Before I Sleep…

[k_a_webb]

…I want to post about two things. They probably should be in separate posts, but I’m shattered, so right now sleep is much more inmportant.

Firstly, does anyone have any interesting forms of fiction they’d like to see? I’ve tried out second person, which was hard to get used to but I enjoyed writing it, and I’d like to play about a bit more with different ideas.

Secondly, I have an idea now that the first section of the Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments is posted. There are lots of other scenes I could post, so I was thinking I might start posting some little extra stories, maybe one for every £5 in donations I receive until I finish the storyline.

Any input?

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

Comments

Try this...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>…I want to post about two things. They probably should be in separate posts, but I’m shattered, so right now sleep is much more inmportant.<<

*hugs* Don't wear yourself to a rag.

>>Firstly, does anyone have any interesting forms of fiction they’d like to see?<<

I like unusual forms. Let's see ...

* Epistolary fiction. Traditionally this was done with letters. A variation is a story that is text on a sign, or a note or collection of notes on a bulletin board. Modern convention adds chains of text messages or chatlines to this.

* Temporal scope fiction. The story takes place in an extremely short (a few seconds) or extremely long (millennia) span of time, usually from the perspective of a narrator who naturally perceives that flow of time.

* Time salad. Traditionally the first paragraph is the end of the story and the last paragraph is the beginning, with the pieces between also jumbled. Very hard to plot, but when well done, utterly gripping.

* Glossary story. Each entry is a vocabulary word with its definition, dealing with a particular topic, and when put together they create a kind of snapshot narrative. (This can also be considered a poetic form.)

* Docufiction. A phantasmagoric subject covered in documentary style. I adore these on television; the one on dragons was mind-blowing. It could be done in text ... hmm, better yet, if you could team up with a photographic or line artist, like some of the demifiction F&SF books are.

* Novelogue. A story told almost entirely in dialogue with minimal description. I've done this a few times. They work really well as podfic scripts. You could also do straight-up scriptwriting. I tried that in high school and hated it, but then when I started on Schrodinger's Heroes, I started getting script ideas occasionally. So that finally crossed off the last kind of writing that I "never did."

* Fictional diary. Episodes are written as journal entries. Some of the earliest weblit took this form.

FD stories tend to bore me, but knowing your writing, I suspect you might be able to pull it off. You're much better at episodic writing than average, and pretty good at getting inside people's heads. Lioren's records of world travel would be an obvious choice. I'd suggest Donor House but that's too "Vampire Diaries." Maybe Death's journals? That would be cool to see.

>>Secondly, I have an idea now that the first section of the Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments is posted. There are lots of other scenes I could post, so I was thinking I might start posting some little extra stories, maybe one for every £5 in donations I receive until I finish the storyline.<<

That's a great idea! Some possibilities ...

* more about the first sheep and cornsnake from the opening episode.
* an example of someone harmed by a fake charm.
* how Peric and Bertram met.
* a previous visit by a Council Worldwalker.
* how Aulus got assigned to the Moonjumper Bureau.
* further examples of Sheepshank rebuilding its damaged race relations, maybe using ties of phyle or urn.

All of those should lend themselves well to flash fiction around 500-1000 words.