Breaking the Novelist’s Rule
Turning a short story based on a dream into a serial, and then turning that into a novella would get me shot by the managing editor of any decent publishing house. A novelist is supposed to tweak the beginning to fall into line with the finalized ending. The box I wrote myself into does not leave that option. Toward the end of any novella-length or longer work I find myself adjusting the number of chapters in the last quarter of the book.
I had originally promised 19 serials with a novelette length conclusion. I find myself, in outlining Planet Buzzkill, at the beginning of an episode that makes for the perfect lead in to the concluding third of the story. First Contact will conclude, as a free serialized novella of 16 episodes, with Planet Buzzkill.
The release of the novelette-length conclusion as Final Hour: Spitting into the Galactic Wind, is scheduled for mid-2014.
First Contact Serial Sketch
#1 X-White
#2 Nick’s Run
#3 Bighead Tweet
#4 Hot Stuff!
#5 Black Mercedes
#6 Oldman Jones
#7 MTA Mike
#8 Miss Betty
#9 All Suffering Soon To End
#10 Chiquita
#11 The Spricket
#12 Into The Hood
#13 Kicking Ridiculous Butt!
#14 Jube the Lube
#15 Who Loves You?
#16 Planet Buzzkill: The Tao of Stoner Joe
Final Hour Chapters [with Protagonist]
17. Too Nasty [Kendra]
18. Aliens Suck! [Little Billy Thomas]
19. The Last Bus in Town [Oldman Jones]
20. The Mother Ship [Miss Betty]
21. Mothershippers! [Black Mercedes]
22. Being Jackie Spam [Nick]
23. Alien This! [Jube the Lube]
24. Domingo Down [Flora]
25. All Out of Rambo [Tyler]
26. Last Rites [Bighead Tweet]
27. Epilogue: Avian Prime Mind
28. Addendum Blue: On The Virulence of Proto-sentient Gravity Well Infestation
Pick Your Hero
Below is a reader poll. Please use the comments feature at the end of the article to post your pick. If you guess the ending between now and the release of the Final Hour e-book you will receive a free copy.
Below are eight possible endings, only one of which shall prove true.
Pick Your Ending
1. Oldman Jones figures out how to combat the alien invaders and survives. The rest of humanity is toast however, making him the anti-Adam, dying alone on an un-peopled world.
2. Bighead Tweet discovers the weakness of the alien invaders and saves the group, but not humanity. The survivors are saved by alien animal rights activists and become an indigenous zoological exhibit for alien tourists.
3. Little Billy Thomas kills the Alien Queen with his Daisy beebee gun and becomes ruler of the planet, the George Washington of a post-apocalyptic world!
4. Jube the Lube discovers the cure for the ‘ally’in enforezdation’ and saves mankind from alien invaders—though not alcoholic implosion—dying heroically in the act.
5. Stoner Joe discovers the alien weakness, but dies before he can lead the others in defeating the invasive species. The planet is colonized and humanity wiped out.
6. Black Mercedes, the last survivor, is escorted onto the Mother Ship to see the Alien Queen, who she seduces, becoming defacto ruler of an interspecies lesbian galaxy!
7. Nick fights his way onto the Mother Ship, dying heroically in the process, but saving mankind from total extinction.
8. Seriously, you think these fools have a chance? LaFond is writing it, and it is based on a nightmare. Nobody on the planet makes it to sunset of the first day.
These are all endings that I seriously considered, my favorite option being ‘3’. On 11/7/13 I finally made my decision. Which one will it be?
