A Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls - By Red Page 0,62
have pre-ferred the truth stay locked away among the pages of his sister’s hastily scribbled thoughts:
There’s a part of me that’s so angry that she covered up what happened to Vicki and erased my memory, but there’s also this other part of me, that’s glad. I don’t want to remember Vicki like that. (“Miss Mystic Falls,” 1-19) Because, as Stefan suggested in the very first episode, maybe the main purpose served by journals is that they help us to remember.
Journals have the special ability to allow our thoughts to transcend time, and also connect us to others in a way that everyday conversations can’t. This is as true for fictional characters as it is for real people. Would characters like Bridget Jones or Princess Mia Thermopolis have come alive in quite the same way if we’d been introduced to them 6882 Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls[FIN].indd 172
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through a more “standard” form of narrative? I don’t think so. I can’t imagine I would have been quite so intrigued by a book called Bridget Jones’s Adventures, as I was by Bridget Jones’s Diary. Mia’s exploits in The Princess Diaries—based on Meg Cabot’s own angst-filled journals—wouldn’t have had the same impact if they were told in anything other than diary entries. The storytelling device of diaries simply brings something more potent to the mix. Especially when it comes to teenage stories of love and betrayal. Add in a potent helping of blood, sex, and revenge, and it really is no wonder that a show like The Vampire Diaries is so successful.
There is plenty of scope for developing such a world, with its rich mythology and characters who have lived for centuries. We have Stefan’s Diaries to look forward to—a brand-new trilogy of books based on the world-building setup during the TV series, and taking place during the Civil War.4
Dear reader, it is at this point that I must ask you: do you keep a diary? Even if you don’t write your secrets down in a book, using your favorite pen as you sit in your special journal-writing spot, you may be a secret diarist without even being fully aware of it. If you keep a blog then your answer is probably “yes.” Blogs are the modern-day equivalent of the centuries-old practice of baring your soul on the page, and the number of blogs and online journals has increased to incredible levels in the past decade. It seems that we all enjoy serving up a slice of our secret selves—our darkest thoughts alongside the most banal of daily happenings. Even Facebook 4 The first book of the trilogy is due for release by HarperTeen in November 2010.
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status updates and tweets are a kind of journaling—shorter, and more transient, but even now enterprising companies are coming up with ways to archive them in physical or elec-tronic form for you to someday show your kids.
Yes, both blogs and status updates are generally conceived of as being written for an audience; they are usually intended for public consumption. However, this is just as true of hand-written journals—albeit with a different definition of public.
Why keep them, otherwise? Ultimately, writing down your private thoughts is more than just an exercise in self-therapy.
Diaries are meant to be shared, whether with oneself at a later date (like Elena’s) or with one’s descendants to pass on important knowledge (in the case of Johnathan Gilbert’s and the Founding Families of Mystic Falls).
Besides, we all need some sort of outlet. We all feel the urge to, as Damon put it so well to Stefan in the final scene of “Isobel” (1-21): “Say it, whatever it is. Purge. Get it out.”
Maybe he’s right. And if so, there’s no better place than a journal.
karen Mahoney has been published alongside some of her favourite authors in paranormal anthologies like The Eternal Kiss (2009) and Kiss Me Deadly (2010). She is stil in complete shock about this. Her debut Young Adult novel, The Iron Witch , wil be published in the United States by Flux in February 2011 and makes significant use of journal entries. She is British, but hopes that you do not hold this against her. Please visit her at www.kazmahoney.com.
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