Loose Change

Four part story submitted. My first serial.

Slowly, slowy recovering from my cold, but in the meantime I finished my four-part "Sci-Fi Religious Noir" story for The First Line  .  Kind of intriguing challenge actually.  The basic idea is that they give a first line (which you have to use exactly as is), and you write a story.  The real challenge comes if you choose to try a four part story, as I did.  (Don't bother now, as it was due today.)  If they accept it (and they are a tough market, so it is not a given at all), they will use the first part in their Spring issue, second in the Summer issue and so on.  The first lines (and thus the beginning of each "part" or chapter) are:

Spring: Working for God is never easy.
Summer: Paul and Miriam Kaufman met the old-fashioned way.
Fall: Three thousand habitable planets in the known universe, and I'm stuck on the only one without ______________. [Fill in the blank.]
Winter: Until I stumbled across an article about him in the paper, I never realized how much Walter Dodge and I are alike.

Sure makes for an interesting story.  Mine is called Judd Falcon, Missionary to the Stars, but I can't share it with people because it is up for publication.  Of course, if they accept it, you can see it in the magazine. 

You can now submit for the Summer issue, of course, but not a four parter.


Current status: 64 items in 75 submissions. Three new markets attempted, flashquake, Tin House, Annalemma, Breadcrumb Scabs: a poetry magazine and, of course, The First Line