Announcement: Serialized Story 'The Embassy' Begins Next Week
Exploring Critical Consent newsletter topics & themes through storytelling
I am very excited to announce that starting in January, I am going to start publishing a serialized fiction story every two weeks, with the intention to let this writing serve as a starting point for publishing further stories later on. Expect the same level of quality and care, accompanied by my heart and passion for storytelling, put into them as in all my writing. I wanted to use this post to elaborate on why I want to do this and what this is going to look like.
Taking my inspiration from serialized fiction writers like Alexandre Dumas, whose Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favourite works of literature, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edgar Allan Poe, and the ways in which they approached their writing and used it to support their professional careers as authors, I also want to take a walk down that path and see where it leads me. The easy facilitation of authentic contact between writers and readers that the newsletter format and Substack platform provide seem a natural fit.
The stories I am going to publish are going to serve as an addition to the non-fiction journalistic articles that you are used to receiving in your inbox around once a month, and are going to be accessible through a paid subscription. Besides gaining access to enticing and thought-provoking stories, your subscription is therefore also going to support fact-based journalism that will remain accessible to everyone.
Why publish fictional stories as part of a newsletter that places such a great emphasis on truth-telling?
I think that stories can provide a medium through which one can more freely explore complex themes and ideas, less constricted by the differences of opinion as well as the dry and at times confusing complexity of non-fiction writing. That is not to discount how important that kind of writing remains, otherwise I would not be spending so much time and energy on my articles, but to highlight how there exist other methods of reaching people, perhaps even in different ways altogether. In other words, sometimes we can discover deeper, more meaningful truths in fiction than we ever could have otherwise.
While the stories I write can widely differ from one another in setting, style, or genre, I have come to find that they often boil down to the same kinds of themes and struggles, or share similarities in the ways in which they explore the characters’ trains of thoughts, even if that is not my intention from the outset. Perhaps one could even describe these different elements as hallmarks of my own style, if there ever can exist anything like a static or consistent personal style across many years and a varied body of work. Yet at the same time I believe that some of these elements are the extension of universal principles like justice or truth and human struggles for freedom, love, and peace.
Seeing as my writing for the Critical Consent newsletter is the result of both my personal style and my pursuit of universal principles, of exploring different themes and topics and telling different stories, the publication of stories through this medium feels like a natural extension of the work that I already do, but that can hopefully resonate with readers in entirely different ways.
What can I expect from this newsletter going forward?
As with my articles, I am going to start with a schedule that I can realize and take it from there, evaluating and reflecting on the process as it is going along.
→ Currently, I try to publish about one long-form (usually ~1500-3000 words) article a month, and I have currently settled on publishing those on a Thursday around the end of the month. This is something that I intend to keep pursuing, exploring current topics that present themselves to me and where I believe that my writing can provide a valuable under-reported or -discussed perspective. These posts are accessible to everyone, and are going to remain that way, since I believe that everyone should have equal access to factual information regardless of means. I may decide to provide some extra or personalized content to paid subscribers, when I believe that something that I would otherwise not publish as part of a post can still be of value to the people directly supporting my work.
→ In addition, I am going to start publishing a fiction story on Saturdays, with each new part of the story appearing every two weeks. When I’m in between two longer stories, I may deviate and for example instead post a short story for that month before starting the publication of the next serialized work. While I cannot precisely predict the length of these stories, I am not going to let them needlessly drag on without ever ending, not only out of respect for your time and money but also because I have other stories that I cannot wait to start telling as well.
As mentioned in the introduction, you can gain access to these stories through a paid subscription. As these subscriptions are also meant as a way to directly support my work and help me keep doing this job, I have adjusted the plan prices to better reflect these aims. One-time expressions of support through the donate / buy me a lunch buttons remain as greatly appreciated as ever.
The first part of the story, to be published on Saturday the 11th, is going to be accessible to everyone, so you can get a feel for whether it is something you would enjoy reading. If you are still unsure, it is also possible to take a 30-day trial that lets you read all of my content, or to unlock 1 post for free.
The last two years, I have been writing a series of posts exclusive to my paid subscribers called ‘Monthly Musings’. In these posts, I would often write about my writing process, or about different personal thoughts about whatever was holding my attention at the time. As I have on multiple occasions felt like I would rather share this writing with everyone, and since they proved an extra writing burden on top of my existing work, I have decided to change my approach. Instead of a separate monthly post, these will be shorter in length and directly accompany the biweekly story publication, serving as both an extra perspective on my work and writing processes and an introduction to the content and themes of that (bi)week’s story. As a subscriber, you are therefore going to be kept in the loop on all of my work and share in the inspiration behind the themes that I’m exploring. If you are solely interested in my journalistic writing, you can find the creative writing section listed in your account settings, and untick the box to only receive the main posts.
When can I expect the first story and what is it about?
You can expect the first part of the story to arrive in your mailbox exactly one week from now, on Saturday the 11th. The story revolves around a journalist from a fictitious country who because of his work attracts the attention of powerful forces that he does not yet fully understand. More details about the story shall be revealed along the way.
As for a title, that is always the last thing I write for any story or article. Once something is almost finished, I take a step back and try to come up with one that truly captures the essence of what it is about. Sometimes, that turns out to be something entirely different from when I started writing, other times it stays the way it is. For now, the story is simply called ‘The Embassy’.
The story will start with a prologue, told from a different character’s perspective than the rest of the story, which you can read in full. Each part of the story will be about 1000-1500 words (about 3-4 A4 pages).
Got excited? Check out the subscription plans here:
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