“Hell for Leather”, End notes
[ Endnotes posted 18 Jun 2024 ]
Where did the idea for the story come from?
It was a notion I’d had any number of years ago, from before I started writing Buffyfic: people in a desert race, fighting to beat each other to the site of a world-ending threat, even though stopping it would have involved dying. Given the character of the core Scoobies, it was easy enough to see them in those roles.
Is there any particular significance to the title?
Only the obvious: the main meaning of the phrase (denoting all-out reckless speed), and the suggestion of underlying threat (“hell”).
What is the thing I like most about this story? the thing I like least, or about which I feel most doubtful?
Liked best: two things, actually. First, the snarking at Dawn for her success in being ‘first to die’. Second, the interplay between the Key and Illyria. (Especially the final line: Right. You just keep telling yourself that.
Most doubtful: Did I provide enough justification for the otherwise uncharacteristic suspicion of Giles by the Scoobies? He was hiding something, or trying to (the fact that whoever reached the vortex first would die in nullifying it, and his determination that he’d be the one to do that), and the implication of moods being affected by the phenomenon’s emanations. And, till the story reached the point of explaining exactly why everyone was acting against everyone else, I needed a reason (or quasi-reason) for their seeming antagonism. I just have to wonder if someone not-me really got what I was trying to put across without actually saying it.
Is there anything I think I could have done better, or might do differently if I had it to do over?
It could have been done from varying perspectives, of course. That’s always a possibility. Besides that, rather than let the reason for their behavior come out only gradually, I could have put in a straight narration, and follow it out in a strictly linear fashion. It could be made to work as a story … but, in my opinion, not as well.
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?
Along with using individual points of view, I could have shown each Scoobie taking out another only to be taken out in turn by the next, rather than staying strictly with Dawn’s perspective and having her be the one to defeat all of them in sequence. It would have been trickier and taken more work, but could possibly have been as (or more) effective.
Any observations to add at the end?
Just that I wasn’t really sure how to resolve the story till I thought of bringing in Illyria. Her presence not only allowed Dawn - or whoever might have cut in ahead of her at the last moment - to survive, it made it possible to have some genuinely funny moments at the end. That last bit is what makes me smile whenever I think of this one, or re-read it.