Episode 3: Burning Documents

SUMMARY OF SCENE

Great, now my hair is a real mess. I need a hair dresser fast. I think I have a card somewhere in my bag. I push aside the receipts and knick-knacks I've collected. It's no good. I can't find anything in here.

I pour out the contents of my purse onto the counter, papers goes everywhere. A business card floats right onto the scented candle. The lit scented candle. Oh bother. What if it gets burned? I think I have some chemicals in my purse that I can use to read what was written on the card! But I'll need to save it in time...

MY HYPOTHESIS

I didn't really have one this time. I just had the two scenarios I was interested in learning about. I suppose I thought the paper would just burn right up and you couldn't save anything really. But I really did want the Sherlock Holmes stuff (salvaging an already burned paper) to work.

ACTUAL OUTCOME

Yeah, I was wrong on both counts.

CONCLUSION OF SCENE

The burned paper disintegrated in my hand. There was no recovering it. At least it was just a small corner. I can easily read the card. Phew. Now to just get out of here.

DETAILS

The first thing I tried was throwing the paper in the fire to see if I could leap in and save it in time. I could. Only the corner was burned. That could make an interesting scene if that corner had the final location of the treasure or the name of the heir to the fortune! Otherwise, it won't cause much trouble.

I also threw a stack into the pile and left it. The pages burned from the bottom up. The ones that got left for a long time were burned on the top and bottom, but the middle pages were just burned on the edges. They were still quite readable.

As for the super sleuth attempts? Well I burned the edge of the paper and left it to burn. That was the how they did it in the last Super Sleuth movie I saw. It just burned out quickly when I set it down. When I held it up to let it burn, it crinkled in a lovely way. I'm a pyromaniac like that I suppose.

As for saving what was on the paper? It's highly unlikely to happen as the pages are so delicate they fall apart when touched or moved too quickly. A very trained specialist might be able to salvage what was on there, but he would have to be careful. Just be aware of that in your scenes.

Final detail: the ashes would blow away or rise up in the smoke, so don't expect to find much left over if the papers were left in the fire.

Thanks as always for reading. Sorry to be a little late this week. Youtube was being silly about uploading the video.

P.S. The video was edited by my assistant/husband "The Drudge," which is why the style is so different this time. He's so talented.