(Hey, shut up. I could’ve walked the low road. I could’ve gone with, “Two Guys, One Cup of Pens.”)
…
(Damnit, I should’ve taken the low road. What did your mother tell you? Always take the low road. Dang!)
Ahem. Right. So, maybe you know the drill, maybe you don’t know the drill. Here’s the drill.
Shadowstories has always been, and will always be, an ongoing experiment. This experiment is put before you, displayed like a buffet table of wondrous sweetmeats and exotic berries. It goes like this:
Chuck writes 1500 words.
Marty writes 1500 words.
Chuck writes another 1500 words.
Marty writes another 1500 words.
Chuck writes 1500 words, again.
Marty writes 1500 words, again.
Chuck then goes ahead and–
(Cripes, how long do I have to do this for you people until you’re satisfied? Until I’m bleeding? You blood-hungry monsters! Stop chanting! It’s like a soccer match out there. People are going to get stomped to death, I just know it. Calm down, I’m getting to the point.)
So. Do we consult with one another? No, we do not. A new draft chapter will simply pop up in our inbox like the dramatic gopher. (I know, he’s a prairie dog. But prairie dogs can harbor bubonic plague, and I don’t want to reward them for that. You have to take a firm line with prairie dogs. They understand only the iron fist of discipline.)
(This is a lot of parenthesetical asides.)
(I don’t even know how to get back on track. Where was I? Who are you people? What have you done with my collection of neckerchiefs?)
(Oh! Right. I remember.)
No consultations. Chapter arrives. We read it. We hold some minor discussion over editing the writing, not the content, and then that’s it. The next writer now has the ball, and he has to run with it for 1500 words. He might run into a nest of bees. He might run over a line of slumbering hobos. He might run smack into a wall, or off a cliff, or into a geyser of hot garbage-smelling steam.
Now, you might be saying, isn’t that difficult? Isn’t that crazy? Why are you touching your nipples like that?
First, I’m touching my nipples like that because it’s enjoyable. That’s all. No need to look deeper. I like it. And I suspect you like it, too.
Second, is it crazy? Yes, it’s crazy. Crazy like a fox! Pow! Vulpine lunacy!
Third, is it difficult?
No. Actually, it’s not.
We’ve been doing this for (coughcough) too many years now, so we’ve gotten a rhythm. Moreover, imagine this, fellow friendly writermonkeys:
You’re writing, fingers gleefully dancing across the keys, and suddenly you run slam-bang into a great yawning void. You don’t know where to go next. A wave of uncertainty threatens to drag you into its merciless undertow. An existential crisis ensues. You eat donuts. You weep into your donuts. You drink vodka. You weep into your vodka. You drool. You eat a fistful of quaaludes, and then nurse on a brick of PCP-laden hash the way a child suckles a pacifier. Next thing you know, you’re running naked through town. You’re covered in dirt and blood–and, inexplicably, moths. You don’t remember the last hour-and-a-half. Suddenly–a Taser. Bzzt. You defecate on yourself. All because you didn’t know where to go next.
We don’t have that problem here. Okay, maybe we cry into our vodka and donuts, but that’s just because it reminds us we’re human. We stop there, though, because we have the ability to hand over the story to someone else. It’s like switching drivers on a long road trip. It makes things easier.
(Once upon a time, it maybe didn’t, but that was when we were finding our feet. “Hey, in this chapter, I introduce a character whose body is made of monkey parts and fiber optic cables!” “Cool! In my chapter, that character is crushed inside the intestinal tract of a giant galactic tapeworm!” “But I loved that character.” “But I love tapeworms!”)
Most importantly, it makes things funner. (Is that a word? Funner? More fun? Extra funnish? Double-funtastic?)
Case in point:
First chapter, The Pirate Ship, has our two primary idiots–er, heroes–encountering some sinister Internet-esque network, except this network has black evil tentacles.
Second chapter, Celestial Chorus, posits that the Infi-Net is dangerous, because in this narrative universe, the Infi-Net is a place where no new stories are being told, and the planets and star-bodies are all in a tizzy about it (and about boy kissing).
Third chapter, The Weasel and the Geek, puts us with our other two heroes, the doofus and the mutant weasel, and we encounter a new side effect of the Infi-Net–the black tentacle ooze seems to be making zombies.
And here’s where things go to Funtown, near Funopolis, on Planet Funtopia.
The fourth chapter does something unexpected–and unexpected by one half of the author team. A Series of Tubes indicates that at least two of our heroes are now actually inside the Infi-Net. They’re not being attacked by tentacles. They’ve actually been dragged into the network. The one author expected that the story was likely going a conventional route: in the Storyverse, the Infi-Net would become a physical and existential threat to the narrative threads. The other author said, “Fuck that, I got something cooler.” And the cooler thing commenced.
And that, my friends, is superfuckinfunarifficexpialidocious. Because every chapter is a chance for one author to surprise the other, which means that each author is in turn attempting to surprise you. So, please, enjoy the experiment. Enjoy the process as it unfolds. We certainly are.
