Odds Without Ends — Bester & Company

Hello!

As promised, I’m premiering a new feature today called Odds Without Ends. What is it? Well, during the course of my time as an amateur writer (read: my entire life), I’ve started many, many projects, the vast majority of which petered out and were eventually left to rot. Rather than allowing these poor unfinished works to sit around unseen, I thought I could post them here at the Oktopod blog for your amusement and edification. These are stories I invested a lot of time, effort, and planning in which I’d still love to finish, and if any of them happen to capture your attention, I may just be convinced to move them up my production slate.

Note: Unlike the other content here at the Oktopod blog, the works displayed in Odds Without Ends all have their copyrights thoroughly reserved. These are not Creative Commons pieces (yet), so they are currently for looking and not touching.

First up is an unfinished short called Bester & Company, which I’d started work on as a lead in to a full-length novel set in the same universe. The setting is a Jim Henson inspired world called the Land of 7 Songs, a fantastic realm where music is literally magic. I had dreams of it someday turning into an animated musical where the characters actually break into song and dance numbers as a matter of day-to-day life.

The story is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator who I envisioned as old, incredibly knowledgeable, and more than a little senile. This results in a sort of rambling story-telling style that sometimes has difficulty getting to the point, or even remember there was a point to get to. I was aiming for something half-way between Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, but the result turned out very narratively dense, making it a bit of a pain to write (and possibly just as much of a pain to read).

Click through to judge for yourself…