“Deepest, Darkest, Blackest Night”, End notes

[aadler]

[ Endnotes posted 26 Feb 2019 ]

Where did the idea for the story come from?

This one would have had a number of background influences, but the most prominent — and the one I actually recognize as sparking the basic idea — was a story by Cordyfan called “the Goddaughter”, which was based on the proposition that Joyce Summers was the estranged daughter of Michael Corleone. That story, too, started in the aftermath of the Cruciamentum, and the two factors (Quentin Travers facing an unexpected threat, and a ‘different side’ to the Slayer’s mother) were enough to get me thinking along new lines.

One could, of course, consider a certain foreshadowing of the same elements in my Joyce-Faith interaction that comprised the ending segment of “Echoes from the Battleground”.

Is there any particular significance to the title?

Basically I just liked the sound of it, but it unquestionably owes a debt to Agatha Christie’s novel “Endless Night”.

What is the thing I like most about this story? the thing I like least, or about which I feel most doubtful?

What I liked most is my (seeming) success in portraying the utter casualness of the sociopathic Joyce’s utter, breezy ruthlessness. No intensity there, just unfettered ego focused to its own ends. Intelligent, perceptive, analytical, pragmatic, and completely terrifying.

What I liked least … well, I didn’t actually dislike it, and it was necessitated by the story structure, but pretty much the whole thing was talk-and-‘tell’, rather than there being much in the way of action-and-‘show’. Not actually a problem here (I don’t think), but it wouldn’t do to repeat it in too many other stories.

Is there anything I think I could have done better, or might do differently if I had it to do over?

I say this a lot, which doubtless attests both to my ego and to the limits of my imagination, but I truly believe I did this story about as well as it would ever be possible for me to do it. Unquestionably it came to me very naturally and easily (which might itself say something about me, but who wants to speculate there?).

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?

The only thing that occurs to me would be if it was told from Joyce’s POV instead of Travers’s. The story would have been pretty much the same, but it might have raised some interesting differences.

Any observations to add at the end?

Only what I’ve already said in answers to other people’s comments on this one. First, I genuinely don’t know whether Joyce was running a giant bluff on Travers or if she genuinely was a remorseless suburban murderess; and second, even if the latter, I don’t know if she killed him out of pure practicality or released him for precisely the same reasons. In both cases, however, I strongly suspect the less attractive possibility. It certainly wouldn’t do to assume such a formidable woman was actually not really that dangerous …