Every year, I like to write a little postscript to my September Series posts — something that, while it might be congruent with them in some way, is nonetheless a digression.
This year, given that the Series has been comprised entirely of creative works by me, I wanted to do something a little different, and something a little self-indulgent — I wanted to write up a few comments on each piece, to explain something of their origins and what I was interested in working with.
This is, of course, a wholly unnecessary exercise in many ways. Ideally, each piece should really say everything it needs to say in the piece itself, and any attempt to explain things will either reveal a weakness in the work, or reveal nothing at all.
Nonetheless, I wanted to do so, for a few reasons. First and foremost, it felt like a useful exercise for me. I do think it’s good for me to pick apart my own choices and ideas, and that that sort of reflection helps me to realise and spot things that I might not have otherwise. It may not make these stories better (and risks making them worse), but it can (and, I think, does) help me develop my own writing in the future.
It is, in short, not only self-indulgent, but also self-serving.
But while I’ll do my best not to talk about the stories themselves, I did want to talk around the stories a little, as it were. See, each of them was very consciously written in a mode that I enjoy and want to develop, and on material that is in some way meaningful and interesting to me. And that sort of thing may not necessarily come out in the final product.
Self-indulgent? Undeniably. But hopefully there is something of moderate interest there for you, especially if you particularly enjoyed (or particularly disliked) one of the tales.
So, without further ado, here’s my commentary on the three short stories that have comprised this year’s September Series — enjoy!
- The Cottage at the Edge of Night
- A Brief Discourse Between Sirs Gawain & Bors Upon the Conclusion of a Feastday
- The Steps of Dàin
The Cottage at the Edge of Night
Strictly speaking, this story is a little bit of a cheat, in more ways than one. In terms of its style and effect, I was really hoping to emulate a classic fairy tale flavour from it — to give it the feel of some half-forgotten and oft-reworked folk legend. I really love writing in that “folk tale” mode, though little of it has been published here, and as such, knew that I wanted to include something in that direction in this series.
Fairy tales and folklore are great loves of mine, and I do love to write in their idiom, so that might seem justification enough for this story’s inclusion, but the truth of the matter is that its origin and inspiration are from a very different sphere — namely, the world of D&D and of RPGs.
In fact, this story was also the only one of the three that I had already written before September — it dates all the way back to the beginning of the year, when it was told during my D&D group’s annual New Year party. Every year, we tend to get together for a social catch-up, a shared meal, all that sort of thing — but I like to sprinkle in a little story beat or bit of gameplay as well.
At the beginning of this year, the group found a mysterious old man calling himself the Soothsayer in their quarters. He told them a poem (with a verse concerning each individual member), and then this story, before vanishing into thin air. On the face of it, it was simply a weird encounter with an inexplicable being…but a few of the more perceptive members of the group quickly realised that the story’s also tied back to what has become the overarching mystery and problem of the entire campaign thus far: the Weeping God.
I’ve previously written on my love for RPGs (and indeed, referenced several crew members of The Happy Hedgehog in that post), and so it felt fitting to include a piece drawn from that world for this series of stories. But I didn’t want to feature something drawn directly from the events of our games, as that is a story that I honestly have very little hand in writing — it is the actions of the players that drive those stories. And besides, the events of our games would be, I suspect, almost entirely impenetrable without a crash course on the Wilderisles, the Silent King, the Silver Fleet…you get the idea.
Luckily, I had this story all ready to go, a story that is itself a story for the characters of our little RPG group. In this way, it is disconnected from the actual RP that we are doing, which should make it approachable to an external reader. Yet simultaneously, it is a story within a story: a story with meaning and thematic resonance to the roleplayed story that we are building up together.
As such, it felt like a risk to share it here, stripped of its context. For the players have learnt more about the Weeping God now — but not everything. And my duty as a DM trumps my duty as a blogger — I will not reveal anything further about how this story may or may not connect to the story unfolding through the players here.
But honestly? I kinda like that it’s presented here without context.
After all, we’re missing so much context for nearly all stories that we now know and tell and retell. There are so many beloved stories that have had their contexts stripped away, or reinterpreted, or abandoned, or deliberately warped — why not this one? Why not present it “as it is” and see what (if any) effect it has? I am sure, to be clear, that it will always “mean” something more to my brilliant little group of D&D players, because it is undeniably written for them.
But I think it can also serve as a small glimpse into the stories that we’re telling together…a fragment of a glimpse into the whole. And as Tolkien argues in On Fairy Stories, is that not true of every story? That this one is a story within a story simply heightens that premise.
So, there you have it. The Cottage at the Edge of Night is a story told for a story, that was never told to be told to you (unless you’re one of the aforementioned Hedgehog crew members and happen to be reading — in which case, hi! seeya on Thursday for a session, hopefully?) and that itself tells a part of a story that you’ll likely never be told. And even with all that? I’m pretty darn happy with it as a story, in and of itself.
Two more things, briefly. The title was the first thing I came up with — I liked the turn of phrase, and everything else stemmed from that title. I know a lot of people dislike writing titles, and I used to be one of them — but I’ve found them not only easier in recent years; I’ve also found that very often, my stories stem from them. Nearly all of the stories I’ve written here over the last two years arose from a title…as well as several stories that are not here.
As for the ending of the story, this arguably does only work in its original context, as a monologue delivered within a story. But in its original context? It is incredibly important. And I’m quite fond of the line that “This story is true, as all stories are”…it is, perhaps, a misleading (or at least an extremely easily misinterpreted) line, but I think it works for what I wanted it to deliver.
A Brief Discourse Between Sirs Gawain & Bors Upon the Conclusion of a Feastday
If the first story was for my D&D friends, and the last was for my Tolkien friends, then this one is either for me, or my family — I am not entirely sure which it is yet.
Growing up, Arthurian legend was a huge part of my childhood and my early exposure to story. I loved and love that entire corpus of myths, and eagerly devoured all manner of tellings and retellings of those stories. As such, it felt fitting to return to it and to try and work through some ideas that I was broadly interested in through that lens.
As for the scene itself, in some ways, it’s relatively typical of me at this point. I love dialogues, I love slow conversations, and I love debate and doubt between characters in those conversations. I’ve written several such pieces before (The Last Dragon and The Confession of Mr Scrooge being, I think, among my better pieces in general) and knew that I wanted to include one such piece in this collection.
I deliberately elected not to lean too closely upon any single source or any single interpretation in writing this story. Is that lazy and unscholarly? Undeniably so. But it was also a choice on my part, for the sake of allowing the story to live in its own little world, as it were. If I were pushed to it, it probably takes the most from Malory and Geoffrey, but with a healthy dash of White as well. I briefly considered trying to match a more antiquated tone — but honestly? I like the familiarity and comfort of a White-style voice. And I feel like that opened the story up to explore some of the doubts and ideas that I was interested in — I may not love everything in White’s Arthurian work, but one cannot deny how effectively he studies his own visions of these characters.
As for my choice of subjects, both Bors and Gawain fascinate me as figures in the Arthurian legends. As such, I always knew that it was these two that I would focus on, though elements of their characters only emerged as I went.
Bors in particular intrigues me. He perhaps isn’t my favourite of the Grail knights (that would have to be Perceval), but in a lot of ways, I think he might be the most interesting of them. His role following the Grail quest intrigues me, and it felt like there was potential there to be explored.
But it was also tricky to strike a balance, in that it was very easy to write Bors as being “right” about everything (and Gawain, as a consequence, as coming off as a brute and a buffoon). In the end, I hope that some sort of satisfying balance was achieved — on the one hand, it is not engaging reading if Bors is constantly sanctonomious and enlightened, and one does want Gawain to challenge him. But on the other hand…well, he is a Grail knight, and if that means he gets the last word more often than not, I do not think that that is unreasonable.
Something that only emerged late in my own writing of the story was a parallel between Gawain and Lancelot (passionate, loyal, prone to hasty judgements) and Bors with Arthur (reserved, authoritative, and afraid to wield that authority). It’s something I’d want to draw out more if I were to revisit and rework the piece — and I suspect I will, as I think that of all the entries here, this is the one that could still be taken much, much further.
I’d love to develop several ideas in this piece further — Bors’ mixed feelings about the Grail quest, Gawain’s discomfort around Perceval and Galahad, the paralleling of each with Arthur and Lancelot…and, most of all, the idea of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. That final premise really interests me, and I do think that the dilemma of Arthur’s marriage is a great illustration of that — like, none of Arthur, Lancelot or Guinevere do deal with that situation appropriately, and yet the entire Round Table ends up having to side with one or another of them. It’s such a great bit of ambiguity to me, and I think I could have explored it more here.
So, if anything, while I am deeply pleased with this piece, it is also arguably still a draft — a good draft, I hope! But a draft pointing toward something that I think can still be iterated upon.
One final tidbit: when I was mapping out this year’s September Series, I wasn’t sure if I would write and include this piece at all. I knew I wanted to include Cottage (as I am lazy and it was already written) and Dàin (as it was a poem and Middle-earth), but I was seriously tossing up between this one and another piece that is as of yet unwritten, but very clear in my mind.
I think I chose the right option, in the end, for several reasons. But I do intend to write up Mr Janssen Visits His Lawyer sooner or later.
The Steps of Dàin
I mean, I couldn’t entirely forgo Tolkien, right?
This piece was the last one that I wrote, but was the first of the three that I conceived of — nearly a year ago, if my notes are anything to be relied upon (they are not).
However, I am, alas! a fairly unconfident and unpracticed poet — it’s an art that really passed me by for many many years, and it’s only been in the last 6-7 years that I’ve started to properly understand and appreciate it. As such, I write relatively little poetry, though I do think it’s worthwhile to try, and it tends to be erratic. In the case of this piece, I had the basic idea for it a year ago, and then intermittently figured out things like structure and tone here and there. When I decided to actually sit down and finish the thing, I’d probably written about 25% of it in fragments and ideas…but it had been ruminating for long enough that the rest came together in a couple of days.
As for that genesis of the piece itself, it undeniably rises from two distinct sources. The first is also the easier to explain, as evidence for it is on this very blog — I love Dàin, plain and simple. One of the very first posts I wrote for the blog was an expression of how much I love the character; and in a lot of ways, this poem is nothing more than a revised and (hopefully) rather more thoughtful expression of that same love.
In particular, I was interested in illustrating what I think to be one of the character’s finest qualities — his skill at judgement. Given how little he impinges upon the Legendarium, it is notable to me that in every appearance, he ends up weighing up some decision and choosing well every time.
The Battle of Azanulbizar is such a good illustration of that prudence, in that it feels entirely “right” that Dàin should have entered Moria at that moment. He is young, he is skilful, he is warlike. He has just slain Azog and thus fulfilled a Dwarvish vengeance that has seen thousands die, and now he stands upon the threshold of his people’s ancestral home, an army at his back and an axe in his hand. It’s this moment of unmitigated triumph, and it would make sense for the youthful and rash Dwarf-lord to enter Moria.
And…he doesn’t. Whatever he sees beyond the gate, it convinces him that now is not his moment. He is content with his triumph, and lets it be. It’s such a great moment, honestly — and is complemented beautifully by the end of his life, when it would be easy for him to lay down or retreat, but he stands and fights to the bitter end, winning time for Erebor to fortify itself against the Easterlings.
And again, his life is marked again and again by these moments of choice in which he excels. The distribution of the wealth of Erebor. The messenger of Sauron. Dàin, in short, absolutely rules. Dwarves rule. And hence this piece — a celebration of a desperately uncelebrated character, and an attempt to demonstrate why I admire him so.
The other complementary inspiration arose from a (sadly somewhat dormant) creatives group that I am a member of. The Other Hands and Minds group has genuinely been the best space that I’ve ever been a part of for critical and creative feedback. As its name suggests, it is a space for mostly Tolkien-adjacent writing and artistic work, but it has been an excellent place for all manner of creative feedback and discussion, too. I’ve actually had a few of my pieces read through and commented on by members of that group before publishing them here (The Passing of Joy and The Coming of Bilbo to Rivendell, for example), and as such, including a piece that was inspired by the work of that forum in this series felt fitting.
So there you have it! For the none of you who were clamouring for some sort of commentary on my writing, there it is — but, in all earnest: I do hope that there may be something of some interest in all that waffle. And again, I do genuinely find it useful for my own sake to sort through something of my own thought processes.
And this does mark an official (and very late) close to this year’s September Series. But there may be one more post-postscript yet, too…keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks! And as always, thank you for joining me for this year’s Series — I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next!
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