Between Cues and Conscience
Join the conversation! Readers are sharing their thoughts:
About the Story
In a small community theatre, a seasoned lighting technician must reconcile professional boundaries with personal stakes when a staged family moment threatens to become spectacle. Tense technical fixes, oddball props, and a near disaster force repairs in rigs and relationships alike—hands, not headlines, shape the fallout.
Chapters
Story Insight
Between Cues and Conscience follows Harper Lowe, a seasoned lighting technician who returns to a small community theatre to run a production that has quietly entangled itself with her private life. The play’s intermission cue is labeled SISTER, a practical slip of tape that quickly reads like a summons. Harper’s work—wiring dimmer banks, tensioning safety cables, setting followspots—is presented as a craftsman’s language for confronting what it means to be seen. Backstage details are tactile and immediate: the hiss of gels, the burn of a fresnel, the sticky curl of gaffer tape, a vendor’s sesame buns drifting in through the loading bay, and a cast of eccentrics (an ambitious director, an exuberant retiree with an inflatable crocodile, a young apprentice) who bring both levity and pressure. Small, absurd touches—rubber ducks, a theatre cat claiming a coil of cable—puncture the tension and humanize a workplace where technical choices have moral consequences. The novel treats profession as metaphor: Harper’s expertise in mechanics and light becomes the lens through which ethical questions are explored. The narrative spends time in the mechanics—analog dimmer desks that bloom under a practiced thumb, the precise choreography of safety grips and clevis pins, the sound of a chain hoist finding its teeth—because those details matter to how decisions are made. The psychological pressure builds not from a single revelation but from recurring choices: when is it right to adjust an audience’s focus, and when does shaping light become shaping a life? That tension grows into a crisis when the theatre’s scenic machinery begins to fail during a charged performance. The central moral problem is resolved through action: Harper must use the very skills that have kept her emotionally distant—manual rigging, technical improvisation, steady hands—to intervene. The climax is tactile and immediate, not a tidy confession; it emphasizes competence and responsibility over dramatic exposure, and it shows how practical mastery can be a form of care. This is a quietly intense psychological novel that balances technical exactitude with warmth and dark humor. It will appeal to readers drawn to stories that find drama in work, where the workplace is a moral arena and small rituals—tea in the wings, a shared joke, a training session—carry weight. The emotional arc moves from guarded isolation to cautious connection: mentorship, damaged family ties, and a slow rebuilding of trust are all rendered in gestures and tasks as much as in conversation. Where the novel is unusual is in its refusal to make spectacle the answer; instead it asks what steadiness, repair, and practical generosity can do for people. The prose pays attention to how a skilled person thinks—measured decisions, tactile problem-solving, and the calming influence of routine—so the story offers both an intimate portrait of a technician’s life and a thoughtful inquiry into how control, visibility, and responsibility intersect in everyday work.
Related Stories
The Unfinished Self
A memory researcher returns to an apartment threaded with anonymous cues—notes, a hidden drive, a photograph with one face torn away—and discovers a box that points to a missing woman named Alina. As she follows the evidence through recordings, storage units, and a reluctant clinician, she must decide whether to restore a partitioned past or preserve the survival it created. The tone is tight and intimate, with procedural detail and the slow anxiety of someone piecing together a life they may have harmed.
The Echo Box
After a letter from her childhood self surfaces, a 29-year-old designer returns to a sealed harbor warehouse. With a night guard’s keys and a scientist friend’s grounding tricks, she confronts a celebrated clinician and the echoes that shaped her, rebuilding a room where listening belongs to the listener.
The Hollow Between
Evelyn Cross returns to her childhood home to settle her mother's estate and discovers artifacts—tapes, a child's shoe, and a retouched photograph—that unsettle memory and community. Tension rises as official records reveal edits, neighbors offer contradicting recollections, and therapeutic techniques blur truth. As investigations reopen and loyalties fray, Evelyn must choose how much of the past to turn over to law and how much to keep within the house's fragile private life.
The City of Stitched Memories
In a near-future city where memories are catalogued and edited, a young archivist receives an unclaimed reel that tugs at a missing part of his past. As he traces a blue-stitched seam through alleys and vaults, he confronts institutional erasure and the choice to restore what was cut away.
Unwritten Hours
In a quiet apartment full of small objects, Evelyn discovers recordings and notes in her own hand documenting actions she doesn't remember. As timestamps and witnesses accumulate, she must confront evidence that fractures identity and forces a choice between erasure and responsibility. The tone is intimate, uneasy, and searching.
A Locksmith's Guide to Crossing Thresholds
On a wet morning in a close-knit mid-rise, a locksmith named Sam navigates an urgent moral test: respect residents' privacy or use his unique skill to intervene. A child's locked bathroom forces a decisive, professional action that reshapes a neighborhood's rituals and Sam's place within them.
Other Stories by Selene Korval
Frequently Asked Questions about Between Cues and Conscience
What is Between Cues and Conscience about and who is the central protagonist ?
A focused psychological drama about Harper, a seasoned lighting technician. The plot follows her practical work backstage as it collides with a labeled intermission cue tied to her estranged sister, forcing moral and technical choices.
How does the theatrical profession function as a metaphor in the story ?
Stagecraft—lighting, rigging, and maintenance—stands in for control and visibility. Harper’s technical decisions mirror ethical decisions about exposure, showing how workmanship can shape what others are allowed to reveal.
What role do technical skills and practical action play in resolving the climax ?
Technical competence is central: Harper physically intervenes using manual chain hoists, rigging fixes and electrical work to stop a failing scenic battement, proving action and expertise, not revelation, resolve the danger.
Is the story driven more by family drama, professional ethics, or mechanical failure ?
It balances all three: family history supplies emotional stakes, ethical dilemmas steer choices about exposure, and a mechanical failure raises immediate physical peril—together they tighten the psychological tension.
Are there elements of humor or absurdity, and how do they affect the tone ?
Yes. Absurd props (an inflatable crocodile, rubber ducks) and small backstage mischief provide comic relief, humanize the ensemble, and prevent the drama from becoming overwrought while underscoring everyday resilience.
Do I need theatrical or technical knowledge to enjoy the book ?
No. Technical details are explained through action and lived practice, not jargon. The story emphasizes human consequences and workplace rituals, making it accessible to readers who enjoy ethically driven dramas.
Ratings
I wanted to love this more than I did. The setting and technical detail are commendable — the author clearly knows their theatre stuff — but the story falls into a few predictable grooves. The staged family moment's slide toward spectacle feels telegraphed early on; the near-disaster beats play out exactly as you'd expect from the setup. That predictability undercuts the psychological tension it aims for. Characters also drift close to archetype: Harper is the stoic pro, Arthur the rehearsed director, Pavel the eager-inept assistant. They're likable, but I wanted sharper surprises or deeper internal reckoning. The prose is good, and a few lines (the gaffer strip hiss, the curry popcorn) are memorable, but overall the plot resolves a bit too neatly for a story billed as psychological complexity. Slightly disappointed.
Tight, confident, and weirdly tender. The author knows theatre life — from the smell of hot metal to the ritual of knotting a safety cable — and uses that knowledge to build real psychological pressure. Harper's competence is magnetic; you want to root for someone who remembers the 'shape of the dimmer bank.' The pacing holds: small, tense tech fixes escalate into a moral question about spectacle vs. care. I appreciated the unshowy mentorship moments — not sermons but hands-on corrections. Recommend for anyone who likes their psychological fiction with practical know-how and dark humor.
This story is the kind of small, precise psychological fiction that lingers. The author trusts the reader with details that do double duty — a gaffer strip's hiss becomes a reprimand; a spare bulb is both literal preparedness and symbolic hope. Harper is a quietly fierce protagonist: her economy of motion, her ritualistic 'you're late' — these gestures tell you more about her than exposition ever could. Structurally, I admired how the backstage technical crisis mirrors the ethical dilemma. When the staged family moment threatens to become spectacle, the physicality of the technicians' repairs (safety cables, dimmer adjustments, oddball prop improvisation) reads like moral triage. The theatre is a community, and the story gets that in its bones: mentorship isn't lofty speeches, it's showing up to thread a cable twice and explaining why it matters. The psychological core is lean but potent. Harper's internal negotiation — maintaining professional boundaries while feeling the personal stakes — is handled without heavy-handedness. Arthur and Pavel are well-placed contrasts: Arthur's director-as-expectation posture versus Pavel's earnest, accident-prone goodwill give the narrative tension without caricature. If I have a small quibble, it's that the climax (the near disaster) resolves with a speed that privileges closure over messiness. But maybe that's the point: hands, not headlines, shape the fallout — a tidy, morally satisfying line in a story that otherwise revels in the backstage grit. Either way, I'll be thinking about that curry popcorn for days. A thoughtful, atmospheric piece that respects craft and human foibles.
Okay, I laughed out loud at the theater's curry-dusted popcorn — what a gloriously weird detail. 😅 But the book isn't just quirks and props; it's sly about the ethics of performance. Harper's hands do the talking (literally fixing rigs and metaphorically repairing relationships), and that motif stuck with me. I also appreciated the dark humor threaded through tense moments — the tarpaulin-and-tape image of Arthur is absurd and sad simultaneously. If you're tired of melodrama, this is like a balm: sharp, funny, and humane. Solid cast, good pacing, and yes, those stage mechanics are gloriously nerdy in the best way.
Short and lovely. The opening — Harper hauling the last road case while rain drums on the corrugated roof — is cinematic in two sentences. I appreciated the small comic touches (popcorn dusted with curry?) that stop the piece from getting too solemn. The story treats backstage work as moral labor, which felt fresh. It breezes past some plot edges but the characters, especially Harper, are so sharply drawn that I didn't mind. A quiet winner.
As someone who's spent a few summers in community theatre tech, I can't overstate how convincing the technical bits are here. Safety cables threaded twice, spare bulbs tucked in tool bags, the dimmer bank described as an old analog 'fudge of warmth' — those are specific, believable touches that lift the entire story. Beyond authenticity, the author uses those details to do thematic work: the tedious, exacting labor of tech work stands in for moral and emotional responsibility. The tension around the staged family scene is paced well; the near-miss with the rig isn't just spectacle, it's a lesson in mentorship, boundary-setting, and ethics. The prose can be spare but it hits the right notes, and Arthur and Pavel make convincing foils to Harper. Highly recommended for anyone who likes psychologically rich, craft-forward fiction.
This story landed on me slower than the rain in that opening scene — and then it soaked right through. Harper is written with such patient, physical detail (the way she negotiates weight with shoulders and hips; the gaffer strip that hisses like admonishment) that you feel every tech movement as a moral choice. I loved how the backstage smells — cable, hot metal, popcorn dusted with curry — became almost a character, grounding the psychological stakes in sensory specificity. The moral tension around staging a family moment turning into spectacle is handled with real care: the near-disaster repairs to rigs mirror the repair work Harper has to do to relationships and boundaries. The ending (hands, not headlines) stayed with me. This is quiet, sharp, and full of empathy — a rare combo in psychological fiction.