CHAPTER 1 REDUX
Berlin Confidential
A Supernatural Noir and
Online Penny Dreadful
by Allison & Emily
Updates Sundays.
A Supernatural Noir and
Online Penny Dreadful
by Allison & Emily
Updates Sundays.
CHAPTER 1 REDUX
CHAPTER 37 SNEAK PREVIEW (CURRENT READERS)
CHAPTER 1 (NEW READERS)
WELL, there are presently THIRTY-SIX CHAPTERS, EIGHT LETTERS and NINE INTERLUDES up on our Tumblr for people to read (check it), so what we’re going to do is three things: post a bit of the first chapter for the uninitiated, a little sneak preview of the upcoming Chapter 37, and an even littler and sneakier preview of the new first chapter from The Overcity. We’ve written about a page of the latter, just because it wouldn’t leave us alone, and it is definitely subject to change. But just for interest’s sake. Look for the three posts immediately following this one.
We don’t need to pretend. Haha.
The primary issue with Berlin Confidential is a lack of focus. It is rich and plentiful, but there is an ever-expanding population of characters and a rapidly increasing number of directions the story wants to go in, and with such long gaps between chapter updates, it is difficult for the reader to follow everything going on in the authors’ heads. There is clearly a lot to the story, but so much of it is either too subtle or subsumed in the ambitious derth of plot, of which there is so much that the novel threatens to crumple under its own weight. If a more workable structure can be achieved, the various elements of story slimmed down, slowed down, sped up and/or simplified—and if the reader can be brought in on it a little more—we might really have something here.
HOW WAS THAT DO I CRITIC GOOD
There’s probably plenty of other things to criticize, but that’s the one we’re most aware of and interested in fixing.
Well, y’all here on Tumblr have at least heard about it if you aren’t reading it. We don’t really know how many of you are reading it and would like to. A lot of people do know we’re writing it, though most of them are “too busy” to read it. Which, okay, that’s totally understandable because reading online kind of sucks (especially on this foolish social network) and it’s long as SHIT. Hopefully someday we’ll figure out a better marketing strategy and have somewhere to put it that will actually encourage readership. For now, we have a nice little group of folks, which is fine.
Well, being on hiatus is GREAT. Before that it was pretty much a 24/7 job all the time, with a lot of procrastinating and agonizing. So the answer is all the time, every environment, with varying levels of success. Right now we’re working on getting a good solid buffer going so we can jump back in and feel a little more relaxed - maybe even go back to posting once a week? That would be nice! No promises though.
Well, so far the most exciting part has been Chapters 20-23. But more exciting times will come.
HAHAHA trying to get us to give that up. As if. There are some good twists a-coming, and some that have already happened, too. You’ll see.
There also isn’t a main plot point. Like… we have a ton of plot points. This story is too large for just one.
Well, as we have been copiously mentioning, we’re going to rewrite it. By then we’re hoping to have a website off-Tumblr where we can host the whole thing, and we also would like to create Ebooks for people to download. The ultimate goal would be to make some money off of it, and maybe, maaaaaaybe, to be able to publish an actual hard copy? In that instance we’d really want it to be a Gormenghast type situation where it was only or predominantly printed and sold as all three books in one giant volume, which would probably be pretty impossible to sell as unestablished nobodies. But that is the dream. We’ll see what happens.
