Crit Request: The Acquisitions Dept.

Summary:

An interesting new addition to the Library is announced, created by an interesting individual.

Crit Request: The Acquisitions Dept.

NotAnOligarch 07 Jan 2022 17:02

My sandbox.

I present this work to the Library tentatively, as it is slightly bold in nature.

I was sitting, perusing the Library one day, when I stumbled upon a bit of a plothole. If the Library contains every book that's ever been written, why does it contain works that don't seem to be written in books?

"The Library is a place that exists outside of normal space, containing almost every book ever written, and many that never were."

So, I wondered how the Library would gather such texts that were never written.
Enter, the Acquisitionist.

— -

Potential problems:

This piece is, as mentioned, bold. If it were to be posted, would it interfere with the general headcanon of the average Wanderer, or worse, the actual canon of the Library itself? Some of the ideas are out there, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Also, has something already been written about this?

Word choice/grammar will be improved on, but as always, input is welcome. I will probably also lengthen some of the segments, but mainly wanted to ask if this is even okay lore-wise.

You may have noticed that this piece has some parallels to what's actually going on with the whole re-organizing the Library thing, but are the explanations good? I could remove that part of the story easily if it isn't appreciated.

The work uses some characters (like the Rounderpede) that are not mine that I'm afraid that I haven't fully grasped.

— -

Thanks for the read!

---

Fires rage just below the surface of the ice.

Last edited on 08 Jan 2022 22:28 by NotAnOligarch Show more

Re: Crit Request: The Acquisitions Dept.

Skipmeister 08 Jan 2022 00:54

Hey!

Interesting concept, I like how it fits into the Library mythos, although I'm not super well-versed on WL canon or anything so I'm not sure if it interferes with anything and such.

I'm mostly just interested in the writing, overall, it's quite good, I like the little whimsical moments here and there like "Anything but manual labour" (perhaps more of that sort of thing?)

Any comments I'd make on the little details would probably amount to nitpicking and you'd probably go over that sort of thing anyway in another draft or edit, but I'd like to comment on the overall story and what it's building towards: to me, the structure of the story seems to suggest that it's building towards some kind of catastrophe: an extremely ambitious (and potentially dangerous) new project, inventor is a mad scientist, disconnect from his superiors, etc. Is this the sort of thing you were going for? If so, I'd recommend making it a bit stronger. If not, I'd suggest changing up the ending, it seemed a bit jarring to build up to something bad happening and then nothing happening.

Another thing I'd recommend is giving the Faljke character a bit of a stronger personality and presence in the story. Given his prominence, I assume he's meant to be the protagonist, so I reckon giving him more of a limelight would help. (Maybe let us directly read his thoughts like a point-of-view character?) I do love what you've got for him so far ("he appeared like some sort of Victorian villain about to destroy the moon or somesuch") and he very much fits the tone of the story, and the Library itself, for that matter.

Overall, pretty good work, would love to see where you take this next!