“the Still, Small Voice”, End notes
[ Endnotes posted 13 September 2005 ]
Where did the idea for the story come from?
This story gave me a lot of trouble. I had the basic idea a long time ago, but let it simmer in the background while I worked on other things. I wrote the first lines of what I expected to be the actual narrative while at WriterCon I (Las Vegas, July/Aug 2004), and continued to make attempts at it for the next year.
I couldn’t get it. I could write, when I sat down to write, but I never felt that the writing was getting me anywhere. It took me a long time to recognize the actual problem: I didn’t have a story, I had a situation. The situation carried enough juice that I didn’t appreciate what was lacking, but it was the lack that kept me stonewalled.
The initial concept was of a meeting between Tara’s father and Quentin Travers, wherein we would learn that things weren’t quite what we’d been led to believe. (Travers has been roundly vilified in online fanfic, and Maclay was designed as a villain.) I felt that the senior Watcher had been excessively maligned, and the straw-man treatment of Maclay by Joss Whedon - the heavy-handed presentation of oppressive male domination - annoyed me mightily. In my mind, Travers and Maclay would be discovered to constitute unwelcome but necessary limitations on our beloved heroes; hence my original working title, “Checks and Balances”.
The introduction of Father Nolan was a step I took to balance things out; three men seemed better than two, and he could operate as a sounding board for the things I wanted to bring out. That was where I stood with the initial plunge at WriterCon, and that was where I stayed for the next year. The story began to open up with the realization that they needed to be dealing with something while they worked through all these other issues; it was at this point that Tara’s cousin Beth entered the proceedings. Now I was beginning to move, but there was still something not quite right about the whole thing.
In my defense, there were a few other things going on during that year. I had surgery; I spent seven months at Fort Bragg studying Middle Eastern languages; my mother died; I went to Washington state for a month of pre-deployment training, then to Georgia for a week of training as a combat lifesaver, then back to Fort Bragg for a month of out-processing, then to Afghanistan (my current location). I had time to write, now and again, but there was the occasional distraction.
Then one night, lying in my bunk in the B-hut just before going to sleep, the thought jumped into my head: the priest is telepathic. Just like that, I had my story, the extra little element that brought things together. I said it took me a year to do this, and it’s true; also true is that the entire story as it now stands was done within three months, and 85% of it within three weeks.
I am determined that I won’t spend as long on the next one. I should have abandoned “Checks and Balances” (as I thought of it then) to do something else while the uncompleted concept matured in the back of my brain; but I didn’t, so there you are. I’ll try very hard not to make the same mistake again.
Is there any particular significance to the title?
No more than is explained in the story.
What is the thing I like most about this story? the thing I like least, or about which I feel most doubtful?
What I like most is Father Nolan, followed by the more sympathetic treatment I gave Tara’s father. Like least … for all that this story hewed beautifully to the original ‘backstage’ concept, it doesn’t seem to stand out all that well on its own. I don’t think that’s a flaw in the narrative, it just happens to be the nature of the story itself.
Is there anything I think I could have done better, or might do differently if I had it to do over?
Aside from telling a different story entirely, nothing comes to me.
Do I have any plans to follow up on this story, or to use the character(s) or situation in a subsequent fic?
As has been the case with other stories: yes. Father Nolan has been referenced in several other stories, made a non-speaking appearance in “ Echoes from the Battleground”, and played a significant role in “ Maxima Culpa”. And I have further plans for him, yes I do …
Any observations to add at the end?
Maybe a small one. The complaint Father Nolan made to Robert Maclay - about Giles making practical use of the qualities of crucifixes and holy water - mirrors a small irritation I had with the overall under-theme of the Buffyverse. Religion was never shown as a positive in that world, was generally ignored and occasionally ridiculed; the most positive religious figure I can recall seeing was a fearless but rather forbidding nun (an episode of Angel, I think, I don’t remember which one). Yet holy artifacts were shown as efficacious, with no explanation and a kind of hand-waving disregard for what the fact might signify. That rankled, over time, and - though that wasn’t its primary purpose - this story carried some of my answer to such an attitude. Joss Whedon might be an ‘angry’ atheist, but I’m not, and there’s plenty like me.