Commentary on the Story
This story essentially wrote itself in one sitting. I awoke with the simple sentence, "Ruins seldom sleep" churning in my head, and it would not let me rest until I got that statement down, and from one thing came another, and another, and thus this story.
I wrote this somewhere between 1984 and 1987, and sent it around the publishing loop. Usually it came back with comments, rather than just the standard form letter, which is a Good Sign. I made some of the changes, and can see a few other things I'd like to change in this. In time, I will.
One suggestion made in a couple of places was that I should have made the war decidedly more of a good thing to be involved in -- that the people fighting should have more clear-cut right on their side, rather than the indefiniteness and sorrow of it as depicted in the story line. This, however, is the one change I refuse to make.
We live in a society where everything, it seems, needs must be spelled out in black and white, where wrong and right must be made crystal clear. Especially in tales of fantasy some of us seem to require this. Chara, a flawed human, finally chose to act regardless. That's part of the essence of what this story means, I think. I would play her false, and the vision behind the story, if I change this essential element.
return to ...Creations...