We did it!

A post-mortem for "The Great Substack Story Challenge - Part 2"

We did it!

"The Great Substack Story Challenge - Part 2" has, as of last Wednesday, officially concluded.

Here are all the chapters, by all the authors, on all the Substacks:

• Chapter 1 by Wil Dalton

• Chapter 2 by Kerrie Noor

• Chapter 3 by J.E. Petersen (that’s me!)

• Chapter 4 by Lorelei Jonason 

• Chapter 5 by Elle Griffin

• Chapter 6 by Brian Reindel

• Chapter 7 by Meg Oolders

• Chapter 8 by Simon K Jones

• Chapter 9 by Ed Tankersley

• Chapter 10 by Reena Kapoor

It was a lot of work.

It was a lot of fun!

But yeah, it was a lot of work.

Quick, someone grab a pathologist! It’s time for a

Some Post-Mortemy Thoughts

We'll start with Wil Dalton, from

Process by Wil Dalton

, who heroically agreed to kick the whole thing off...

The order of authoring each chapter was randomly assigned. Of course, I always wanted to write a fun and engaging chapter, but when I learned my chapter would be first, I definitely felt more pressure to deliver. I had to introduce the concept of someone trying to see the good in every situation and having the worst day ever. But because we had voted to revisit the same scene from different perspectives, it was not enough to introduce the "silver-lining challenge idea" and maybe one or two small inconveniences that would allow the authors that followed to escalate the troubles plaguing our hero. Instead, I needed to introduce the concept of the silver-lining challenge and escalate quickly to the worst possible event ever to see if our hero could see something good in it. In addition, I wanted to introduce as many characters as possible, some with detailed relationships to my hero, but some with no apparent connection, so everyone following me would have options in choosing a unique perspective to revisit the action. To reduce the worry that I might write something that just didn't land with the authors following me, I threw in a crowd of protestors, assuming someone could create a new story from scratch with completely new characters, if desired. Also, and I hoped this wouldn't happen, but I told myself that anyone following my first chapter, if they didn't care for my set-up, they always had the freedom to write, "and then she woke up." I'm so glad no one did!

My identity as the primary care-giving parent in my family definitely affected my thinking about what would be the worst thing that could happen to someone determined to see the good in everything. So, I introduced the silver-lining challenge concept with a minor and universally relatable inconvenience of a broken phone to show how Kate responded. Then I wanted to escalate to something harder to spin as a positive. So: just as you've found a game to rekindle the romance with your husband, he suspects you're pregnant with someone else' kid. Ouch. That's bad. But the biggest escalation, the one that would break my heart? What I would struggle to spin into a positive? Learning that your child has grown up to be a villain, and maybe your parenting was to blame? What could be worse?

After I published my first chapter, I assumed everyone following me would find ways to introduce even more tragedies for Kate and reveal details that proved the bad things I introduced were actually even worse than we thought! To my delight, the story veered off in ways I never imagined. We laughed. We went off-world. We had our hearts broke. We learned Kate was not the "doing-the-best-she-could-under-the-circumstances-mother" I had imagined. I loved every chapter that followed, seeing the story mutate and grow and return and with every new reveal, continue to entertain.

I am delighted and grateful to have been able to write in such a fun project. I encourage everyone to read the whole thing, all ten chapters, as soon as they can! And if they've already read it, read it again!

You heard him, folks. Get to it!

Now here’s Brian Reindel from

Future Thief

:

The great thing about GSSC is that we're all writers with different voices and preferred genres, but we all agreed to work toward a common theme. Someone could throw in some comedy in one chapter, action or horror in another, and science fiction in yet another. Our end result was a cohesive story told from the perspectives of different characters that could all have even deeper back stories. That's entertaining for both the writer and reader!

…and Simon K Jones from

Write More with Simon K Jones

:

This was a lot of fun, though I imagine for readers it was quite an unusual experience. I'm torn between thinking this kind of experimental exercise needs more guard rails to keep it more focused, and alternatively thinking that the wild unpredictability is what makes it worthwhile and fascinating in the first place. Perhaps a halfway house would be to insert an additional stage before launch, where the writers get together and work on a very loose framework for the overall episode arc. That way you could work in more continuity, foreshadowing and consistent character arcs, but without needing to pin it down too precisely. Great fun to do, though, with some very talented collaborators.

Finally, here’s Ed Tankersly from

Read Write Repeat

:

I've never written fiction in collaboration with other writers, so it was an honor to be included. And it was terrifying. As the penultimate writer, I read each week's installment with wonder and with growing anxiety. I felt a responsibility to gather up all of the interesting plot threads and begin to nudge them toward a conclusion so that all of the work wouldn't fall on Reena, but I also was careful to not trap her into a prescribed direction or resolution. I hope I was successful, but either way, I know I had a blast writing my chapter and it stretched my writing skills. As a bonus, I met a batch of other talented Substack fiction writers. I look forward to seeing what the next batch of GSSC writers creates.

The other authors declined to comment, preferring to let the work speak for itself.

So how about it, dear reader? What does it say?

---

Signing off, for now…

“The Great Substack Story Challenge - Part 2” was headed up by none other than me, the inimitable

J.E. Petersen

. If you liked any part of it, I take full responsibility. If you hated the whole thing, please feel free to register your complaints with

Jackie Dana

.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t already, which you probably have because like practically everyone is doing it these days…

And who doesn’t love a good bandwagon?

À la prochaine, et bonne chance, all you degenerate pen pushers.