The short story I am writing for March is the first time in this challenge that I have actually gone in with a concrete idea of what I would like to achieve.
Essentially, it stems from the acts in a play. Each act dictates a shift in the story-telling: a change in theme, tone or even the plot itself. This, combined with my long-term goal of writing a series of novels, is the foundation. For the next three months (March, April and May), I am going to try and write a trilogy of short stories, each of which can pass as a stand-alone. This will provide me with practice in threading a cohesive story arc through a number of individual pieces of work.
I am still planning out the plot of the arc and of the short stories, but at the moment, it will follow the tale of a girl named Juliet as she searches for the mythical ‘Dreamland’ and attempts to discover and accept herself in the process. As this could potentially end up being quite complex, I am going to have to reign in a few of my ideas and plot it out carefully.
The trilogy itself is being tentatively called ‘The Dreaming’ while March’s short story has the name ‘Divided We Stand’. It will be hard to write (when is it not?), particularly since I am going to try and include and improve on things I was not too happy with in ‘Stranger’ or ‘Futile Survival’. Hopefully, I will end up coming out on top.
Rosie