What if you can bring your imaginative stories to life sans the grueling hours of writing? Let The Arts House tempt you with its new programme, The Serial Short Story Project, from now until October 3. The online sessions invite storytellers of all sorts to contribute, collaborate and experiment with serialised fiction, which has been around since the days of Charles Dickens – the Victorian author who has gifted the literary world with epic stories such as Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol. But unlike the Victorian era, all will be done through crowdsourcing of ideas, live streaming, and upvoting.
Here's how it works: writers Suffian Hakim (Harris bin Potter and The Stoned Philosopher, and The Minorities) and Xie Shi Min (Dragonhearted) take over Facebook Live and Reddit AMA each week to discuss plotlines and characters, determine lines of dialogue and world-building elements, and explore any relevant points that arise. And readers are welcome to join the conversation and shape the story too. Each chapter is released every Friday at 5pm for readers to read prior to the next session. The completed story is then be published online at the end of each month and readers whose suggestions were used will be acknowledged by name – and that could be you.
Kicking off the September edition, Suffian Hakim is rolling up his sleeves for a comedy-horror piece titled The House Next Door. Drawing feedback from the project's debut Reddit AMA, the first chapter has been revealed on theartshouse.sg, which you can check out for free. The next chapter is set to be released this Friday. The story follows a family that moves into an old, three-room flat in Yishun due to the domino effects of a pandemic. But what happens next? Will the plot thicken? That all depends on you. Share your ideas and feedback in the next session happening on September 20 at 8pm.
If horror and comedy aren't your forté, you can get involved with Xie Shi Min's sci-fi story in October when she opens the space for new proposals in a similar format. Tap into your imagination and share 'em with the world via The Short Story Project. For more information, visit theartshouse.sg.