Foreword:

In which the author attempts to explain herself and probably just confuses the reader even more. (I apologize in advance.)

Before we start, I wanted to explain a few things regarding this fic. This was written (at least Prologue-Chapter 12) for National Novel Writing Month 2012 (NaNoWriMo). I wrote this after a viewing of the movie "Labyrinth," which is incidentally one of my favorite movies. We see Sarah at the beginning of the movie reading her infamous lines from a slim red book with a gold and black cover. I wanted to know what story lay between those eponymous red covers. This is that story, the one that inspired Sarah's journey through the Labyrinth and helped her to defeat the Goblin King.

There are some things that you may be wondering about, such as why I chose the names that I did for our heroine and antagonist, as they are suspiciously familiar to the ones in the movie. "But wait!" you cry, as you realize that the heroine of this book is named Sarah, "I thought that this was supposed to be the fictional book that Movie!Sarah cherishes so much, and is the basis for her own journeys through the movie. Why is the name the same here?" Well dear reader, after a bit of thought, and a bit of research, I decided that Sarah was a fitting name for the heroine of my book. This was based on not only because of its relative popularity throughout history, and its etymological meanings (lit. "princess," from sarah, feminine variation of sar "prince," from sarar "he ruled," related to Akkad. sharratu "queen."), but also because I subscribe to the Labyrinth fandom canon that the Labyrinth and its inhabitants come about in part from Sarah's subconscious, and that things that she has seen or read about would be imposed upon the fabric of the Underground. For example, in the movie, the discombobulating staircases from the Escher poster in Sarah's room showed up at the end of the movie as real in the Labyrinth, or the statuette of Hoggle in Sarah's room in the opening of the movie, which fave way to the real character, or the words from Sarah's book "The Labyrinth" that turned out to be the words needed to defeat the Goblin King. (Sarah seems to quote "The Labyrinth" all throughout the movie.)

It makes sense then that the name "Jareth" would be taken from Sarah's novel (and her subconscious) and therefore applied to her version of the Goblin King, and that the name "Sarah" would have perhaps drawn Movie!Sarah to the book. (Is it possible that this humble writer wished to make her own task easier by keeping the same names? Perhaps, but you shall never get me to admit that! Aren't you excited when you read your own name in a book? If I, as a 23-year old kid, gets excited about reading my own name in a story, certainly a 15-year old Sarah would as well.)

While the plot may resemble that of the movie from time to time, I have taken the necessary liberties (with my profound apologies to Mssrs. Henson, Froud, and Lucas) to ensure that it is different enough in structure and whatnot to be plausible that this was the book that Movie!Sarah was reading.

Perhaps it is not coincidence that Sarah shares a name with her favorite novel's heroine. Perhaps that's how it was supposed to be.

(Also, you may be wondering if I am padding my word count by adding in a Foreward, dear reader. Please forgive me, I am currently staring at a blank Word Doc on November 5th, 2012 for my first NaNoWriMo ever, with a few scribbled pages of notes in lieu of a nice, neat outline, and I have 50,000 words to yet to write. I think I can be forgiven for such a stunt as this, don't you?)

And now, we begin!

The prologue will be posted on Friday!