Tuning In This Time

We encourage people to read our “Tune In Next Time” chain story from the beginning all the time, and guess what we just started doing? What? No! But the fact that you think that of us means you must be familiar with our work.

We plan to do a read-thru of the thing in its entirety. (This will be the first time we’ve actually done that, at least since it grew beyond about a dozen installments.) As always, when Rune Skelley says “we are reading the thing” that means “Kent is reading the thing aloud for Jen’s edification and enjoyment.” And Kent has so far read aloud the first 60 episodes.

The chain story, for those who don’t know, is a long-running gonzo epic made up of writing prompts. Each unit is typically about 200-300 words, and we mainly rely on our state-of-the-art Stichomancy Writing Prompt Generator to provide the raw materials. Most of the time Jen and Kent take turns, with Jen’s posts going up on Mondays and Kent’s on Wednesdays. On special occasions, we team up to do super-size combo prompts. It’s something we mainly treat like a game, and a way to keep the writing muscles limber. We do not take any of it seriously, except that we do take great pride in screwing each other over with awkward cliffhangers and preposterous situations. And, we make an honest effort at continuity (but we also make an effort to spend the minimum amount of time on the episodes, so sometimes we skimp on research).

So, now that we’ve embarked on this journey, how does it make us feel? Amused, largely. We crack ourselves up. The tone is wacky. We’re amazed at how quickly certain tropes and running gags showed up. Secret organizations and outrageous cornball conspiracies, for example. The tone came into focus right away, but not necessarily the flavor. Very early episodes tend to have a pronounced noir feeling about them, which isn’t something that gets maintained. We expect to get a better idea of the continuity by binging it, but it’s too soon to really say much about that. (We’re only about 7% of the way into it!)

By the way, revisiting the chain story is not our only recent trip down memory lane. Not too long ago we reread our Divided Man trilogy. That material we did take seriously, and we remain extremely proud of it. There’s danger in spending too much time looking back, but there’s also value in being reminded of how far you’ve come.

A writing partner is someone who’ll sometimes help you tame the chaos, and sometimes join you in embracing it.