To Be Continued

Dear Readers,

I have decided to put this story aside for a while. It has developed in a way that I did not intend, and so, rather than fight it, I'm going to take a break from the tale and return to it later.

I will speak now from a writing point of view, since what I have to say is mainly of interest to writers of fiction. It has been two years since I began writing serialized fiction on this blog. With President For A Day I am amazed yet again at the power of serialization as a story developing technique; by that I mean I use serialization to develop characters and plots from scratch. This is different than first writing a long story, like a novel, and then publishing it in chunks. While that is a perfectly valid form of serialization, it's not what I have been doing on this blog. I have mostly composed these stories one episode at a time as I post them. Both Peggy Finds A Friend and Night Watch were done entirely that way. This technique has helped me create characters that assert their own identities and move the story along without my having to do very much but sit down and type.

The character of Doris Austin in President For A Day was supposed to be a minor player in my original conception of the story. I needed someone in the White House to be the champion of the essay contest, or else it never would have gotten off the ground. However, once I started serializing the story, Doris became the main character. More importantly, she became a controlling character in the sense that she was determining the direction of the story. The story was becoming her story.

Most writers would be thrilled to have a character take over the story; it means you are actually writing. Unfortunately for Doris, she is just a little too much like Peggy from my first blog, Peggy Finds A Friend. I honestly don't know why I have this thing for sixtyish widows, but they keep popping up and seizing control of my serialized fiction. Although I really like Doris, I simply cannot write another novel about a midlife widow. At least not right now. So, Doris will have to wait. Meanwhile, I still like the concept of President For A Day so I may write it as a play. I love the idea of the president being powerless against an eighth grader.

What I want to do instead on this blog is start an experimental serialized fiction piece, to be announced soon. It will be interactive, which means you (readers and writers) can contribute to the piece as it develops. Stay tuned.

BB