Decalog 3: Consequences |
Short story “Moving On” first published by Virgin Publishing, 1996,
ISBN: 0-426-20478-6.
Commissioned by
editors Justin Richards and Andy Lane, this story was designed to tie in with
the stories “... and Eternity in an Hour” by Steve Bowkett and “Tarnished
Image” by Guy Clapperton. In the end, instead of writing 10,000 words as
contracted I wrote 17,000 words (which is very bad behaviour and poor planning
by any writer). Ordinarily, this would be a problem. As it was, some of the
other stories ran short, and so I was allowed to cut it to only 15,000 words
(with much frowning by the editors).
My original proposal,
submitted before the story was commissioned, was rather lengthy for a short
story proposal, but it was the first one I’d written.
By an interesting
coincidence, there are similarities between some small elements of this short
story and a few minor scenes in Lawrence Miles’s book Interference. You
know what they say: “Brilliant minds think alike. And fools seldom differ.”
In
a subsequent interview, I talked a bit about the way
the story was commissioned and edited.
The online excerpt
from the published story is from the middle of the story. It contains a joke
that I stole from editor Andy Lane. It subsequently appeared, in a different
form, in the movie Men in Black—brilliant minds again, eh?
Reviews were generally kind, though some people
thought it wasn’t funny enough. Funnily enough (or not), I hadn’t written it to
be funny.
Last revised: 13 October 2002