X, the Author's Introduction

Over much of the next half year I am going to be releasing my novel X as a weekly serial on Fictionaut. X is a period piece set in the late 1990s Ecstasy scene revolving around the very different journeys of three over-thinking twenty-somethings who stumble into each other's lives. One character's story is a comedy, another a tragedy, and another a tale of recovery and the start of redemption.

  But, X does a good job of speaking for itself, so I will limit the synopsis to just that. What I suspect my fellow authors and other readers on Fictionaut will be asking is “why the hell would anybody want to serialize their novel online? Surely it would be better to find a small publisher or if that didn't work out to self publish?” I gave this a lot of thought, but when I reread my novel I realized something about it that went back to its very origins virtually demanded I serialize it.

  X was born in a fiction writing class in Philadelphia many years ago and every week or so I would bring in a new chapter in the story arc of the characters. (Rather than write the book in the linear format in which I'm presenting it, I wrote each interlocking character's story arc separately with the hope that the mood and tone of the different characters would pervade their chapters.) In taking this approach I got hooked on the many virtues of serial writing. Because each chapter is fairly self-contained and readers can join in whenever they chose, it allowed me to develop my characters slowly, quietly, and methodically, over a long period of time and to enjoy the luxury of the slow reveal of some important aspects of their characters over the course of, literally, years. Indeed, I adopted a waltz-like structure for the entire book, character 1, character 2, character 3, and then a distinctive perspective from entirely different character in each of these 7 “acts.” By the time I was finished with my most recent edit I realized I had written the novel I wanted to write, with its intentional smallness intact and I believe the best way for people to enjoy the novel is to present it as was originally presented: bit by gentle little bit.

  That is not to say, however, that I don't want feedback. Indeed, nothing would make me happier than to really engage you, my fellow writers, and get some great feedback that would allow me to reimagine and rework the entire novel at some point in the future, but for now, this feels totally right, and I think Fictionaut is the right home for my quirky little protagonists. And to show you I mean business, I am even including a foreword to my novel from Ken Bingham, author and legendary creative writing teacher of the Philadelphia writing scene who helped shepherd us the novel along from its very beginning. I'd also like to especially thank my friend Liesel Euler for all of her help over the years. I don't think there is a word of this novel she hasn't read many times over.

I hope you enjoy X.

Be on the look out tomorrow for the Foreword to X by Ken Bingham