 JAMES EVERINGTON To coincide with the launch of his new serialised novel The Quarantined City, Ginger Nuts of Horror welcomes James Everington the author of The Shelter and Falling Down. James is one the rising stars of the UK genre scene. James joins us today for a guest post where he gives us some "Hypocritical advice". I’m sure you’ve all read columns like this before, where some author you’ve likely never heard of offers advice about the best way to write. And I’m sure some of you have had the same nagging thought as I have: does the author really do all these things? All the time? Recently Spectral Press released the first episode of my monthly serial The Quarantined City, and as I was invited by Jim to write a guest post I thought I’d focus on how to write episodic fiction. So I’ve put together a list of hints for anyone considering such a project. They’re all sensible and logical and realistic, as far as I can tell. But guess what: no, I didn’t follow these all of the time; some I didn’t follow at all. So as well as the advice, I’m also going to let you know where I’m being a hypocrite. Do as I say, not as I do. Anyway, on with the advice. Plot out the overall story before you start writing the first episode. Remember, each episode of your serial needs to have its own overall arc as well as forming part of a larger whole. Did I actually do it? Well, sort of. I worked out a high-level summary of each episode when I pitched the idea and I largely stuck to that. Except where it seemed best not to. The most important part for me was working out what the climax of each individual episode would be, and making sure each of those climaxes built on the previous ones. So I knew how the overall story would end and how each episode would end, which gave me something to aim for when writing. Keep it simple. You’re going to have enough challenges writing serial fiction without adding needless complication via a convoluted structure, needless backstories, or other intricacies. Did I actually do it? Nah. When coming up with an idea I immediately decided to complicate things immensely by having each episode of my serial feature a self-contained short-story, set in a different world to the quarantined city (our world, in fact), but sharing some of the same imagery and themes as its parent episode. So those stories needed their own arc and denouement, within the arc of each individual episode, which were parts of the overall arc. I think. Make sure your first episodes have sufficient fuel for the whole journey. Did I actually do it? Yes, if only by instinct. I decided it would be a bad idea to ‘save up’ too many of my initial ideas for later episodes. Instead I knew that the first pieces would be the soil from which the later ones grew, and I wanted that soil to be as fertilised as possible. (Although given what substances are sometimes used for fertiliser, I’m not sure I want to continue this analogy.) I wanted the setting of the quarantined city to be as rich as possible, with many unexplored avenues and dark alleyways, so it became like a sandpit in which I could play. Use some writing software like Scrivener to help you plan and structure both each individual episode and the overall story. Did I actually do it? Pfffft. Read up on what others say about writing episodic fiction. A quick Google search brings lots of great blog posts and articles from writers who’ve done this before. Learn from their experiences! Did I actually do it? Nah. I did do a Google search, but only when I started writing this piece. There does seem to be a lot of information out there, which probably would have helped me. But like a stereotypical bloke ignoring the instruction manual, I just leapt in. Prepare for the ‘third episode problem’: this is a term I found in an interview with the publisher Yael Goldstein Love and it describes the fact that it’s easy to feel pretty confident setting up your serial in the initial episodes, but then realise around the time of episode three that you’ve no idea where you’re really going. Did I actually do it? I certainly found the third episode, Spot The Difference, harder to write than the first two, although not dramatically so. As I said above, I’d worked out what the climax for each episode would be in advance and that at least gave me something to aim for. Read other serial stories to try and get a feel for the form. Stephen King’s The Green Mile; Simon Bestwick’s Black Mountain and Margaret Atwood’s Position are all relatively recent examples. And if you look further back you’ve got all the Victorian greats for inspiration. Just don’t let the fact that Alexander Dumas wrote a story in 139 episodes put you off. Did I actually do it? Yes! Sort of. I mean not specifically - I’d already read The Green Mile in its instalments when it came out, and Simon Bestwick is always on my reading list. And I, uh, did Dickens at university. But that counts, right? Take any opportunity to write guest blogs to promote your serial fiction, and be sure to end with a description and sales links. Did I actually do it? The first episode of the Quarantined City is called The Smell Of Paprika and is out now; episode 2 Into the Rain will follow later this month. The Quarantined City: sealed off from the outside world, with only the sight of the ocean to remind its inhabitants of life beyond. No one knows why the city has been quarantined and conspiracy theories abound. But for Fellows life continues largely as before. He walks the streets, hunts out rare books; the sun continues to shine and the gulls circle above. There’s the small matter of the ghost haunting his house, but Fellows doesn't let himself think of that. But when he tracks down a story by the reclusive writer known as Boursier, his old certainties fade as he becomes aware that the secrets of the city, the ghostly child, and the quarantine itself, might be more connected than he thinks… You can download The Smell Of Paprika here (UK) and here (US). James Everington can be found online at his blog, Scattershot Writing.  The Quarantined City: sealed off from the outside world, with only the sight of the ocean to remind its inhabitants of life beyond. No one knows why the city has been quarantined and conspiracy theories abound.
But for Fellows life continues largely as before. He walks the streets, hunts out rare books; the sun continues to shine and the gulls circle above. There's the small matter of the ghost haunting his house, but Fellows doesn't let himself think of that. But when he tracks down a story by the reclusive writer known as Boursier, his old certainties fade as he becomes aware that the secrets of the city, the ghostly child, and the quarantine itself, might be more connected than he thinks… The Smell Of Paprika is the first episode of the six part monthly serial The Quarantined City from James Everington and Spectral Press. Comments are closed.
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