Intro to Crack the Case

Recently, I’ve had a series of major life changes. What better time to crack open banker boxes and hard drives filled with my old writing to see where I’ve been? And maybe where I can head next?

So what can you, as a reader, expect from this exercise? Quite a mixture, actually. I can prove my writing pedigree spans as far back as age 10, though inevitably, earlier pieces have been lost to time. Here is the rough list of my projects over the years: fanfiction, short stories, serials, games, anecdotes, websites, let’s plays, podcasts, and college essays. There are identifiable phases when each was hot. Of course, every phase loops back into the previous ones, building off of old skills. And no phase really ever ends.

What do I hope to gain from these exercises? Well, firstly, to survey the kinds of stories and topics I gravitate towards. Just based on what I have laid eyes on, most of my stories have fantastical premises. Most depart from reality in one aspect or in whole, and I don't mind that that being my par: carefully placed distractions from the exploration of humanity, ones that make the story more fun for readers, isn't too much of an ask -- I think. Few are "literary" by any means, as in, take place in our real world. Real life is complicated, messy, and unless you invent a pocket town, very hard to simulate. Many of the older stories have versions, revisions, and even alternate universes (or AUs) of themselves. These are the traces of an early writer trying out different genres with the same stable of characters.

Another angle to explore: what motivated me to write each piece? What was on my mind at the time? Or most likely, what media had I consumed recently to have sparked the motivation to pull out pen and paper or punch keys on a typewriter or laptop? What are my subjective feelings on the story itself? Though perhaps unfair, it could be fun to be overly critical of my younger self and his terrible storytelling. Or maybe, on rare occasions, praise myself for a narrative trick or fun wordplay that landed? As with book reviews, the bibliography, the providence, of a story itself is fascinating. How and why was this made? For who? -- Who did I think was going to read this boiling hot garbage?

And those are the kind of topics to pin and discuss after I Crack The Case to re-discover what's inside. Together, we can cringe, and laugh, and learn. Probably just the first; I can't promise the second or the third. But here we go.