By Ian Acheson @achesonian
Those of you who have read any of my “best of”
posts of the past few years will have seen my enthusiasm for episodic fiction
where a story is developed over months/years, sometimes by multiple authors, by
releasing individual episodes (novellas) monthly. Harbingers was a
20 episode series featuring five authors including one of my favourites, Frank
Peretti.
Last year I discovered Bill Myers, one of the
Harbinger creators, had produced another series based on one of his earlier
novels, Eli. Once again, Myers has collaborated with a bunch of authors to
deliver monthly episodes. I’ve recently finished the seventh and am keen for
the next one.
The Eli Diaries is a story that explores the
question: what would it be like if teenage Jesus turned up in 21st
century America? And not just Jesus but his disciple mates and his Bethany
family of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Oh, and no series would be complete without
a teenage Mary Magdelene and Satan.
Like Harbingers, a different author voices a
different character for each episode. The only real constant in all episodes is
Eli Shepherd. This weird sixteen year old, who has a heart of gold, seems to
discern things and events before they occur, and occasionally heals people. Eli
works in his family’s surf shop.
We meet Benjamin the Pharistic youth leader who
is is gunning for Eli believing he is leading his flock of youngsters down a
dangerous path.
Some of the episodes have been a bit scratchy but
the last few have been beauties. They deal with issues of youth: bullying,
keeping up with the Joneses, beauty, brawn and brains, revenge and lust. Woven
through most of the episodes are demonstrations of grace, mercy and love.
Once again, I’ve found the episodic style of
story telling to be compelling (like a good TV series). I’m excited to read the
new series that our own Narelle Atkins is involved in (A Tuscan Legacy) that
launches soon that takes a different approach to episodic fiction once again.
Eight weekly episodes, eight different authors, all with a Tuscan flavour.
Consistent Delivery
One of the challenges from an early readers
perspective of an episodic series is there is a need for consistency in
delivering episodes. I’ve started some episodic-style series where the first
episode lands and another one doesn’t land for months. This is especially
difficult when one episode ends on a cliffhanger and by the time the next episode
lands you’ve lost interest and in fact forgotten there was indeed a cliffhanger
ending.
So if you’re an author producing such fiction may
I encourage you to only drop the pilot or first episode when you’ve got the
next few ready or almost ready to drop.
I was fortunate that when I downloaded most of
the episodes of The Eli Diaries they were only $0.99, however, I notice they’re
now $3.51. But remember over 7 episodes it’s between 500 and 700 pages of
reading. If you want to try it out perhaps start with Number 4 (Not Good Enough) that features
Martha.
What episodic
fiction series have you read recently and would recommend?
Ian Acheson is
an author and strategy consultant based in Sydney. Ian's first novel of
speculative fiction, Angelguard was recognised with the 2014 Selah Award for Speculative
Fiction.You can find more about
Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook page and Twitter
