Another Thirteen Steps: Crimes
31 May 2011 06:52 amSummary: My goal when I began this project was to replace the events of No Future for You with something perhaps slightly more compelling. Where I ended up bears almost no resemblance to the root story. Instead of replacing a mere four books in the series, I replace something closer to six. It’s a mess…an extremely controlled, intentionally created mess.
The first act is primarily composed of a cutesy romance. There are, of course, elements that defy that description, but the core story is a romance wrought with your standard coupling angst. I never lose sight of that even when stuff goes straight to hell. That’s what second acts are for, right?
So, if you’d like to see one of your favorite characters spread thin like too little butter on dry toast, this is the story for you.
Should you want to know more before you read, this entry will better explain what I had in mind.
Rating: Adults Only Please: Graphic Sexual Situations and/ or Gratuitous Violence.
Warning: Start with the Carlin Seven and work your way out. This one’s pretty much got it all: overt violence, torture, graphic sex, the death of a minor character, candid deliberations on the affects of trauma both physical and sexual… It won’t be for everyone.
Word Count: 148,939.
Comma Guy: Howard Russell.
Pairing: Buffy/ Faith.
Disclaimer: Another day, another…they don’t pay me anything at all. I just do this to amuse myself and you. That’s what allows me and mine to slip under the radar while playing with characters created by those more fortunate than us.
( Table of Contents )
The River’s Daughter
16 Feb 2011 11:08 pmFunny how things can start one place and end up in another. The initial idea was to create a P.W.P. series similar to On Occasions by Mad-Hamlet, Kirayoshi and Shyfox.
This series went into limbo, was resurrected and grew a plot. You’d think that a plot would make it feel more sensey, but this plot has turned the story into a series of seemingly random encounters. Each one reads like an emotional challenge. Show me anger, show me grief, show me confusion…and do that within the confines of a scene involving a sexual encounter.
The first three stories are actually pretty tame. They have a nice linear progression in Season Four, but from there everything goes to Hell.
Whedonist , or 1shinyboat as she’s known on LiveJournal, and I are working this project as a team. The first three stories are published to my journal with her blessing.
( Table of Contents )Thirteen Steps
7 Jan 2011 07:49 pmI suppose I should be a little self-conscious about posting things that are many years old.
And I am. Let’s face it. The original build of The Outsider isn’t exactly a well polished piece. It’s kind of the opposite. It was the very first story I ever wrote. I remember being nervous about writing dialog. That seems so silly to me now.
This hasn’t been available to the public in years. As part of the impetus of this page is explaining how I do what I do, it seems reasonable to me that I remedy that by giving you a look at the series I cut my teeth on.
Those of you who are interested in Another Thirteen Steps don’t look to this series for spoilers. You’ll see many similarities between the first two stories, but from there each plot takes a vastly different turn.
( More… )Another Thirteen Steps
14 Nov 2009 02:40 amMy very first pieces of fiction were part of a series called Thirteen Steps. Naturally, as the author and a somewhat freakishly compulsive perfectionist, I view them as pretty much complete crap now. But there was something about them. Other people didn’t see them as crap. They encouraged me.
And here I am.
A friend challenged my thinking about a story that I’d written in that series. The original name of the piece was For Marie. I rewrote it in first person with some plot modifications and I was hooked. The compulsive tendencies took over and the entire series was re-plotted.
Yeah, I know…
That was December of 2008. Very little has changed from that original outline.
Well, a lot has changed. We went over the bit about me being a perfectionist, right? I know it’s annoying. I can’t help it.
My point is that the core concepts have remained intact and I’ve made no changes based on the release of the comics. I’ve barely been paying attention to them. I own them. Or most of them. I think we all do. It’s another compulsive thing. I buy them. I bag them. I ferret them away in a custom bookshelf that my roommate the woodworker built for me specifically to hold comics. But I just can’t bring myself to read them.
Anyway, in my reality Twilight isn’t analogous with the Garden of Eden and he probably isn’t Angel. Twilight is something very different to me. And Buffy isn’t going to become a god. She’s going to become something so much better: a human being. I like telling human stories. It’s a thing.
Once you make a character a god, what the hell do you do with them? Bigger, badder, faster, more…?
That’s not a game I like to play.
The first five stories follow a pattern. Each individual piece is presented from a single point of view, in first person, with no chapter breaks. They are in effect, formatted as short stories, though at least one of them defies that description. It’s a wee bit long. Like novel length. Gosh, I do love to prattle on.
Being the perfectionist, I occasionally go over older material and read to refresh the details in my mind. That’s what I’m doing now. But I’ve been allowing myself the luxury of changing words and adding commas. As I reread, I’ll be posting the material here. I’ve even baited my beta reader Howard Russell into making a pass.
Hope you enjoy it.
( T.O.C. ) ( Read more... ) ( Read more... )
Charlatan’s Web
Footprints
Possession
And Wouldn’t You Be Bored?
Bloodlust
