Dairhenien's Library, Part 2

Confession: Sometimes, I assume what the answer is going to be before I ask the question. And so I don't bother to ask the question. And I wonder why I get disappointed?

Reading:

• "Riding the Doghouse" by Randy DeVita
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"
  

Revising:

• "The Revenant"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status (in chronological order of completion of first draft)

• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008

I got some great ideas for Ferian today. I don't want to give away too much, but let me just say that I've hit on something that I've never seen done before. Whether I can pull it off remains to be seen. And my guess is that it has been done somewhere before, and probably better, but what the hell.

Today I wanted to finish, or at least continue, my discussion of the development of Dairhenien's Library, which started last Thursday. I left it at the level of development it had when I was in college.

A group of people from throughout time had access to a place where they could, in essence, live forever. There was a single key to the Library, passed from person to person, but since the Library existed outside of time, they could all still hang out. The main character was the last to hold the key; no one else in the Library could claim that he had passed it to them. Of course, what happened to keep him from passing it along is a mystery, since those memories do not get passed on--only his memories from his last visit to the Library and before are passed onto his successor.

The number of inhabitants of the Library varied, but I eventually settled on eight. I had a difficult time deciding on names, so I described them by attributes: Fiery, the Wanderer, the Scholar, Grumpy, the Fairy, the Quiet Man, the Grandmother, and MC--the main character. His name at one point was Michael, and at another point Connor or Conor. There was to be a love triangle of sorts between Fiery, the Fairy, and the main character.

There was also a villain, whom I named Yelchierin. At first he was one of the many Library inhabitants, or Denizens as I began to call them, but as time went on, he became an outside force, who was trying to dominate the Library for his own ends. At one point, I hit on the idea that he would be disembodied, and that the Fairy would somehow awaken him, and he would take over her body. Throughout much of the story, he would be guiding her actions, and at some point, take over completely.

Another aspect that developed at this time were the Guardians, god/angel like beings who also inhabited the Library. There were six: the Earth Mother, the Fairy, the Weaver, the Sailor, the Lighthouse Keeper, and the Grave Master.

Did you notice that the Fairy was in both lists? Not an accident. You see, the big reveal was going to be that the Guardians were really the future selves of six of the Denizens. The Quiet Man became the Weaver, the Grandmother became the Earth Mother, the Scholar became the Lighthouse Keeper, the Wanderer became the Sailor, and Grumpy became the Grave Master. Fiery was frozen into a statue, and the main character was Dairhenien.

At this point, I felt I was ready to stop the conceptualizing and build a story. It began with the main character, an American student at Oxford. (Did I mention that I really wanted to win a Rhodes scholarship at this point? Damn, that would have been sweet.) He has a great apartment; his landlord is this quiet guy who lets him rent super cheap, just for doing odd and ends around the house, and errands.

One day, though, the old guy starts acting weird. They take a walk, and the old guy is about to give him something when they're attacked! The assailants run off (not sure why), and with his dying breath, the old guy gives him a key and tells him to use it in any door. Then he dies.

So our main character does... eventually. (How long it took varied.) When he does, though, he finds himself in the Library. Ta da! And who does he see inside but a much younger version of his deceased landlord. "You're dead!" cries the MC, and runs away. (Sometimes he ran out of the Library, sometimes, he got lost inside the Library.)

Regardless, he is found and his story is told. But there is consternation: that isn't how it was supposed to happen! During every other iteration of the Library there was no attack, even at that same park on that same day. Weird, huh?

And that's where the thread of narrative would peter out. I never managed to get even that far in actual writing, although I outlined that far several times. I knew in a vague sense what happened next. The concept of the Guardians coming to bestow various powers arose. The last was always the Fairy, who came to bestow the memories of previous iterations.

But I decided that so early in the story, the sort of complete personality shift that would occur by giving the main character thousands of years worth of knowledge and experience would be too confusing. Instead, there was something wrong with the Guardians! They weren't coming like they were supposed to, and everyone is freaking out. Next, Fiery arrives for her first visit to the Library, and she can't get her old memories back either. Oh look, a bond!

And then shit would happen. Just hit the fast forward button, because I never knew what it was either.

Finally, the big reveal would happen, and the bad guy would be defeated, and.... there was never a satisfying ending. In fact, that was the biggest problem with this whole setup. The Library was a fantasy... my fantasy, something I liked to daydream about, but it wouldn't serve as a vehicle for a story, not in its present form.

Not until graduate school did my mind start to open up to the other possibilities. For example, the Library was obviously a building. But what was outside?

And with that, I'm going to pause again in these reminiscences. The next post on this subject should take it as far as I want to go. After all, none of the stuff I've been talking about so far is in the finished version of the story, except the name Dairhenien, the idea of six Guardians, and the concept of a place outside of time. It wouldn't do for me to give away anything in the actual story, would it?

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3