That author would be me. And the work I am referencing is my first attempt at writing a novel, a manuscript entitled THE CHOSEN. Over two decades old now, as hard as that is to believe.
If you’ve read Stephen King’s THE BODY, the novella that inspired the movie STAND BY ME, you will be aware of the way King creates a story within a story. His protagonist, Gordie, is a writer. In the body of THE BODY, Gordie shares one of his earliest attempts at fiction. Thus we have King writing from the point of view of a fictional writer, a story within the larger story. Gordie talks about the flaws in his story—flaws which, of course, Stephen King deliberately put in there—and his decision to share it anyway, despite those flaws. Yes, there are flaws, he says, but parts of the story are “better than they have any right to be.”
I was green. Wet behind the ears. I had so much to learn about storytelling, about the craft of novel-writing. There are plenty of flaws in THE CHOSEN. Yet, at the risk of tooting my own horn, I also believe that there are parts of it that are better than they have any right to be, considering.
When I was writing THE CHOSEN I never doubted that it would see print someday, that it would be read and appreciated. Today, pixels are a worthy substitute to paper and ink. Because I believed in the story, and I still do, I am going to share THE CHOSEN, warts and all, here on this site, releasing one chapter a week starting next week. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s about the end of the world, and cosmic, Lovecraftian evil; and faith, and dimension-hopping; and the Nephilim; with a mad scientist, and monsters (including a vampire), and a serial killer. Standard quality family values.