I recently wrote this piece about a short story that I’ve been working on – for some time – in my head.
The story is transcribed and sits on my laptop’s hard disk waiting for me to do something with it (‘something’ being an action like: edit it once more -for the 26th time; tinker with punctuation yet again – for the 33rd time… stuff like that).
Despite the state of being ‘almost complete’ it continues to probe at my mind – but now with questions.
Where would it fit in?
It’s strongly written but, if I’m honest, it isn’t quite robust enough to stand as a work in its own right; it leaves too many unanswered questions and to answer those questions would turn the work in to a ‘not very short story’. This would miss the point somewhat!
How can I turn it in to something useful?
I don’t want to spend forever re-editing or continually touching it up. It’s really not bad and because it’s not bad it deserves a life, deserves some kind of readership.
What can I do with it?
What can I do? Hmmm… I could always parcel it up and mail to the troops in the Falkland Islands, or send to to a research station in the Antartic where – hopefully! – it would at least get read by an almost captive readership (hey, who said I was fair about this?).
But then…
Last night the penny dropped.
This short story is the perfect opening chapter for ‘Helicopter’.
Well yes, obviously ‘Helicopter’ already has an opening chapter (and several other chapters too!).
But this short would make the version I’ve written – which is a sharp, fast, punchy entry to the world of conspiracy seem…
Drab.
That’s how good this short story is.
With just a little re-engineering it’s the perfect leading edge/bleeding edge start that ‘Helicopter’ deserves.
So the old one has to go – and I agonised over the look and feel of it for months!
The excellent news is that I don’t need to change anything in the rest of the book; with a new heading to each chapter they’ll follow behind the new chapter one – in a retrospective way (apart from the last chapter of course – which now has a brilliant ending framed in my head, that closes the timeline and concludes the novel at the same pace with which it began).
I’m tremendously excited by this one.
Well… to be honest I’m excited by everything I write, but this one…?
Yeah, it’s gripping.
B.