When we first started planning the season-long story arc, Ellen Kushner wanted to avoid spending too much time in the perspective of the Duchess Tremontaine. In Swordspoint, Diane was a distant if powerful figure seen from afar; readers didn't get into her head. However, as we plotted Tremontaine, it became increasingly clear that we'd have to spend much more time with the duchess as the story progressed. One episode, in fact, would probably be entirely from Diane's point of view.
All of us writers wanted to write that episode. Who wouldn't? The duchess is one of the most intriguing characters in the cast, and the story we developed for her was explosive.
During the story summit we all negotiated for the episodes we wanted to write, but I knew from the get-go that I had to be the one to write Episode 12. While many of the writers loved the idea of writing Diane, I felt that I loved her the most. (I will still fight people on this.) Sure, she's a devious woman, and her moral code is questionable at best. But in Diane I saw a woman who had found a way to claim her own power in a culture that systematically denied her agency. She was capable of doing everything a man could do, but she had to do it while playing the role of a beautiful society wife, and never letting anyone know just how smart she was. I admired her savvy. I admired her nerve.
The fact that she might be evil only made her more exciting to write.
When it came time to divvy up the episodes, as I suspected, certain episodes went naturally to certain writers. Alaya always wanted episodes 2, 5, and 11, because they incorporated key elements of Kaab's character development, and Kaab was 100% Alaya's. Joel naturally wanted 3 in order to develop the relationship between Rafe and the duke, and he unwisely believed that writing a party in episode 7 would be fun. (I'm not sure that the rest of us tried hard enough to explain to him how difficult party scenes are.) As the rest of the episodes went to their respective writers, episode 12 remained open, as I suspected it might. The thing is, all the writers are really nice people, and I think none of them wanted to appear too selfish, since we all said we wanted to write the Diane episode.
At the end of the discussion, conveniently, I was left with one free episode. Since we hadn't yet decided on a guest author, and the penultimate episode of the season was too key to the plot to be given to someone who wasn't involved in the planning from the start, it was only natural that I take episode 12. Since everyone else had already claimed their episodes, none of them could deny that this was fitting.
Episode 12 was absolutely my favorite episode to write, which probably says something disturbing about me as a person. I hope that I have done Diane proud.
But I also hope I never meet anyone like her on a dark road — or in a drawing room.
