Not all manic pixie dream girls dance in the rain

Rewriting the rain scene for an autistic main character

The rain scene

The main character smiled. She was outside, standing in beautiful green grass wearing cute yellow overalls and tan sandals. A handsome man was almost holding her hand as they walked across a busy park, talking about their work morning and not about their feelings for each other. It was gloriously thrilling.

Or it would be if it wasn’t for the rain.

She tried very very very hard not to imagine the coming rain. But it was like the large machine at the optometrist’s office, the one the doctor assures you isn’t going to puff air into your eye but your eye keeps blinking anyway.

She couldn’t NOT imagine what was coming.

The rain scene of this book was coming.

It was going to rain ON her.

On her cute everyday clothes. And the clothes would get wet and drag on her skin.

And then the scene wanted her to go to work afterwards! No “stop by home for dry clothes” transition scene or “buy surprisingly cute replacement clothes at Target” so she could change into something warm and skin-pleasant.

And, even worse, she had to pretend she enjoyed it all.

Ugh.

She checked that she was still smiling as the pair passed a little girl fetching a stick for her dog.

“Stop.” Big sigh. “Just stop.”

The weary voice cut through the scene and the cheery day froze for a moment and then dissolved into nothingness, leaving the main character alone in the author’s head.

The author put down her thinking pen and sighed. “Okay MC” — MC as in “Main Character” abbreviated for convenience — “What’s going on? You like running in the rain, remember? You’re free spirited and all that.”

MC stayed quiet and waited to hear what else the author wanted her to like so she could do it better.

“Your love interest thinks it’s cute, that’s the whole point of this scene. So we all learn how quirky you are and he falls in love with you more and the audience thinks you two are adorable.”

MC was dangerously close to snarling. Before she could stop herself, she asked “Well then why doesn’t he run in the rain too? Why is it just me?”

The author tapped her pen once on the table, hard. “Because he doesn’t do that. At least until you do it and then he learns to let go literally and figuratively in life. This scene is a part of his character development.”

Can the author see me snarling in her mind’s eyes? MC wondered. Aloud, she said “Well I don’t do that either. Run in the rain, I mean. I actually hate getting my clothes wet like that. It feels…” she shuddered “like nails on a chalkboard.”

The author stared at her pen. “Huh.”

She’d heard of characters surprising authors but this was more than she bargained for. “So…no dancing in the rain?”

“No.”

“What about singing?”

“No.”

“One cute twirl?”

“No!”

The pen dropped to the floor. The author stared at her laptop screen now, at the sentence “And the rain fell as she danced and twirled.”

MC managed not to roll her eyes at this basic sentence. There was no point in antagonizing her author more than necessary.

The author rested her forehead on the keyboard. “Ugh, then what do I write to show your love interest how lovable and quirky you are??”

“Oh hmm!” MC pretended to think aloud. “Maybe I can just be my own self who doesn’t dance in the rain fully clothed? Look, you don’t have to totally scrap it. Can I at least have a bathing suit on? Maybe it’s the end of a beach day and we happen to get stuck in the rain wearing the right clothes for getting wet.”

The author closed her eyes, imagining the new scene (and trying to ease a sudden headache). “I don’t know…”

“And then!” MC is excited now. “And then we can go swimming IN THE RAIN! That’s weird enough right? You’re going for weird, right? Or just cliches?”

The author’s eyes popped open.

MC winced. She didn’t mean to say that part out loud. “Oh, did I say cliches? Out loud? I meant, uh don’t you want to be different? Quirky and special? So your book is different?”

The author’s head still rested on her keyboard. She thought about rewriting the scene. Hmm, maybe she could keep the rain and add…oh, yes that could work.

The author sat up. “Okay, what about this?”

The book signing

The author smiled up at the teenage girl across the table, holding her book and wriggling like she would be jumping if she was outside and not in front of a long line of book fans at the local bookstore.

“I loved this character!” The teenage girl squealed. The older woman next to her — mom? aunt? — lightly tapped her shoulder and the squeal downshifted to a lower volume. “I mean, I identified so much with Paloma!”

Yes, Paloma is the MC’s name.

The author smiled bigger. “What did you most identify with?”

“I hate getting my clothes wet in the rain too! I like that she always carries a poncho around.”

The poncho was the key to the new rain scene. It was navy blue with tiny yellow suns printed on it. The navy blue background meant it didn’t show dirt and the yellow suns encouraged “brightness and cheer so rainy days don’t feel so yucky”.

The girl was still talking.

“And when they get stuck in the rain at the park she pulls it out to put it on and Ned’s like ‘What’s that for?’ and she’s like ‘So I don’t get wet’ and he can’t believe he misjudged her and thought he knew everything about her but was wrong and needs to know more. Oh and I got a poncho too now!”

The older woman tapped the new book in the girl’s arm and the girl held it out. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot, can you sign my book?”

The author signed her name, pretending to be so busy she couldn’t hear her star character Paloma shout “Yes! The poncho is genius!”

The author handed the book back to the wriggly teen. “I’m so glad you enjoyed that. You have no idea how hard it was to write that scene.”