Serial offender

For the past week, I've been thinking about the story I posted on the Takeaway and thought it unfinished; I had to write more.

Sometimes, short stories don't want to be kept to a minimum, they haunt you, and taunt you and dare you. Hard Bounty isn't the first story to do this to me, nor will it be the last.

I've written a number of books from short stories I wrote for the Story-a-day marathon over at Forward Motion. It's a marathon that's invaluable to me and I'll miss while I'm overseas.

Anyway, I thought I'd do the serial thing. I remember as a kid reading magazines that had serialisations in them. I'd be disappointed - of course - that it continued the next week... Okay... I confess... They were comics, but the principle is the same.

What's different is that I'll be doing this week-to-week; not much chance of revision, but it is an excellent lesson on being concise while packing as much in as possible. Good books are roller coasters; high points and low points, action-filled and resting.

I have to keep the story going, yes, but also include some back story from the previous week's instalment and still keep under a three thousand word limit.

All this is going to be a challenge, but one I hope will improve my writing (and I'm sure someone will pick me up on boo-boos; they are welcome, encouraged to do so).

So: do I simply post an instalment each week and dump the singular short stories? Or do I do both and keep the short story timetable, have two posts every third Wednesday?