What to Read: Fictionistas are writing in relay
This week, we interviewed four writers on Substack who collectively publish Fictionistas—a space for fiction writers on Substack to get to know one another, currently running an “exquisite corpse” challenge. We spoke to writers Geoffrey Golden, Jackie Dana, Arjun Agarwal, and Anthony Lora about The Great Substack Story Challenge.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What’s your Substack about in one sentence?
The Great Substack Story Challenge is a fiction writers’ relay race: one person starts us off and writes a 1,000-to-1,500-word chapter and passes the baton to the next writer, who reads the latest chapter for the first time before continuing the story within a week. Repeat until the 13th writer reaches an ending.
Anthony, you were the lead organizer of the challenge. What did it take to bring 13 writers together to create a collective story?
When Arjun proposed the idea of writing a collaborative work, I supported it by creating a thread in the Substack Writers Unite Discord server and used a Google form as a sign-up page for writers. This allowed for ongoing conversation outside of our monthly meetings.
As the number of people involved grew, so did the list of things we needed to figure out: How were we going to determine writing order? What’s our jumping-off point? How do we provide a cohesive experience across so many Substacks?
The writers in our group were great about owning individual line items and speaking up when there were concerns. It could have been too chaotic, but instead we ended up with something we’re excited to share with our readers.
The writers in our group were great about owning individual line items and speaking up when there were concerns. It could have been too chaotic, but instead we ended up with something we’re excited to share with our readers.
Arjun, it was your duty to kick off the challenge. How did you go about writing the first chapter?
Everyone proposed a first paragraph to the story and we voted on them. The one with the most votes, a prompt by Mark Starlin, was chosen to be the start of the story. This was the prompt:
Joey Hardcase was a two-bit gumshoe in a two-bit town trying to scrape out a living spying on cheating spouses. As he was debating whether to partake in the rest of a half-eaten doughnut he found in his desk drawer, a show-stopping beauty walked into his office. From the size of the jewels dripping off the dame, Joey knew she was from the other side of town. She had to be desperate to visit this dump.
“What can I do for you, Doll?” Joey asked.
“I need you to follow my husband.”
What kind of natural-born fool would cheat on this heartbreaker? Joey thought.
“I think he’s from the future.”
For some period I had been looking for an opportunity to try writing in the style of Douglas Adams. In my chapter, I was trying to emulate his randomness, dry humor, and satire style. There are also elements of drawing deep conclusions from seemingly ridiculous situations and inanimate objects embodying emotions or motivations.
Geoffrey, you are on deck to write the ending for the challenge. Any idea how it might play out?
Adventure Snack is a newsletter of interactive fiction, where the player decides how their story ends. My favorite Adventure Snack are the ones with a few wildly different endings, dependent on the player’s choices.
One of my favorite recent quests is You Are a Superhero Life Coach, where you can mold the career and personal life of a down-on-his-luck caped crusader by advising him to do anything from clean up his apartment to turn supervillain. In Converse with the Cosmic Orb, I asked the players to contribute their own endings using automated text generation, and there are over 40 endings to choose from!
I have no idea how The Great Substack Story Challenge will end, but I do know I’ll be giving the story a “choose your own” ending with multiple paths. And I plan to reward folks who read the whole story from beginning to end, so be sure to keep up with this marathon of a story!
The challenge came out of ongoing Fictionistas meetups, where you are navigating the “wild west” of publishing fiction online. How does it represent what’s possible for fiction on Substack, Jackie?
Fiction is a rapidly growing category on Substack. We created Fictionistas as a way for the fiction writers to gain more visibility as a group and for individual writers to help promote, encourage, and inspire each other. In the six months and change that we’ve been together, we’ve built a solid little community through Discord conversations, monthly Zoom calls, and nonfiction articles shared on our Substack.
The Great Substack Story Challenge, to me, demonstrates first and foremost that fiction is totally possible on Substack. Beyond that, it suggests one way that writers can use Substack for collaboration.
Most of all, the challenge helps to highlight some of the fantastic talents who have chosen Substack as their platform. Hopefully it will encourage more writers to join Fictionistas and become part of our community.
Who’s another Substack writer you’d recommend?
Anthony: Naturally, I’d recommend everyone involved in the project: G.M. Baker’s Stories All the Way Down, Mark Starlin’s Mark Starlin Writes!, Joyce Reynolds-Ward’s Martiniere Stories, Thomass Bubb’s Necessary Fiction, Nick Mazmanian’s Typewriter Mechanic, Adrian Conway’s Fulgurites, Winston Malone’s The Storyletter, Alex S. Garcia’s The Xen’in Universe, and Meagan Voulo’s Forever Fantasy Readers.
Subscribe to Anthony’s newsletter, Quick as a Flash, and follow him on Twitter. Subscribe to Arjun’s newsletter, hypothetically. Subscribe to Geoffrey’s newsletter, Adventure Snack, and find him on Twitter. Subscribe to Jackie’s newsletters, Story Cauldron and Unseen St. Louis.
Subscribe to Fictionistas and follow along with The Great Substack Story Challenge.
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