Ambition

Note before I start: I've labelled this post with the word "Exposed", which I intend to do for any post of mine where I want to discuss a specific story. It'd be cool if other people did the same, so that writers talking about their individual stories can be easily found. I feel that I want to discuss certain things I write, but know that they're probably not going to raise the necessary questions, so I'll post them here. I assume that this is true of many other people's posts too, and I'd love to know the things I couldn't guess.

But anyway!

"Ambition" is both standalone and the first in a series. It's standalone, because for the time being, I don't intend to further Arthur's story. He's come full circle, which was partly the point of the exercise. It exists in the same universe as everything else I write, and indeed, the first draught had a reference to Mr Spencer. But I decided it was self-indulgent, and Mr Spencer became Dennis Freeman.

In a way, it's an evolution of an earlier idea, which I never wrote, because it was basically just a joke. The idea was, this young child has had an awful early life and, at the age of five, everything goes right for him at the same time. So much good stuff happens to him, that inevitably, the story seems to be leading to his downfall. And then it doesn't - a punchline, and the child gets to live happily ever after.

This takes it a step further - an ominous tone depicting something that is, in theory, nice and lovely. And anonymous organisations are always creepy.

I think this is also the first story I've written here that truly keeps the characters at arm's length. No inner thoughts, only a few clues as to their motivation, that sort of thing.