“Down the Ringing Grooves of Change”, End notes
[ Endnotes posted 09 May 2024 ]
Where did the idea for the story come from?
Pretty simple, actually. It was time to do Summer of Giles, and so I just looked through the various movies and TV shows I knew my wife liked, then built a scenario that would put Giles into several of them. Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” (source of the line about ‘the ringing grooves of change’) is one of my favorites, so it was natural enough to set the different scenes in a series of railroad cars.
Is there any particular significance to the title?
See previous.
What is the thing I like most about this story? the thing I like least, or about which I feel most doubtful?
There really isn’t anything either way. This was a casual story for me, done for the fun of it (and to satisfy my annual Summer of Giles participation). Giles passing through time - on a series of trains - and doing his best to avoid changing the past but unaware of the ripples he’s leaving … there wasn’t any huge theme here, and there was no danger of me failing there because I simply wasn’t attempting that much.
Is there anything I think I could have done better, or might do differently if I had it to do over?
I alternated POV with Giles and the ‘other’ he was interacting with (inadvertently and unknowingly, in the case of John Bates). The basic formula was a segment with Giles POV and a brief follow-up in ‘other’ POV, then the next segment would be entirely ‘other’ POV and their awareness of Giles. I could have followed other perspectives, and probably made them work.
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?
I could have done entirely different time periods; as I said, I picked my wife’s favorites movies and TV shows, strictly as a treat to her, but I’d have followed a very different course if I hadn’t been thinking of her.
Any observations to add at the end?
Nope. Some things are just fun, and this was one of them.