Practice Series 3

There was my Shakespeare series where everyone of the pieces in the series was good. This is to easy to say because I only wrote one piece in the series (some series). I was reading a book that came with an art exhibit about the portraits of Shakespeare. It went on about how there is strong doubt that none of the paintings credited to by of Shakespeare are actually him. An essay in the back had a line that I don't recall to strongly, it said something to the effect that every generation makes up their own Shakespeare to adhere to its own outlook. This line, the one I don't recall too well, struck me.

The idea I came up with is a series of pieces where Shakespeare has a menial job in society. A real low level fellow. The first thing I thought of was Shakespeare in my Pocket, he was to be a pickpocket. So I quickly wrote a crime story about a pickpocket crew in New York. It was good and it got published.

But somehow as I wrote, all my other ideas of how to push the series dissapeared. I couldn't remember the rules and the examples I first thought of. Before I started the first story, I had a ton of ideas of where to go with this practice exercise. But as I wrote the story, those ideas dissipated until all I had was just one story. Not complaining. It is a good one and I like it a lot.

The thing I take from this is, just because an idea is good and fertile when it pops in your head, it doesn't make a series unless you have strong rules of how the pieces will be written and created, and you have an idea how it will progress. A cool idea is just that. But the story is good.

http://www.everydayfiction.com/shakespeare-in-my-pocket-by-david-macpherson/

here is a podcast of the story, also at Every Day Fiction

http://www.everydayfiction.com/podcast-edf035-shakespeare-in-my-pocket-written-by-david-macpherson-read-by-matt-cowens/