Comments | lalaithlockhart: Yuletide Fic: The Monster at the End of This Book (Haroun and the Sea of Stories)

lalaithlockhart

Yuletide Fic: The Monster at the End of This Book (Haroun and the Sea of Stories)

Dec 25, 2011 10:08

Wow! I've just gotten an utterly beautiful Yuletide giftfic for Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Ahhh, it's wonderful, and everyone should read it. The Monster at the End of This Book, by Anonymous. A story about endings.

Teaser:
Iff looked very tired and sad as he nodded. 'Khattam-Shud is the Arch-Enemy of all Stories, the Prince of Silence, the ( Read more... )

yuletide, my fic

Comments 5

jetsan_supreme December 30 2011, 03:37:58 UTC

I wish I could understand the fic - it looks like a special little story, if you get the references!

lalaithlockhart January 3 2012, 04:52:05 UTC

Salman Rushdie's book is well worth the read, and it's quick going as well! As added trivia, it was the first novel I read as a kid once I learned to read. :-)

gramarye1971 January 2 2012, 18:33:32 UTC

I'm a little late getting back to you (I don't normally reply to comments through AO3), but I wanted to thank you so much for your wonderful comment on the fic. I'm so very happy that I was able to write something you enjoyed, and I had a great time coming up with the scene. ^_^

I was originally matched with you on The Dark Is Rising Sequence, and I had an idea for a post-canon story that never fully panned out when I was writing it. But if I do manage to finish it, I'll post it on AO3 as an extra gift-fic for you!

lalaithlockhart January 3 2012, 04:50:21 UTC

Having read a little of your writing now, I'm excited to hear of this story-in-the-works and I hope that you do manage to finish it. I'm continuing to be delighted with the story that appeared, though, so thank you again. :D Perhaps you should get extra kudos if you weren't intending to write/offer for Haroun.
Just out of curiosity, what led you to come up with that scene? Was it difficult to write?
I hope you had a good YT and have a wonderful new year!

gramarye1971 January 4 2012, 16:41:25 UTC

I think that what prompted me to come up with the scene was the thought that in a land so full of stories, it was very strange that there was no story about the villain of the piece. Usually, the villain gets at least a little bit of backstory, but he was a complete cipher up until the moment of the reveal. Which makes sense, of course, in the context of the tale, but it still rang hollow in my mind. Everyone loves a good scary villain -- you need to have something or someone to cheer against in a story, in addition to characters who you cheer for. So why were there no stories about Khattam-Shud himself?

So I went with one of my personal favourite tropes, which I will have to paraphrase from C.S. Lewis, that the higher a thing is to start with, the worse it will be when it falls. The opposite number of a Destroyer of Stories could only be a Storyteller. I revised Iff's story a few times before I settled on a version that I liked (because good lord is Rushdie's prose difficult to imitate!) and that gave me a chill to think about. I ( ... )