Excerpts of notes for Carolyn Haywood’s The Angel Gabriel:
p. 8 middle If Gabriel is a freed slave, then let’s see some freedman’s papers. You can have them be in the carpet bag. Or, if he doesn’t keep them there, let’s see them on a table, and have him pick them up, fold them, and put them in his pocket.
p. 10 Here’s a good place to remind the audience that Gabriel was once a slave. Abel, out of caution and concern, can ask “Do you have your papers?” and Gabriel can tap his hand over a pocket. Abel can reiterate that Gabriel can’t afford to lose them, since they prove he’s a free man.
***General note: Gabriel needs more dialogue early on. What does he want? Has he ever tried to find his family? Do the Baxters still own them, or were his family members sold?
p. 13 below middle Definitely give Gabriel some papers. If Buck’s men steal them or destroy them, then so be it. But otherwise, I don’t feel Gabriel would risk his freedom by venturing out without them. Abel and Martha wouldn’t let him do that. Besides, there’s more drama if the papers are destroyed or stolen. It will make the audience acutely aware of the precariousness of a man’s freedom resting on having papers that prove he’s free. That’s got drama for days.
More note samples:
p. 67 I think there should be more of a commotion when Cade shoots Robbie. Some of the other men should at least try to lay hands on Cade. If you want Hoffman to still be the one to take the gun away, then he can wave off the men, and proceed to deal with Cade.
I suggest this because your action here needs a little more energy.
Also, make it very, very clear that this shooting is an accident. Otherwise, your reader is going to wonder why Cade is not in jail. Make sure this point is unambiguous.
p. 68 I like this scene, but it’s a little oblique. If Gabriel is going to destroy Sally’s means of protection (the rifle), then we have to know for certain that Gabriel’s destroying it because he doesn’t trust himself not to use it. Otherwise, Gabriel knows he’d probably seek out Cade and shoot him, if he doesn’t smash the rifle.
p. 75 I was wondering what happened to Buck. Make sure to make at least one more reference to him in dialogue before this point in the story that he’s gone off to the war.
p. 82 Before Buck says “I got a plan,” he needs to say something like “You want your land back?” to Peter. Then when Peter nods, Buck says “I got a plan.”
p. 86 Gabriel finds out off screen that Peter is alive? This cannot happen! Don’t play your big emotional moments off screen. The audience will feel cheated!
More sample notes:
--We need to see Gabriel’s handiwork at Abel’s and Martha’s home, and not be simply told he’s a great carpenter. We need to see evidence. Something like this gives the audience an appreciation for the character, even before we know much about him. His skill makes him special, and we’re going to be curious as to what he’s going to do with his talents in the course of the story.
--Gabriel can read and write, and yet when he’s at Sally’s he makes no effort whatsoever to contact Abel and Martha, or even William Battle, the man who is waiting for him in Eden. This is a story problem that needs to be addressed. I kept thinking to myself “Why doesn’t he try to contact someone?” Even if Buck steals Gabriel’s freedman’s papers, Abel and Martha would be able to vouch for him. So why hasn’t Gabriel made any attempt to get a hold of them or William Battle?
-- After Buck decides to use Gabriel to his advantage (and when you cut back to Sally’s farm, with her at the door with the shotgun), continue to play the “horse trading” on screen, as you’ve done. But make it more specifically about her horse being given over in trade. Show the transaction. It’s cold, calculating, a product of its times--and an indelible image to leave in the audience’s mind. It also gives you a “starting place” for Sally. Here’s the kind of character she is at the beginning: A young woman trapped in a hardscrabble life, bargaining and haggling for a slave to serve her purposes--completely unsentimental and practical.
That’s why we have to see this on screen, because it’s a character-establishing moment. We need to start here with Sally, so that we can see her fully and successfully arc from dirt-poor “property holder” to a young woman who falls in love with, marries, and has children with this mysterious man. She reaches the point where she will do anything to protect him. That’s quite an arc! But it has to be examined even more closely than you do right now.
We need to see Buck give Sally the bogus bill of sale, so that the audience will know that she can’t read, and that Buck, knowing that fact, is even viler than he’s already shown himself to be.
--Gabriel’s internal conflict needs to build throughout the second act. He wants to get away and go on with his life, and yet he finds he’s beginning to have feelings for this young woman. This has to be a genuine struggle for him. When he finally makes the decision to leave, it should be then that Sally tells him she’s pregnant.
--Learning he’s going to be a father must happen on screen. It’s a big moment in the story that you’ve got happening out of our view. We can’t just hear about it later. Show it!
--Does Gabriel ever have a yearning to find his mother and sisters? After his childhood, they are never mentioned! I think word about them and their fates, whatever has happened to them, needs to be known by the audience. Gabriel wasn’t an infant when he was taken away. He remembers them. As a grown man, he’d want to know where they are, and what happened to them--and so will we.
--You have room to expand, so don’t be reluctant to do so. For instance, I mentioned the scene after Sally’s leg is broken in the plowing accident. Play this bone-setting scene on screen. Yes, it will be disturbing because of Sally’s agonized screams, and the visuals of the actual procedure. But it will be so darned dramatic, you cannot possibly pass this up!
Despite some structural problems in your story, many scenes in your script, especially in the second act, are excellent. There’s nothing out of kilter here that you can’t fix, because the world of your story is so rich and full of possibilities.
A quick reminder: Do not play the following scenes off screen. We need to see them, because they are absolutely loaded with drama:
--The “horse-trading” scene (show the complete transaction)
--The bone setting scene
--Sally tells Gabriel she’s pregnant
--Sally tells Gabriel that her husband Peter is alive