass.

In the beginning, when I first made him up, he was strong and attractive, but not so bad-ass. Olivia was carrying the story without a bucket to carry it in. Armand had his own agenda, but he was completely bland. In all honesty, I never wrote a single sentence about him as a character until I started back this time, but back then I could see where he was headed.

He was not interesting. At all. Perhaps he still wasn’t well-received the way he turned out, but I thought he was great. He could be mean and snappy to Anne without feeling much guilt. He could keep his own agenda. I could write about him without having Anne there! And I think, as the chapters went on, Armand actually jumped into the driver’s seat with Anne and became the main character just as much as she was. That was what I intended.

He grew as a character, changing as the story went on in a way that I hadn’t actually intended, but sometimes those things happen and I think it went well. I suppose love will do that to a man.

Edge:

Would you believe me if I told you that, just as Edge made himself into the toy that he felt he was destined to be as a finished product, he also created himself into this story? That he manipulated me into making him exist? Well, it’s true. Edge never had any part in this story during my planning, but I thank the gods for sending him to me. Single-handedly, he changed the whole story. He stirred up an otherwise simpler plot and became a very central part. Aside from him being so deliciously evil, that is why I love him so much.

Armand was to go into the toymaker’s room for weapons, battle a few incomplete, misfit toys and that was to be that. But then, very suddenly (if you can imagine a writer not knowing what her story is doing beneath her own fingers) Edge was standing there.

He didn’t have a name then. He just appeared on the top of the workbench, looking out from beneath a sheet of black hair like some Japanese ghost lady. No later than he was standing there, I knew everything that was going on in his mind. I knew his plots, his desires, and exactly what he was going to do. I fell for his schemes. Oh yes; it was love.

He named himself as well. Edge. (Most of my characters name themselves, by the way.)

The name has a double meaning of sorts, the first coming from the razorblade he wears on his back. This is likely the best weapon I brought up in the whole story, and possibly even the most creative, but I also knew that it wasn’t Armand’s weapon. I didn’t even consider it for Armand. Edge is not the biggest toy in the toy chest, but he’s outrageous and wicked. He needed a huge, scary weapon so that other toys would not laugh at his delicate looks. But if anything other than the blade would send them running, I’d say those red eyes and that terrible grin would do well enough.

The second meaning of the name is basically that Edge is on the very brink of having a name, a gender, a paintjob… Everything! He calls himself ‘he’ (making it simpler for me to talk about him) but he never would consider himself fully male until he had the nutcracker’s body.

I like his ending very much. It was meant for a bit of dark comedy there. Seriously, how many of you thought that Clara would be the one to take out Edge? And so innocently? Highly appropriate, if I do say so myself.

I do love all my characters as individuals and it would be a tough contest, but if I had to certainly call a favorite in this story, it would be Edge.

Clara:

A very controversial little character indeed. Clara was always a part of this story, though she wasn’t always meant to be in it in a physical way.

When Anne and Armand separated the first time, I wanted Anne to meet up with some sort of child doll. I thought it might be interesting to have Anne interact with another child that was symbolic of Olivia. At first, that doll was a boy child, simply because female creepy children seem to be used more than male creepy children. But in the end, I’m glad I decided to use Clara.

From my usage of her, Armand’s back-story developed more. She was a living representation of a child he once loved, running around and calling Armand’s enemy “father”. It was perfect. I also feel that children get misrepresented in stories and movies very often (making them much too mature and knowing) so I tried to make Clara as much like a child as I could. Even to the end when she skipped away with Edge’s head, she remained perfect.

Brooke, Rivere, Lakke, and their Princess Pirlipat:

No, Brooke doesn’t get his own section, even though this one is mostly about him. If I have to talk about him, I have to talk about the others. Being as they are four pieces of the same pie, I have to keep them together.

Brooke and company are quite like Edge in a way (mostly Brooke in this comparison). He was never meant to be in the original plotline, and had no place in the story until all of a sudden, he was there. But Brooke did not just pop up like Edge did. There are several reasons why he came into existence.

These four characters were born from the Shaman’s request. I had to think of something that the Shaman could request of Anne and Armand in exchange for information. Something different, exciting, and a little “out there”. So let’s cause some trouble in morality land and have them assassinate a princess for no reason. The deed was done.

The princess is named Pirlipat, because when I was researching the original story, I found that at the beginning of the ballet, the main character (Clara) is dreaming about a nutcracker battling fiercely for the lovely princess Pirlipat. While Armand is not exactly protecting her, I used the name anyway. Also, Pirlipat was the one who was actually bitten by a mouse and turned into an ugly girl. That part, I used for Anne’s dreams.

So how would they go about executing the princess? I was originally going to have Armand seduce her and have Anne not witness any of it, but that idea just didn’t fly. How about betrayal? The betrayal of one of her own? I saw him in my mind. Dark hair, black coat, long blades. I knew his name was Brooke.

From Brooke, Rivere and Lakke were born. I thought it was an interesting idea to make them triplets and have Brooke betray them as well.

I had Brooke come with Anne and Armand for two reasons, which, in the end might be the same reason. I wanted to try my hand at having a trio of main characters constantly interacting. I also wanted to bring two male characters together and have them be able to work together. Mostly, I only use pairs of a man and woman that work together (seems to work better for me) and I can never quite grasp the concept of making male characters interact in such a way. So, I tried it.

It was as difficult as I thought it would be.

I think the biggest problem was that Brooke and Armand were essentially the same sort of character. They didn’t have many feelings; they didn’t say much; they hardly had any reason to interact. Further on, they didn’t really want to have anything to do with each other. I changed them both slightly. Every good character needs a little change, right?

Brooke became a bit of a punching bag and a mediator. He also kept himself so distant that he could look in and see what no one else could, which was also good for me in his use. Armand began to feed off his emotions a bit more, making him somewhat different from Brooke.

Writing them, I wasn’t sure that they’d ever be friends – even to the point that they almost fought against each other – but Armand did feel a bit softer toward Brooke as time went on. Actually, I think he had more respect for him when he was only an arm.

Anne, on the other hand, certainly fell for Brooke. If he’d been anything more than a toy, there might have been a love triangle that I wouldn’t have planned for, and even though it was not my intention, I think one emerged anyway. She was drawn to him, but how hard was that, since Armand was constantly pushing her away?

Certainly, Brooke was the fan favorite. I can’t say I’m too surprised, although I thought Anne would be liked even though she was flawed, or that Edge would be praised for all the wild things he did. But Brooke was very likable. I liked him very much myself and used him as long as I could. Unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end, and Brooke was one good thing that was planned to end ever since his beginning. I actually hate that there was no way to save him. He died when he was supposed to – killed by his brothers just before Anne was taken away.

But then there was the arm.

The idea to have Armand use Brooke’s arm was a bit of a whim, but it was a way to keep Brooke alive for a while longer. It was symbolic and ironic when he cut off his brother’s matching arms, and so it worked well. I’m pleased.

At the end, when Anne and Olivia were trying to escape Rivere and Lakke, I almost brought Brooke back. I even wrote some dialogue for him, but I decided shortly after that it was a bad decision. I hated that he was gone, but what good would bringing him back have done? He would have just died again shortly after. He only stayed around to help Anne, and he didn’t need more than an arm to do that. It was too much of a stretch, seemed too ridiculous, and so I couldn’t do it.

There were a few options for him, as pertained to having a happier ending, (I almost made him appear in the Land of Snow and Sweets as well) but I decided that it was unrealistic. Not everything can always turn out alright in the end, and Brooke is my puppet as far as that goes.

The Shaman

My idea for the Shaman came from my pre-written explanation of the toy world, spoken by Armand. I had that all planned out before he ever spoke it, and the Shaman was birthed from that. He was the glutton, because instead of sticking solely to the sexual themes, I wanted to have something else for those toys in order to show more faults. The Shaman’s obsession with food was messy and disgusting. Perfect. I twisted him up nicely, making him a Chinese doll and calling him Shaman and surrounding him with Christian symbols. But his main purpose was to play the prophet and give some direction.

Augustus, the Rat King:

When designing him, I tried to make him threatening from a distance and fittingly powerful up close. His character was to be the same in human and rat form, like a calm and reasonable sort of sociopath. Before I even developed the back-story of Armand, I knew that I wanted this King of Mice to be more than a simple animal. Presented in the story (and the way I read it in a summary of the ballet) I felt that the Rat was only portrayed as a beast.

How then to make him both man and beast at once?

The Mouse King was to have seven heads, and that was one thing I worked very hard to keep. I needed that. But at the same time, there had to be serious tension between him and Armand. It had to be personal so that their battle would be meaningful and not just for the sake of surviving. Making him not only the murderer of Clara, but a pedophile was enough to make it just right.

I’m proud of how he turned out, pleased with the sort of villain he became. He was man and beast, and in the end, got what he deserved.

The Setting and Time:

The original Nutcracker is set in Germany, but I placed mine in England instead. I was more familiar with that sort of setting, and by making Armand, Augustus, and Clara from Germany, I was able to mix the languages and group those characters more closely together.

The house’s system of heating ducts may or may not be a real. The idea was presented to me in a game a played a while ago called Scratches, where an old house had such a system connected with its fireplaces. It seemed realistic, and I recalled this idea while I was planning out the story, deciding it was just what I needed for the characters to move easily through the house.

The flow of time in the house is a bit strange. There may be a few inconsistencies, but I tried to cover them as well as I could. The only reason I incorporated this idea of the time slowing in the toy world is because I didn’t like the idea of this entire story happening in just a few hours. It’s supposed to be in one night, and that would only give me 5-6 hours to work with. So, I gave myself more time.

The curse of the time is not meant to be understood. Not really. I mentioned that the slowed time does not affect the normal human time, and that they just somehow do not conflict with each other. I had several ideas for how to do this, but I simply chose to say that the two times could coexist; hence how Edge was able to speak to Liam, and also how Anne could spy on the men talking in the study(even though it seemed to take them a very long time to get back upstairs). It’s not a terribly important element in the story; I just needed time to get the whole story jammed into one night without it feeling rushed.

The Ending:

Before I ever even start a story, it always has an ending. I have my starting point, and then the point that I am working toward. All else in between is just a series of steps to get me to my ending. This particular ending was planned in the same way.

The ending, in its most basic form, was that Anne went crazy after the whole ordeal, and she is locked in her cell when a bird comes to the barred window. The bird drops something inside and it happens to be a doll’s detached arm. At the sight of it, Anne completely loses control of herself…

And that is where the clarity stops.

I’ve had people tell me in the past that my stories should not have happy endings because of their twisted nature. I’ve also had many people tell me that they are grateful for happy endings after all the dark, bad happenings. This ending was designed to satisfy both. Though the ending seems happy on the surface, it is up to the reader to interpret the actual nature of how Anne ends up with Armand once again. There is option one: The way Anne’s body reacted to seeing the doll arm killed her, and when she is reunited with Armand, they are dead. Then there is option two: Anne just went completely crazy, and within her mind, she is with Armand, though, of course, it is not really him.

The Land of Snow and Sweets is either a creation of her own mind, or it is a place on some other plain that they have been given to live out their lives together: Armand, Anne, and Clara. As I said earlier, I almost put Brooke there as well, but I thought it would compromise the ending. I thought about it for a very long time, and finally decided against it. I stick with what I said about things not always turning out perfect. If Brooke was there, a reader that believed that Anne had died would change their mind and think that because Brooke was there, she was only imagining. Or a reader that believed that she had only gone insane might change their mind and think that she had died because Brooke was there and he must have been granted a soul for being so determined. I could not do that.

Also, I could not do it because of Brooke’s feelings for Anne. The three of them locked away with Brooke in a human sort of form…forever… It would not be pretty. There would be no happily ever after with that ending, and I could not kid myself with thinking it would be. That place was made for Armand, Anne, and Clara. But then again, who says that Brooke could not have inherited a soul and just gone to some other place?

Again, it is up to the reader to decide. I won’t say which one I believe, because, since I wrote it, that will make my choice more credible than the other. Accept what you will.

Pertaining to a different portion of the ending, Olivia was supposed to have died. I took the girl a long way, but, as one reviewer said, they could see no way for her to have a happy ending. Her death was to have been a blow against Armand, and the only reason I did not have Olivia’s head chopped off by the scissors was because ofreviews stating concern for the girl. No one wanted to see her die, and so I didn’t have the heart to kill her. I strained myself, but I finally worked out a way for her to have a happy ending: a second chance.

In Closing:

These were the main points I wanted to address within the commentary (at least as far as I can remember since I started it a while ago). I admit, by the time I am finishing this commentary, I have already forgotten much of what I did to bring this story together. Unfortunately, like I stated in the first paragraph, my mind has already shifted. Most of this, I took down while I was still writing it. If there’s anything that I did not talk about that you think is important, let me know and I’ll see if I can remember. hehe Once again, thank you so much for reading! It means so much to me to be able to share my hobby with others who enjoy it.

-Lani Lenore

February 11, 2007