Work Text:
The First Sight and Second (sometimes third) Thoughts that witches in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld have, is quite similar to having a very good inner editor (and fact checker). Except that their ability is not limited to editing words, it can reach out and edit the world itself ...
There's a story in there:
The protagonist would be a middle aged woman, single, with more cats than lap, despite having enough middle-age spread to make for a bigger than usual lap... She's an editor by trade; freelances and works part-time for whatever publisher will give her manuscripts (and money). Like most folk who care about words she's oft depressed by the state of public communication. She's not often invited out, and she believes it's 'cause her favourite topics of conversation run the gamut from the Oxford comma to the proper usage of semi-colons ... She's never quite certain whether that's more sad 'cause no one else seems to understand how fascinating punctuation can be ... or because she herself is unable to fathom other folks interest in sports or celebrities.
Perhaps because of her lack of a social life, perhaps merely because she lives very much in her head, she frequently day-dreams of bigger and better things ... though she's quite well aware that her idea of bigger and better is, perhaps, somewhat idiosyncratic. She has not yet found anyone else whose idea of bigger and better starts with being granted the ability to point (discretely) and whisper a magic phrase (she's fond of “Puddlestone & Hullum” ... though she's also learned the people will laugh if she uses the phrase instead of swearing) and have the object pointed at instantly correct itself both orthographically and grammatically.
Despite her occasional loneliness, she is not an unhappy person. She takes small enjoyments where she finds them, and, for instance, is vastly amused that if she puts all the emphasis on the first author and almost entirely elides the second, she can use “Strunk & White” as a curse without anyone finding it peculiar. She edited a linguistics text once, and suspects that if she remembered more of it she could likely write a short article on the use of the voiceless velar plosive –or plosives in general– in common English obscenities.
Although she lives a life extraordinary in its moderation, she does admit to having one small weakness ... almost an addiction. She is a collector of pens.
For her, any new editing job requires the purchase of a new pen. Favourites are kept neatly arranged and organized by writing feel, and ink colour. On rare occasions when she finds herself stuck for a solution to some junior author's linguistic misunderstandings, the correct pen for the situation will allow her to sort the author out.
“New pen” does not, however, mean that she spends hours in stationery stores. Well, she does, but not specifically looking for pens. All that is required for “new” is that it be new to her ... several of her favourites were found in garage sales or flea markets or any of the similar feedlots where unwanted chattels go to get cleaned up, price tagged and sold on to new owners. Such shops come and go fairly quickly in the Big City, so she has developed a habit of keeping an eye out during her daily peregrinations and stooping rapidly to catch any new shop before its stock is picked clean.
Some shops exist only to sell one item to the person who most needs it ... or, perhaps, who in using it will create the most chaos. There is a certain sense of narrative, that accosts the shopper who finds – where no shop existed the day before – a mysterious Emporium, larger on the inside than the out, filled with curiosities, technologies sufficiently advanced to appear magical, and magic sufficiently disguised to appear technological. Unfortunately even if the sense of narrative is overwhelming, it does not neatly label itself as to whether the protagonist's fate is to inspire the aspirations of others, or merely to serve as a stern example of what one should not do.
Our protagonist is neither stupid nor unfamiliar with the breadth of consequences available in folk tales, myths and fantasy; she recognizes narrative causality when it sweeps her up; she knows she has a choice when it deposits her gently in front of a display of the most interesting pens she has ever seen. Whether or not the shop will be there the next day is immaterial. The shop keeper – a properly wizened little person of uncertain gender and eccentric clothing choices – is in no hurry to make a sale. And the pens are gorgeous.
The shop keeper has set out largeish scraps of paper of different weights and porosity for testing, and all the pens that require refills are refilled, while those that require ink contain it. She is a bit surprised at that, it would not occur to her to keep full fountain pens on display – she would expect the ink to dry or clog – but the shop keeper does not appear worried, and each pen she tries, works. Some of the paper samples are strange ... she's fairly certain she recognizes a couple of types of parchment or vellum and a thick rough textured scrap that reminds her of pictures of papyrus seen in a book on Ancient Egypt. Each sample, however, seems to have one or two pens that work perfectly. She quickly realizes that if she wants something she can use, she should limit herself to the pens that deal best with a regular modern 20 lb Bond.
Seeing her focus, the shop keeper moves aside the other paper samples, and brings out two trays of pens for her to choose from. She is amused to see that they range from a simple clear plastic Bic with the end chewed so much that the plastic shows a characteristic opaque milky sheen to a couple of fountain pens whose maker's names ... and the attached price tags ... take her breath away. The store keeper has been helpful so far, she decides to trust in his, or maybe her, recommendations: “I'm looking,” she says, “for a pen that has some weight to it, I want to know I'm holding it. But it shouldn't be too heavy, if a manuscript needs a lot of work I might be holding my pen, making changes, correcting errors for several hours straight.”
“You correct errors?” the shop keeper's voice does not give any further clue about gender. There is quiet muttering as the shop keeper picks up and and puts down several pens in quick alternation, then, “This! This is the one for correcting.”
She tries the pen: it settles into her hand as if it had been made for her, the perfect weight, the perfect glide on paper with just that tiny bit of catch to remind her that she is writing, it seems indeed like the perfect pen. “What kind of ink does it take?”
To her surprise, the shop keeper chuckles. “You wise. You think maybe I sell you pen, beautiful, wonderful, inexpensive pen, and then I tell you, you need dragon's blood and diamond dust and phoenix ashes for the ink? You very wise, but I sold that one already. This one? Regular ink. Same you buy anywhere.”
I said that there was a story in here ... the story begins with what happens next. Our protagonist is aware that she must make a choice. To buy or not to buy ... but that's really only a small choice. She's held the pen, she knows she wants it, and she is eminently human, so she's going to buy it. But what happens next?
Is it so comfortable that she carries it home, gesturing with it happily and without much thought of how she looks. Does she see a sign that apostrophizes the plural? More importantly, does she see a young man trying to run for a bus and failing as his fashionably sagging pants threaten to fall off if he does anything so un-studied. Does she point the pen discretely and find there's no need to mutter any magic words because the apostrophe is gone ... or the young man suddenly dressed in neatly pressed, fitted trousers with a belt and suspenders? And if she does, would she then take the pen home carefully and put it away and never, ever, use it again?
That's one story. There are others.
There's the one where she uses it to edit, finds that it makes the job easier, that her work is better received, that suddenly she's being offered positions in-house, full-time, with an annual salary increase, and benefits. She goes back to the spot where the saw the Emporium, wants to thank the owner, but of course it is gone, and no one in the neighbourhood remembers any such thing. Maybe she writes it off as chance, or luck; maybe she gets so caught up in looking that her work suffers and she finds herself, once again, mostly freelancing, mostly alone.
Then there's the story where she discovers that the only story she can edit is her own. She gives herself an iconic haircut, a power suit, and the confidence to wear them both and reinvents herself as a high powered editor. She has money, and minions, and enough moxie to bring the publishing world to its knees around her. She experiments with romance, something her un-edited life had not included, and marries and divorces, several times.
Power is ... fun ... so she reinvents herself as a rebel leader, a conqueror of space, and –to her surprise– the heart of one younger woman. She wonders about that, is the love only there because she is Emperor of a large portion of the known universe? So she reinvents herself again, a Madam in a whorehouse during the gold rush, still power, but much less, much more precarious and there again is the young woman –disguised as a man– and this time her heart is conquered too. She is curious now, how many different lives can they live? What if the young woman is queen and she but an advisor? Love still, but at greater price. Perhaps better if she keeps the power, and yet now whatever she does, there they are: fighting, running away from each other, getting shot, or poisoned, or beaten, getting sick, getting better, growing together, sometimes getting old together, loving each other.
In defiance of all odds, and counting on the narrative to outweigh the vicissitudes of life she picks a simple tale where they find friendship and respect before love, where there is a bedrock of trust that she believes will be enough to build whatever they need in the day to day. She examines it for unrealistic expectations, shifts of character or hidden incompatibilities, and, finding none, she picks up the pen for a last time. She pauses to think for a moment then decides to stick with the traditional, and writes: “And they lived happily ever after.”
And they do.