Connected Stories
More then just "one and done."
The Short Story “Tall, Darq, and Deadly” is, essentially, the first chapter in a seven-story arc. It’s an introductory chapter, meant to bring together the protagonists of the series—Honey and Marq.
At some point I realized that this is the first time that I’ve written something that continues. One of the stories in the series ends and the other begins. It’s so natural, but a challenge I haven’t delved into previously. For me, a story was a ‘one-and-done.’ Sure, I had ‘plans’ to revisit many of them, but I was already onto the next concept and grouping of unrelated characters before the ink dried, so to speak.
With Honey & Marq, I may have gone through the writing process with these as short stories in mind, but after the first two, I realized my plate was much bigger and these needed to be told (eventually) as one complete story. There’s just too much back story to fully incorporate by the later stories in the series.
Building their world and telling their story has been a rewarding process, and while the detail is small, it really stood out to me—the continued process of bridging multiple stories into a longer work. It’s led to a forty-thousand-word story with seven parts and previous chapter references to what came before, tying the whole thing together, beginning, middle, and end.
It’s just a wide-eyed moment for this writer, something along my journey that made me pause and smile. It’s something I have to look forward to as I put together the two other seven-story arcs I have as a parallel to Honey & Marq.
The first arc is that of Honey & Marq. It’s an ‘eye-opening’ story, with her being drawn into his world. With each story their bond gets deeper, and her eyes open more, until she can’t resist being part of that world.
The second arc surrounds Franklin—a manipulator of shadows, who has escaped to Earth to find himself in a community of others like him, and how a simple error in judgement can create danger for everyone in a community.
And the third is that of Sapphire, which details how a world traveling chef can be caught up in the homegrown politics and responsibility of her magical Storytelling gifts.
As these stories get underway, I will post more about them at later time. I promise not to give away too much, I’ll still want to be a surprise when they are released, after all.
I’ll have some art to share soon, something from one of the scenes in “Tall, Darq, and Deadly.” I’ll share what I can get from the artist in a follow up post.