I have been working on a set of fan fiction entries for a while and wanted to start with this. This is the story of Gösta...I've noticed that he never seems to get the limelight and mentions per page that our favorite twelve (more or less) year old charmers do down here in the Fan Fiction basement, so I thought I'd bump his numbers a bit with this.
I've set some goals for myself, and I want to share them with you. At the very least you'll know my orientation.
My goal is to weave a story through LTROI, the novel, from start to end. My rules to self: I cannot alter the story line of the original. I have to stay in the spirit of the original. I have to use the characters, locale, setting, situation and progression of the original without fail. I can weave into the story things that might spin a bit of insight into a character in the original, but I cannot radically change aspects of the original. To "win" in this exercise is to be able to write you a tale that never contradicts the original nor "jumps the shark" to the reader. To "lose" is to fall short of this - to lose the reader's suspended state of belief in the story, the reader's interest, to contradict the original or to otherwise have things come off the rails.
In the end, while my writing will never be like JAL's, I hope to have a story that fits right through the original.
Because it comes to center on Gösta I'm calling it... "Gösta". It starts about a mile away and at the exact same second that Vallingby's police commissioner, Gunnar Holmberg, holds up a small bag of white powder and asks a classroom of children "And what do you think this might be?" And it should end at about the point where conductor Stefan Larsson of the westbound Stockholm-Karlstad line remarks to himself on the enthusiasm of youth as he moves to the next passenger compartment.
I hope you enjoy the ride!
Tjippi!
P.S. Many "thank you!"s to my reviewers.... gk, DMt. and 'trige!
... I gather the chapter links get set up down here at some point (I'm sort of learning as I go!) ...