“Lesson the First”, End notes
[ Endnotes posted 16 Aug 2017 ]
Where did the idea for the story come from?
The central point of it comes from my own past. Many years ago, my family sold our then-home to newcomers to the state; they had a teen-aged daughter - with a heart defect - and my father privately expressed disapproval to us of the way they were orienting her to her own future. It made an impression on me (obviously, if the concept returned when my own children are quite a bit older than I was at the time), and seemed a suitable notion around which to build a story.
Is there any particular significance to the title?
Well, the younger Giles did learn a lesson. And the phrase was, in fact, used in Buffy canon. Good enough for these purposes.
What is the thing I like most about this story? the thing I like least, or about which I feel most doubtful?
Little tricky answering this one, because it was so short. (Seriously, among the fanfic stories I count as stories, there are only three shorter. That may not be definitive, but it does mean something.) Still …
Like most? The closing line, which (not typical of my normal practice) I didn’t know before I started the story. It’s not an all-time great, but it’s a pretty good last line.
Liked least? Well … it was short. And nothing really happened. I probably wouldn’t have written this story - at least not in its current form - except for an event focused on different aspects of Giles. Within that venue, it seemed decent enough.
Is there anything I think I could have done better, or might do differently if I had it to do over?
I could expand it, I suppose: more detail, more atmosphere, more depth to the recognition of just what was going on. And I might yet do just that. If I do, though, it will only be a more lavish way to get to the same point. To make it very much different, I would have to make it a very different story.
All the same, it was pretty spare. There’s no getting away from that part.
Was there a different direction I might have wanted to take the story, and what would have been some of the advantages of the not-taken path?
There indeed was. In fact, I intended to approach it from a rather different direction, with the narrative taking place within a conversational format, and a background framework that was never touched on at all in this rendering. I might someday do something that includes those original planned elements (though, necessarily, with a different subject matter and a different message and a different resolution), so I won’t go into the details. To get some general idea, however, you need only ask yourself: how would the story have been different - and how much - if Giles had been recounting essentially the same facts to someone else?
Any observations to add at the end?
The original plan for this story did not include Olivia. I don’t even remember what brought her to my mind, but once it did, it seemed just plain wrong to do it any other way. I liked her, and I’m sorry we didn’t see more of her in canon. And, if anyone can identify the place where I got the quote describing Turkish coffee, they get an immediate No-Prize. (With authentic filigree inlay if they know what a No-Prize is.)