The story I am currently posting on this blog will be hopefully updated a couple of times a week. This poses the problem of how I should go about writing a work of fiction that requires constant additions, as well as having little planning behind it. How would be best to approach this task then?
My first choice, as with most fiction, was what the story should be about. I chose, for simplicity's sake, to make it about a single character, told by a third person narrator, with a storyline that would allow me to take the story to new locations and meet fresh characters. It would be the opposite of a soap opera, which concentrates on several characters, all in one location.
As for the themes of the story I decided that the format would lend itself to a bildungsroman, a coming of age story, but with the emphasis being taken slightly away from character development, and lent towards more surreal and aesthetic ideas.
Another thing that has occurred to me is that the work is of unknown length. Although this is always the case when setting out on a new writing project, there is always the possibility of various editions being tailored for length. With a story in episode form however, where I have intentionally foregone any planning, there is only the ongoing being of immediacy. The story lives in the present, is filled with action, and can only go backwards with the device of a character's internal thoughts. This is a characteristic which will no doubt lend a great deal to the story's feel.
The story is also one that, again due to its indeterminate length, must have a very central stream to it. It is too much of a demand on a reader, who maybe visits rarely, and where the episodes are relatively short, that they must keep up will several tales that all intertwine. If the story is to splinter off, and have different tributaries leading into the main stream, they must be very much interconnected. And furthermore, the ability to play around with chronology is also a difficult one to handle. It again seems to me to be unfair to write a story that will so often lead the reader down dark alleys, with only their memory to serve as their guide.
