More words this week, more time in the dark. I’m trying to resist any impulse to Taylorism - and it’s hard to do away with the notion of a daily word target. These can be useful, particularly when that next nice round number serves as a carrot, but like any system it can bite. Systems should serve people, not the other way around.

Django Wexler launched a new serial novel on Tuesday and I am hoping you'll be interested because I desperately want this one to keep going until the promised end. The Thirteenth God starts in a Mad Max fantasy place and builds from there, and “builds” is the right word. I blazed through the first arc in an earlier draft, one of those experiences that demonstrated the firepower of the fully operational pocket-sized e-reader: whenever I had a few seconds I'd pull out the device and chew through another chapter, and I kept finding 'just a few seconds' while walking down stairs, waiting in line, waiting for water to boil, for the person I was talking to to finish their sentence, etc.

The Thirteenth God is a progression fantasy, broadly speaking, the kind of story that takes our heroes from desperately trying to survive the smallest danger their world has to offer, to trading punches with gods, thanks to a combination of grit, wit, power-of-friendship, and good old fashioned rules exploitation. Progression fantasy thrives on growth; the versions of this story-type that I enjoy have a kind of wonder of accretion - of momentum, power, tools, characters, capacity. Challenges that seemed impossible in the first book barely reach to the knees of routine obstacles encountered by book three. You don't have to imagine an anime credits sequence with 'Let's See How Far We've Come' playing in the background and multiple shots of people turning toward the camera, hands outstretched, etc but it won't hurt.

I'm going to have Django on to talk about The Thirteenth God here in a week or two, his vision for it and why he's publishing it this way, but I didn't want y'all to miss the chance to get in on the ground floor here. The whole will be posted episodically on Royal Road here, but you can read early by backing the project Patreon. I'm going to try a new thing here too: if you'd like a one-month membership so you can catch up with me, I'm going to give away five gift memberships, on a first-come-first-served basis. Just reply to this email with your email.

I'm excited for Django to take this step not just because I want to read more Thirteenth God; it's been a long time since I've done much clear serial storytelling, though I have roots there and the model draws me. Of course we wrote Bookburners and The Witch Who Came in From the Cold but they were both made something like a short run TV series, where we had all the episodes of a given season produced before any of them came out—the effect was similar to working on a series of books, with published volumes (mostly) set in stone but large sections of the work fluid, amenable to rewriting. I'm talking more about forum fic, the kind of work I did with the old FPL or on alt.starfleet.rpg as a kid: fiction as fresco painting. Once a story goes live, you're stuck with it, barring ret-cons and who wants that kind of hassle, and plus even a loyal audience will most vividly retain the first version of the story they read. Of course, there are compensations: for example, you can see audience feedback and speculation as the story evolves, which doesn't control you but is a good springboard, like the audience response in live theater.

My usual process wouldn't be a great fit for this, particularly the process I've used for something as sprawling as the Craft Wars: so many pieces shift as I dial in the effect and balance viewpoints and pacing that the editorial process feels like a DJ set. But different conditions of publication and distribution require different habits of composition, different forms and genres, and it would be fun to try. And there's no set 'usual process' anyway. Lee Child apparently 'doesn't revise' on the level of story structure; he feels it's dishonest, since you don't get to live the same day over again. I'm told Lauren Goff writes five or even ten complete longhand drafts of the same novel without referencing the previous versions, until she feels she's ready to type it up. Pratchett wrote in accretion layers, so dense I'm only able to see the seams of Hogfather after who knows how many times through. You figure out what works for you, and when it doesn't any more, like the leopard, you go into new spots.

The combination of a 13-inch iPad and a library with a good comics program might end up being a problem but for the moment it is a LOT of fun. I just read through the first two trades of Kieron Gillen’s The Power Fantasy, on a reader’s recommendation, and I strongly recommend. It takes the “what if superpowers” Watchmen-y concept to the extreme: what sort of uneasy balance would emerge between characters with “real” superpowers, characters with paranormal abilities roughly equivalent to the US nuclear arsenal? What if there were six superhumans and if they ever fought directly, the entire world would end? In the shadow of this question Gillen asks another, to which I didn’t realize I had wanted an answer: what if Chidi from the Good Place was Professor X?

This cursed thought sent me down a Good Place / Power Fantasy cross-casting rabbit hole, obviously Jason is Heavy but the others don’t quite work. Tahani isn’t Valentina and Eleanor isn’t Eliza though it’s really funny to imagine both of them trying. Which leaves Michael as Jackie… Janet as Masumi? I don’t know what I’m doing here.

Anyway it’s a great book, read it.

I'll be at Arisia this weekend—not on any formal programming, but I will be in the lobby Saturday afternoon around 2 if anyone wants to catch up! Otherwise, take care of one another, and happy reading. See you next week.