Heather

Apologies for the repetition of the first two paragraphs but with an important amendment...

A chorus of yeses, ayes, si’s and oui’s fills the air waves as with some guilt I freeze Football Manager 2169, one of whose matches is playing itself out on the main smartwall. I'd only been modifying Angus Athletic’s team formation. I disengage from my seat and scoot myself away from what has been my second home for the last two years of preparation.

No, I couldn't throw all that away, nor the efforts and commitment of everyone around me. Big money has fuelled this project, although equally big money is keeping my escape route open. The most expensive human being in history, slinking off the sinking ship. But, of the colonists, only Mamour knows that, I hope.

I’m not gutted about abandoning my wee game of virtual footie. The ship’s Bridge has its compensations and I am now impatient to get there. My weightless drift through CompZone is not fast enough but I can't do much about it until I reach the opposite entrywall. At a thought from me a section of it fizzes out of existence. It's a neat trick and one that I love to pull while the rest of the crew has to fiddle around with controls on smartsuits.

I realise I’m still carrying my Slinky – not the most manageable toy in zero gravity – and stop to anchor it to what will be the ceiling when acceleration kicks in. Now a quick shove from the newly created opening and ricochet off the wall of Crypt2 – sorry, Personnel Hibernation Unit 2 – sees me ghost my way down TravCentral. It’s slower than gravity-bound walking: I don't want to break my arms stopping at the other end; but it’s faster than clomping round on magsoles, to which we restrict the civvies, for exactly the arm-breaking reasons.

“Nine minutes.”

I could alter my course by a right-angle at the Bridge and head through the Trannie, on to the Admiral’s wee boatie and have done with all this. After all no-one’s indispensible; we all have back-ups, fully trained and ready to fill our shoes at a moment’s notice, even a moment as short as nine minutes. In fact, several days into our acceleration out of the solar system, key reserve personnel will shadow us on board our escort, the battleship Enterprise. In one of my idle spells I queried Brains about that name. He – I still think of our bio-computer as male – he had to patch through to Archive for the answer. It made me laugh: talk of life imitating art.

Shit! Before my diversion into football and day-dream I really had been applying mods, to a nanoassembler, which is presumably now floating around CompZone and will crash to ground when we power away. Ach well, easy come, easy go. They create themselves after all; in fact sometimes too well.

The entrywall to the Bridge arrives and I cushion my impact to place one eye in line with a retscan. I can't think this wall open and have to submit to the extra security. I stare the device into submission and hope it’s not staring in return into my thoughts, which are now meandering back to a feisty wee brunette – no, I’ll be seeing her in a second. The wall dissolves with the sound of a hummingbird in full hover.

You never know what will greet you on the bubble of smartpanes that form the outer surface of the Bridge. It depends on what the crew are viewing. This time they must be taking a last look at home: the panes are transparent and initially darkness is all that registers beyond the burgundy gloom emanating from the Bridge’s instruments and lights. Two brighter clusters dead ahead mark the pilots’ consoles at the apex of the bubble.

Aye, the dark side of the Moon, in the traditional sense of the phrase too as the Earth presently lies behind its satellite and doesn't even cast reflected sunbeams on this hemisphere. One and a half hours it takes for our ship to hurtle round the blackness before we spend the same period looking ‘down’ on a vista of craters, rills, mountains, plains and so-called seas during the sunlit half of our 'day'. Time and time again for the last year but as of this circuit no more.

“Eight minutes.”

My vision begins to adjust and pinpricks of illumination dot the nightscape below: Vespa shipyard, birthplace of Ark2, aka BritOil, aka Brittle to its affectionate crew. The old hands also still use its original codename of February to commemorate our departure month. Or maybe in reaction to the mission’s sponsors?

I crane my neck to what will be ‘up’ and fancy that I detect the smudgy glow of January’s photon rockets. Our flagship is already powering past the 19,000 kilometre mark, so I put the illusion down to my imagination. Flight Pilot Heather Barnard however, like all pilots, will be seeing the glowing white exhaust from the first ark’s anti-matter drives.

I switch to our private channel. “Above you.”

“Only when G kicks in,” she replies. “And even then technically, beside.”

Heather's pedantry once saved my life. ⇐ ⇒

The Three Gifts

The question flashed into Sue’s mind and surprised her: did she love Rory? His months-long silence could have canned the friendship even though he had chased down to Spain after her. And minded the cat. Yes, she owed him for that.

He sat down. “God, it’s a bleedin’ nightmare out there.”

“And you were expecting what? Saturday before Christmas: the top of Ben Nevis?”

“That is busy actually.”

“Och, you know what I mean.” Sue grabbed the menu. “What do you recommend here?”

“I need a drink. Do you want to split a bottle of wine?”

“Hm, last time you drank nearly the whole lot. If you recall.” Sue then herself recalled that he’d also paid for the whole lot, so she leant forward and half-whispered, “But I’ll help you out, celebrate Our Lord’s birthday.”

“And yours recently?” Rory cupped his none-too-well-shaven chin in cross-examination.

“You remembered that?”

“I knew...” Rory indicated glittering decorations. “It was about now. I bought you a present. I hope you don’t mind.” His frown lines deepened as he waited.

She had to grin. “Hell, no. Gimme.”

From his oh-so-familiar dark jacket Rory fumbled an envelope, slid it to Sue and gazed, on tenterhooks.

She ripped the envelope open, extracted a ticket, scanned it, double-took. “This is for the whole year? For me?”

“For you. And a guest. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.”

“No, but I mean to any of the exhibitions?”

“I believe so.”

“That’s cool.” Sue nodded. “That's better than wine.”

“Oh, come now –”

“No, really. It is.” She pocketed the gift and looked back at Rory. “You’re looking pretty grungy.”

“That’s good?”

“Aye, that's good.”

Rory picked up his chopsticks and drummed them on the table. “So, what else did you get?”

Sue felt that a spell had been broken. “For my birthday?” She paused. “Ali sent me an e-present.”

“A what?”

“An e-present. It’s a certificate for Amazon. She was like: you can get an art book or something.”

“Jeez, I didn't think she was so Web-savvy –” Rory broke off and looked past Sue. “Ah!”

A smiling Thai waiter appeared.

“Could we have the house white, please?”

“And the menu,” Sue added.

“Yes, and the menu.”

Sue tripped out into the night and pulled her coat closer. “Oops! I shouldn’t have had that final Singha.”

Rory smiled. “You’ve hardly had enough to sink a pedalo.” He propelled her round in the direction of Lothian Road. “Walk you to your bus, miss?”

“Aye, and thanks for the present.” She inclined against a light drizzle sparkling in the street lamps. “Hey, when’s your birthday? Isn’t it soon?”

“I don’t make a big deal of it. At my age, you know,” he quavered.

“It is, isn’t it? And I didn’t get you a thing.” Sue linked her arm through his.

“I’ll just have to see what I can think up.”

Commodore Hall

It’s bloody freezing. Literally. Icicles hang from every rivet and strut of the bridge. A metre of snow hides the track bed that it carries, abandoned before I was conceived. A while back the bridge followed the railway into neglect and will decay to the sad fate of its road-bearing sister a mile upriver. There, a couple of truncated, rusting pillars poke through the surface of the Forth, still frozen and glistening under a May sun.

Beyond, on the Fife shore, Rosyth rots into its grave. The scene below me, South Queensferry, is hardly less desolate: what roofs still survive sag under layers of snow. The odd plume of smoke discloses some brave soul still toughing it out, still clearing the path to his door, still keeping the drifts trimmed to below window level, from which feeble light glows.

It’s bleak alright but should I be abandoning it? God knows I've seen worse.

I gun my backpack jets and rise far enough to view the upper stories of TransHub breaching the middle of the Firth, just by the island of Inchcolm. From it steam vents, panels glitter and masts sway in a slight breeze. Civilisation. Clinging on. My last sight of my adopted homeland, my --

“Hall."

I hear this as though down a tunnel.

"Commodore Hall!"

“Aye, right enough.” I force my concentration back to the pulsing blue-red bioconsole in front of me.

Admiral Raven doesn't sound best pleased. "’Yes, ma'am’ is protocol, I believe.”

“Aye, aye, ma'am.” I almost bring myself to attention although zero-gravity has kept me exactly where I was before my wee reverie.

The fleet commander’s voice continues inside my head. “Get yourself to the Bridge. Ten minutes to departure."

Ten minutes. Twenty, counting the time it'll take the real bigwigs to bask in the glory of the launch and then hightail it back down to Luna. Twenty minutes to play my get-out-of-jail-free card if I so wish. The jail being the uncertainty of what will greet us on 18 Scorpii.

Oh, and the twelve dangerous years to get there.

No, it’s not a jail. We're leaving the jail or at least the frying pan. The other side of the Moon from us our ravaged Earth limps into oblivion. Just a personal view, mind, but one shared by the thousand-plus souls in this particular fleet, and a few thousand more who have preceded us to Eridani, Tau Ceti and Chara.

Chara. I try not to think of Chara.

I think back to Commodore Raven, "The new mods –"

"I want all senior personnel visible. That goes for the entire fleet. Understood?"

A chorus of ayes, yeses, oui’s, si’s fills the air waves as with some guilt I freeze SimPlanet 3000, whose display currently fills the main smartwall. I hadn’t been modifying anything of note. I disengage from my seat and drift away from what has been my second home for the last two years of preparation.

No, I couldn't throw all that away, nor the efforts and commitment of everyone around me, not to mention the money that's been thrown at this project. It’s money that's keeping my escape route open. The most expensive human being in history, slinking off the sinking ship. But, of the colonists, only Mamour knows that, I hope. ⇒

Jane and Hazel

Jane collapsed onto a bean bag. “This place is so retro. I love it.”

Hazel slid back to her not-so-retro 24-inch monitor. “No joy with this morning’s flat then?”

“It was grand, all to myself, the perfect space.” Jane rearranged herself into a more demure position.

“But?”

“Och, the traffic outside. Above a newsagent and next to a pub. Can you imagine? And I just feel... there's a better opportunity round the corner? Like it’s almost too soon to decide?”

“So the search continues.” Hazel shifted her mouse and a fashionably grungy collage filled the screen.

“I was lucky it even started today. The folks managed to get on the first flight out. I should really go for it, no?”

“You would,” Hazel clicked the mouse and a menu sprang down, almost to the depth of the screen. “Be near me.”

“Aye. That should clinch it but...” Jane thought of her parents’ place up in Morningside. She thought of Morningside, full stop. “I’m not sure if the area’s convenient for school, especially with the car playing up.”

Hazel selected one menu option and the display filled with what looked like the console of an interstellar battle cruiser. “I thought you were getting out of that job as soon as.”

Jane decided that Hazel’s wall was a less baffling place to look at but its hanging canvases seemed to mock her. OK, so Hazel hadn’t executed all of them but somehow she attracted artwork and her recent forays into photography had been equally fruitful.

It was less depressing to go back to the trendy website taking shape on the monitor. “I was hoping the Academy – how can you possibly need all that stuff to produce...”

Hazel clicked something else and the screen blanked. She swivelled round. “I've said: you could always stay here.”

“I wouldn’t cramp your style.” Relieved of the competition, Jane enjoyed the sensation of sliding back into the beanbag, even though she was now aware of direct looks from Hazel. “And at least in a noisy place I could rack up the Sex Pistols. It is tempting.”

“That’s fine. Take it.”

“It is too soon. I've hardly started looking.”

“And that's a reason?”

Jane removed her spectacles. The reduction of focus in the real world seemed to sharpen her mind. It didn't help her stomach, which began to knot. “I don't know. I just don't know.”

“Then move in here. For a while even.”

Hazel’s house? Noisy but spacious flat? Keep on looking? Fix the car? Change her job? Get married? Yeah, but who to, ma? Sweet Jesus. Life had been so simple down under. ⇐ ⇒

Ali

Guy didn't think he’d ever seen Ali out of her student uniform of jeans and t-shirt; but the wedding-day attire of posh frock and heels, of a sort, was bringing out his lodger’s inner Katharine Hepburn. Ali had even done something wavy to her hair, which reinforced the impression already given by broad, high cheekbones, square chin, generous mouth...

Mouth that was uttering the unHepburn-like, “No fucking card?”

“All that palaver in the shop drove it out of my mind.”

“Ha!” With a grimace Ali drew the last drag of her cigarette. “And turned you into a book thief.”

“I’ll take it back.”

“You would too, wouldn’t you.” She flicked the butt behind a nearby gravestone, which informed Guy that the poor sod below had suffered “a rapid illness” before his demise. The bloke in the shop had been suffering a pretty swift illness. How had he fared?

In sharp contrast against the dark green of a distant yew hedge, tendrils of smoke drifted from the cigarette’s last resting place. Nearby a robin warbled for a mate, like a reminder that life also had a starting point.

Ali pulled a beret over her newly tamed brunette curls. “I know what you're thinking and it’s biodegradable, I’m sure.”

“A fag end? My arse. It'll still be there on Judgment Day.”

“You’re just as bad after you’ve sunk a few.”

Guy scratched his beard, fiercely trimmed that morning at Ali’s insistence. “I've still got to get a card. And something to eat: I know what weddings are like.”

“Good idea.” Ali flipped open her pack of Lambert & Butlers. “I need same more of these... perhaps I'd better get some baccy.”

“Student loan finally exhausted, Miss Player?”

“It’s your extortionate rent that does it.”

“Wait till you hit the real world – not long now.” Guy stood, with remarkable ease for a wedding morning: the blushing bridegroom, Matthew, had held his stag night the previous Saturday.

Drinking buddy, Saul, being on some crackpot course out of town, Guy had spent this Friday evening on a rerun of The Quiet Earth at the Watershed, and in sobriety had exited at ten o'clock to the inebriated, vomiting city centre crowds. With a strange disgust he had gone home and even got to sleep before Ali had crashed in at about three. He didn't want to imagine what she had looked like then but she didn't appear too clever now, trying to stand up.

She removed the beret as though it were hurting her brain. “Oof! I don't do champagne.”

“Champagne. The night before. Stretch limo. Not very Rebecca; I thought she’d be a modern bride.”

“Yes, yes, Mr Smug. Come on. There's a newsagent over the road.”

They eventually dodged streams of post-shopping, pre-lunch, God-knows-what-other-reason cars, Chelsea Tractors, the odd idiot trying to navigate a juggernaut through suburban Bristol and even one bus belching fumes as if to make up for the vehicles its passengers would have driven. They wound up outside a pub next to the shop.

“Hair of the dog?” Guy asked.

“You,” Ali emphasised, “don't need that.”

“I need the courage to ush or whatever an usher does.”

A tall, slender blonde issued from a door between the two buildings. A blonde with spectacles that somehow served to make her even more attractive. Guy revised upward his estimate of that part of Bristol. Ali shook her head and led them into the newsagent, where she picked up a copy of The Daily Mail.

“Put that down. I’ll get us a Guardian. At least –” Guy paused in mid-stoop. The Evening Post had caught his eye: Bird Flu Death Hits Bristol. He pulled the paper out: last night... Royal Infirmary... Blackwells... “Look. It’s him.” Guy waved the article at Ali. “The bloke in the shop. Jesus Christ, I was stood right next to him. The fucker was sneezing all over me.” Guy read on. “Far East... epidemic... pandemic – what's the difference?”

Ali was cradling The Mail and supporting herself against the Lottery stand. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“An epidemic... one in 250. Is that a lot?”

“I’m going to the pub.” Ali rushed out.

Guy had a Bloody Mary waiting for her when she reappeared, not too much dishevelled, from the Ladies. He was halfway down a pint. “Recovered?”

“A little. You?”

“Yeah.” Guy picked The Times out of a pile of papers that occupied the rest of the table. “This has the lowdown. At his probable stage he wouldn’t have been infectious, bird flu doesn't transmit readily between people and it takes twenty-four hours, tops, for the symptoms to show.” He tapped his phone, lying between the drinks. “Thirty minutes to go.”

Ali sipped her cocktail. “Thirty minutes to show time, too. We’d better get over.”

Guy finished both drinks and gathered all the purchases, including packets of crisps and Mini Cheddars. “They only had these or Wotsits or Hula-Hoops... all that shit.”

“We’re not in Clifton now, you know. What about the card?”

“Fuck me. The card.” ⇐ ⇒

Jane

“Aye, the poor sap couldn't even recognise a blackcap.” Mr. Buchanan rubbed his arm where the antiviral had been injected.

“Dad!”

He snatched his hand away. “Ach! A load of fuss over nothing.”

Jane wished mum would hurry up: the last Edinburgh flight was boarding and the old fools weren't even through security yet; dusk was falling on a car that seemed incapable of running both engine and headlights together; Year Two had given her hell all day; and now her father was wittering on about some bird. It had been wonderful to see her parents and spend the school’s in-service day with them but she didn't want to miss too much of that evening’s Cortinas tribute gig and there was a weekend of flat-hunting ahead. She couldn't keep living in one room.

“At your age,” she said, “the flu could be very nasty.”

“My age? My age? I’m as fit as lads half my years.” He was too – a miracle of Calvinistic preservation. “What’s your mother up to?”

“I should know?”

Why couldn't ma pee on the plane? They didn't charge for it. Yet. It was barely an hour in the air too, not as though they were going to spend all day getting to... well, yes, dammit, Australia. She could surely think the word by now.

“I do hope they're holding the plane for us.” Mrs. Buchanan bustled up. “They don't go without you these days, you know, what with – “

“Mum! Come on.” Jane stepped towards the escalator as though trying to encourage a couple of puppies to follow.

“You needn’t take that tone, Jane Louise.” Mrs Buchanan finished tying a headscarf, for which Jane could see no reason. “And in any case there's no point your going up there. We'll love you and leave you here.”

“Fine.”

The public-address system bing-bonged and in the following announcement Jane caught the word, Edinburgh.

“That has to be final call.”

But her parents were moving. She hugged them, distantly. They seemed inclined to dither again. She checked the departures screen to chivvy them along.

“Only...” where was the gate for the flight? Edinburgh. Edinburgh. Cancelled. Cancelled? Impossible. A minute ago it had been showing gate – whatever the bloody gate had been. Cancelled? “Wait on.”

Her folks had reached the foot of the escalator. They followed Jane’s gaze to the screen. Jesus, God, she thought, thirty seconds earlier and they'd have been through. Instead, thirty minutes later she returned to them at Café Ritazza, having gleaned the news that one of the cabin crew had fallen sick and there wasn't much chance of a replacement that late in the day.

Mrs. Buchanan seemed unruffled. “That’s bonny. We’ll enjoy another night in Bristol.”

“Ma, this isn't British Airways. They'll not be putting you up at the Hilton.”

“They won't?”

“It’s a budget bloody airline, remember?”

“Jane!”

Mr. Buchanan grunted. “Less of the language, girl.”

“Oh, brother.” Less of the gig, less of the search for accommodation too. Jane hadn’t space to put them up and couldn't dump them in the centre of town either; and they'd need bringing back to the airport in the morning.

And it was fully dark when they got back to the car. And the motor died as soon as she switched the lights on.

“I don't fucking believe this car!” Jane was past caring about language. “How do lights bugger up engines? And look...” She left the headlamps on and turned the ignition key twice, three times, to no effect; and buried her head on the steering wheel. She couldn't even cry. She had visions of Basil Fawlty thrashing his Mini with a fallen branch and actually began to chuckle.

Then she cried.

It was all shit. Bloody, bloody shit. ⇐ ⇒

The First Victim

The body’s thud preceded the last of the plastic cases skittering across the floor. The prostrate form groaned and in the shop a blanket of silence fell. From outside, traffic labouring up Park Street filled the void. A tableau: shoppers frozen, faces fixed; the shattered carousel, its CDs, cases and inserts strewn in all directions; Guy uncomfortably closest to the stricken lump, which shivered, mouthing bubbles of foam. A final CD insert parachuted down and settled by a trickle of blood snaking from the fat man’s nose. An Introduction to NLP.

Guy thought of Saul: he followed that sort of thing, especially since the split with Fiona. He was a doctor too. He would have sprung into action. Guy was blank. He had even forgotten the book he had been carrying to the checkout, so fixed was he on the mute drama facing him.

The white-haired Scot reacted first and knelt over the labouring victim. Guy blessed him and hovered and tried to look useful without wanting to see any of the details.

“An ambulance,” he said.

“Aye. And right quick.”

Guy pulled out his phone, even as a nurse bustled over, presumably on her break from the Royal Infirmary. Guy tapped in 999 and tensed, as though he shouldn't be dialling these sacred numbers, meant only for emergencies. Was this an emergency?

As though in affirmation the victim moaned, wheezed, and shivered. Was blood also flecking the foam around his mouth? Guy felt weak and tried to look away. He realised the phone was interrogating him. Good, an anchor to concentrate on.

Above it the nurse was saying, “We should clear the area, please. Please. Come along. There’s a risk of infection. Come along.” Behind concealing hand she muttered to the Scotsman.

Guy finished the call. “It’s on its way.”

The nurse nodded. “Good. Now you too, please.” She waved him away.

Guy didn't need prompting but he would have liked to know the outcome. For that there was always the Web and he still had Matthew’s wedding card to buy before the weekend. Not in this shop any more, as the staff were shepherding customers out, like a plan springing into action. A siren announced the approach of an ambulance – not an unusual sound in this part of Bristol.

With an odd sense of anti-climax Guy drifted back to the office, where Rani would be sure to soak up the story. Only as he got to Brandon Hill did he register the unpaid merchandise in his hand. How had he got away with that? ⇐ ⇒

The Birder

First, he needed to double-check that he was buying the absolutely best possible field guide. A sixty-year-old version of Andy Warhol was now browsing the bird shelves. Guy hesitated. He could just go with the book he had chosen.

From a neighbouring section behind him a thundering sneeze demanded attention. Some fat bastard in an overcoat -- an overcoat? In this weather? And fatty did glisten with sweat although he also looked weirdly cold with a faint blue tinge to his complexion. White shock-haired Warhol had also turned to look and now grimaced at Guy, committing him to make some show of examining the merchandise.

“Am I in your way?” – Scots tones.

Guy hefted his book. “I was just... I don't know if this is for me.”

“The Larousse, aye. Good for beginners.”

“Oh, I’m not... I mean,” Guy couldn't get away from the older man’s hair. Was it a wig? “Do any books organise birds by colour?”

“Ach, a real beginner.”

Guy mumbled. He didn't even know what himself. He gestured and that too was meaningless to him. He looked back at the overcoat, which had moved closer.

“What colour would you be wanting?”

“Brown, on the head.” Guy patted his own sparse thatch. “I think: it was quick.”

“Where?”

“The head, I’m sure.”

“No, where, as in place.”

“Brandon Hill.”

“Aye, let's try type of place, then.”

Guy pictured himself back in Latin lessons with that old twat, Symes, hammering on about tense? subject? declension? A snoring told him that the fat man was even nearer – a snoring interspersed with nasty, liquidy sounds.

Guy fought his way back to the conversation. “A bush?”

“Are you no sure this bird wasnae grey?”

Guy shook his head. “I can't remember.”

“Well, laddie, you need to write it down. Or draw a wee sketch.”

“Ha! With my O-level art?”

The avian expert’s blue eyes switched from interrogation to amusement. “Come now, a couple of circles, a few lines?”

Another mighty sneeze punctured the air. Guy almost felt droplets raining on him.

He brandished the book. “I've got to –”

“Of course, you'll find your bird in there.”

Guy wheeled in the direction of the cashier but a strangled sneeze, ominous silence and then the sound of cascading, clattering... what? He found a shower of CD cases, flying from a display carousel, and a large figure tumbling after them.

Jesus! If only Guy had bought the book straightaway. ⇐ ⇒

Guy

How could a girl so attractive look so miserable? Guy had been sneaking looks across the café for minutes and her expression hadn’t softened. Was she miserable? Did she need cheering up? Was Guy the man to do it?

He pushed his spectacles back on his head to focus on the lead story in the Bristol Evening Post, lying on the table. No, he was bored with this flu scare. He closed the newspaper, under which lay Birds of Britain & Ireland. He hadn’t opened that, not knowing if he would buy it. He wasn't the sort of person that reads piles of books in a bookshop’s café. He studied a couple of gulls flying across the cover and absently stroked the stubble that he called a beard.

She was still there, Garbo-like, even down to that high, clear forehead. Why did that look so good on a girl and so bad on him? Mekon, he’d had at school. And now it was worse with only an island of hair on his scalp, and incipient frown-lines, which at least broke the length of his face. Guy was one up on the Mekon there. It was just a pity he didn't have the green man’s super-mind so that he could impel the girl to him.

Apart from a barn owl he didn't recognise the other birds on the cover. He did need the book. At last, he flicked through the pages. How was the fucker organised? How would he find the grey bird he’d seen on Brandon Hill?

Gone. Of course, the girl had gone. Guy scanned the surrounding bookshop with no success. He closed the book and gulped down the remains of his coffee. Guy had been long enough at his lunch-break already and he hadn’t even started on the original purpose of the visit. ⇒

Would a Blog Novel Work?

Would it? Something like a serialised magazine story but in much shorter episodes, a few hundred words may be the digestible most on the Web. Could a story advance sufficiently in this space, enough to keep the reader coming back? A job for tight writing or excellent descriptive/dialogue passages.

A 21st-century Dickens might have written this way. Perhaps the format suits soap opera, which on television has largely sated our appetite for drip-fed stories. The written word may not be able to compete.

The Web has a couple of advantages. It‘s easy to bookmark a page to resume a story at leisure. And why stick to a linear narrative, one page following another? Separate threads could develop sub-plots, maybe by other writers, all collaborating to weave a huge tapestry.

I may give this a whirl and resurrect any one of: my (badly) written novel; or two other stalled attempts. Just the exercise of tightening them up would be a boost.