As I wind my way through edits, versions, choices and words aplenty with the new novel.  It occurred to me one of the things I like best about fiction is the back story.  The details of character and scene, plot and tension, that should always, in my mind be shown, not told.

Fall Factor is my first real attempt at writing anything of length in first person.  As such, I found it tough to “show” not “tell” the characters’ back story.  A few characters are left blank, so to speak.  Their history is left to the reader to guess.

I do not see myself ever writing a serial character.  I love to read those series, but as a writer it seems a crutch.  It is also hard to do very well and few writers in my opinion accomplish it.

That is not to say that my characters will never reappear in later works.  I enjoy that intertwining of worlds, histories and “realities” I have constructed.

Some of my characters have been with me a very long time.  Chris Beckett, the main character in Fall Factor originaly appeared in a slightly different form in a short story I wrote in college.  It was published in Penn State’s literary magazine, the Palimpsest Review (1997)

Here it is in PDF form Uncertain Reconciliation.

I considered rewriting, but decided to give it to you as I wrote it 18 years ago.  Chris is not the same in this story as he is in the new novel.  Then neither am I.  However, this Chris was the basis for that Chris.

I look forward to sharing more backstory with you all as I lead up to the release of Fall Factor.

Enjoy.