totally doable. if you want the piece to be emotion-forward (and plot just a light scaffolding), design it like a lyrical essay with a thin narrative spine and thick interiority. here’s a practical way to build it.
Core approach
- Name your spine question: e.g., What does “indestructible” feel like from the inside? Every passage answers that emotionally, not factually.
- Four lenses, one chorus: Solly, Efrem, Marie-Thérèse, and the nephew. Give each a distinct emotional palette (see below) and let a few objects (silver rose, nail file rasp, ballet shoe, rose oil) circulate between them as leitmotifs.
Three structures that keep plot minimal, feeling maximal
- Quartet of Interior Monologues
n2–3 pages each in free indirect style. Order them so each voice refracts the last. Add a half-page overture and half-page coda from the nephew. - Session Transcript (braided)
Frame as the nephew recounting Solly’s “sessions”—not clinical facts, but emotional weather reports. Interleave with short “object notes” (customs slip, memo, handbill) to time-stamp without exposition. - Object Chorus
Each vignette begins with an object’s presence; the character’s feelings spill out. Plot arrives only as aftertaste. (E.g., we never “show” the investigation; we show Solly smelling the oil and feeling both pride and nausea.)
A 12-page emotional map (use as a beat sheet)
- 1 — Overture (nephew): Awe + unease. The scent of rose oil = memory trigger. Refrain: “What’s in the Epshteyn files?” as a feeling, not a question.
- 2 — Solly: Terror braided with cunning; the body sensation of bargaining (dry tongue, trembling thumb).
- 3 — Solly: Relief curdled by shame—“privilege” in hell. The villa as cognitive dissonance.
- 4 — Efrem: Craft-pride vs. scarcity fear; the rasp of a file as lullaby.
- 5 — Marie-Thérèse: Displacement + muscle memory; correcting posture to keep the world upright.
- 6 — Nephew: Ambivalent pride. “My uncle, the alloy.”
- 7 — Solly: Tenderness (for the living) vs. survivor guilt (for the dead). The rose dents easily.
- 8 — Efrem: Joy in durability morphs into dread of exposure—success as threat.
- 9 — Marie-Thérèse: Grace under scrutiny; dance metaphors for shame and balance.
- 10 — Nephew: The scandal enters as a temperature drop. No headlines—just the hush between neighbors.
- 11 — Turn/Reframe: Choose your truth (myth vs. method), but express it as a felt loosening/tightening in the chest.
- 12 — Coda: Quiet acceptance. The refrain returns transformed: “What’s in the files?” → “What we could bear.”
Character palettes (keep your diction consistent per voice)
- Solly: fear → wit → shame → love. Verbs of calculation and care (“weigh, temper, polish”). Long, braided sentences that occasionally snap short when guilt hits.
- Efrem: pride → anxiety → stubborn affection. Concrete nouns, work verbs (“rasp, buff, check”). Shorter beats, staccato thought.
- Marie-Thérèse: poise → sorrow → resolve. Kinesthetic diction (“lift, soften, turn out, balance”), imagery of alignment and breath. Musical cadence.
- Nephew: curiosity → ambivalence → tenderness. Observational verbs, metaphor-light but image-sharp. Dry humor that yields to hush.
Micro-craft moves that shift focus from plot to feeling
- Free indirect style: Let thoughts bleed into narration without tags (“he thought”).
- Body first: Name the sensation before the reason. (“His mouth tasted of tin; only later did he call it fear.”)
- Subtexted dialogue: What’s unsaid carries the weight.
- Syntax as ECG: Long wave for rumination, clipped beats for shock.
- White space: Let single-sentence paragraphs mark emotional turns.
- Motif recursion: Bring each object back three times; each return advances the emotion, not the story.
- Humor as pressure valve: Aim upward (bureaucracy, pomposity), never at victims; let the laugh catch in the throat.
Quick exercise kit (plug into your draft)
- Sensory dilation: Take one smell (rose oil). Write 8–10 lines where each line is a different emotion the smell unlocks. No plot allowed.
- X-ray dialogue: Two lines of speech, five lines of interior reaction.
- Object monologue: 150 words from the nail file’s perspective about how it makes people feel, not what it does.
- Timefold: One paragraph that starts with a present sensation and falls through three memories by association, then returns to the breath.
Tiny sample (nephew, emotion-first)
My uncle would polish the silver rose after lunch, two fingers and a square of cloth, and the room filled with that patient scent that forgave more than it should. I never asked about the alloy; I asked about the dent that never vanished, the way he smoothed it and accepted its refusal. He said nothing. The cloth whispered. The window hummed. In my chest, pride and shame stacked like shims, bringing me level enough to stand.