In workshop, we talk a lot about “raising the stakes” of a story. Semyon just did this. There was a bare wire labeled “Marya” and a bare wire labeled “Peasants in a Teahouse” and electricity was coursing through each but they were laid out parallel to one another, several feet apart. Semyon, by reacting to the swearing, just crossed them. Marya and those gathered peasants had nothing to do with one another, were not in relation. Now they do, and are.
