As we mentioned a few weeks ago, soon all three of the story worlds we’ve been working in for the past mumbletysomething years will have their projects wrapped up. (Soon being a relative and imprecise term, qualities that recommend it for all kinds of occasions.) What then?

Well, we have some thoughts on the subject. We like being prepared, so we’ve already discussed several possible settings and plots and themes in various permutations. There’s an idea that we particularly like, although it raises something of a challenge for us.

To wit: The concept we’re considering brings along some reader expectations, not all of which rest comfortably within the Rune Skelley idiom*.

There are infinite ways to break a given set of rules, such as those defining a literary tradition. Fine, we like having options. But there’s another, self-imposed, set of rules that we want to avoid breaking, those that differentiate our fiction. We need to figure out the Rune Skelley take on this type of story, so there’s no sudden tonal or stylistic shift in our oeuvre. It’s partly a branding thing, but mainly we want to write what makes us happy, what makes us feel proud.

*Character-driven plots with a dark sense of humor, in superficially familiar settings that hide supernatural and technological menace.