I mentioned earlier that my daughter is all over The Hunger Games, and that I’ve been considering about writing my own dystopian teen thriller to sorta capture the sense of what these books were all about. I’ve finished reading The Hunger Games series as of yesterday, and I was quite impressed with the story. Suzanne Collins did a smash-up job putting this world together. Honestly, the only thing that hung up for me was the utter hopelessness with which the book ended. Okay, that might be too strong a word, there was a little hope, but so very, very little. Then again, what else should we expect from dystopian fiction?
Regardless, I’ve been thinking a lot about both the books and my own foray into this genre (and yes, I promise I will complete the other books as soon as I’m done), and I’ve decided to try something a little different for this one.
I’m going to give it to you, chapter by chapter, here on this blog. At the end, naturally, I will send the book out to both print and e-publishing (because who wants to spend all that time reading a blog!), but in the meantime, I thought I’d invite you to join with me (and my children, who are my Beta Readers for this) in experiencing the book as it unfolds.
With that in mind, I’m also soliciting your comments, thoughts, and suggestions both on the writing and on the story as it unfolds. You, dear readers, will serve as my editors and sounding board. You’ll also hold me accountable to finish it quickly, I suspect.
I will post the first chapter tomorrow, and then all subsequent chapters as I complete them. There may be a slight lag at the beginning as I have a little catch-up work to do. Expect about a chapter a day, with time off for weekends, probably, and I’ll do my best to hold to that schedule.
I hope you like the story!
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Did you read the rest of the series? If it had ended there, I would agree that there is no hope– no final resolution to protect the future, but the stories do have hope… not sunshine, lollipops, and sparkling unicorns, but genuine, pull up out of the rubble and start over hope.
And I can’t wait to see what you share with us.
Actually I did, but the sense I got was that Katniss (and Peeta) would never really recover. Which, in a real sense, is likely true, given what they’d been through. But I can’t say I was satisfied by the ending. I didn’t come away with a sense of peace from it. More like a dull resignation that everything was finally over.
But thanks for the encouragement. I know my kids like what I’ve done so far, and I’m sorta hoping to spark some interest in the series by putting it up here first. Guess we’ll see!