Dr. Celestine's Carnival of Souls - Todd's Story

[David M. Crampton]

Good afternoon,

For some, this is going to be a recap of material I've shared before.
For you, I both apologize for repeating myself, and hope that this
will allow you to re-read something you've read before. For those
that haven't read this stuff yet, I've tried to arrange it in a more
friendly order. It was originally written in a Livejournal shared
fiction group. And since LJ is a blogging platform, entries are
displayed newest first. This makes it fairly hard to go back and read
stories, or sections of stories, from the beginning.

Todd's story was set in Dr. Celestine's Carnival of Souls, but was not
intended to be -about- the Carnival. It was intended to be about
those that passed into its orbit and out again, and how they were
changed by it. At the time, the Carnival had suffered a slew of
stories that were about the Carnies. About their histories, their
lives before and during, and about how they tied into the Carnival.
This fell under the mistake of "telling instead of showing," which is
something writers are often warned about.

The carnies should be interesting, yes. They represent all sorts of
things that are frightening and exhilarating. But we should be shown
these things through their interactions with the rubes, we should not
belabor the point by writing endless genesis stories. Okay, okay, I'm
getting down off of my soap box. I was moderately successful in my
goal, and hopefully wrote a piece of serial fiction that's enjoyable
to read. Please enjoy by clicking the links below.

http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/76962.html - Todd's great-
uncle dies.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/77267.html - Todd gets a
gift.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/77641.html - Todd steels
himself.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/77935.html - Todd enters the
house.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/78082.html - Todd meets
strangers.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/78495.html - Todd goes
shopping.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/78688.html - Todd eats
toast.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/78992.html - Todd gets an
orange.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/79204.html - Todd creeps
out.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/79595.html - Todd plays
Watson.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/79847.html - Todd is
overwhelmed.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/79883.html - Todd puts it
together.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/80338.html - Todd explains.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/80524.html - Todd finds the
storm.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/80751.html - Todd sketches.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/81082.html - Todd drives.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/81164.html - Todd watches.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/81521.html - Todd kills.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/81887.html - Todd meets the
Ticketmaster.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/82057.html - Todd loses
Sheila.
http://community.livejournal.com/carnival/82441.html - Todd returns
the jar.

If you've made it this far, I should let you know that Todd's story
didn't end here. A little while later, the other writers picked up
the story and ran with it like a cheetah chased by.. um.. another
cheetah that's bigger and wants to kill the first cheetah. Yeah,
that's the ticket.

[David M. Crampton]

Psst. Hey. You. Yeah, you. Want to read Todd's story on paper?
Yeah, you heard me. Dead trees. Bound and printed, just for you.
Makes you feel special, doesn't it? Warm and fuzzy inside? Yeah?
Well, I got good news for ya. It's cheap, too. Non-profit-like, you
know? Wink wink! This thing has all of the Todd stuff linked to from
before. I'm tellin' ya, you're gonna be hooked.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/todds-story/6113528