Last week I asked about which of the fiction series to continue and the response was overwhelmingly Tailors. This series/collection is definitely the vanguard narrative for me right now in that it holds several personal golden threads and is inviting me into seeing stories in a whole new light.
Tailors follows a tree-form narrative.
This is a story where there is a narrative “trunk” that connects several other branches and roots of the story. Most stories are linear, in the there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. But nature is not like that. Nature branches. It prunes. It grafts. It mingles. When you have a tree-form narrative, many storytellers can tell the same story.
This narrative aspires to be tree-form and is already beginning to branch out into other times/spaces/voices. The trunk is a single image of the Tailor’s Lodge, a room with several long tables, and on ever table is a person holding a thread and a needle.
I’ve been working on this story for a bit now, and others have decided to join an create their own branches.
And I’d like you to have your branch.
I’m trying not to fall into the explanation loop so instead, I’ll ask you to trust me and just give this a go. It will involve some storytelling and some writing. But not much.
So then—
First, maybe read the story so far. This is one route. You could also skip reading it and jump in. But if you’d like to have context, here are the completed “chapters”:
Part One: In Between Social Studies
Now whether you read all those chapters or not (they are short by the way) please answer a few questions:
Other than this current era, what era in human history would have suited you well? Why?
Don’t feel bound to the past, you can consider the future as well. Some of the developing stories take place centuries ago and another far into the future.
and/or
Which character in a children’s story is closest to you? Why?
You can answer those questions in the comments, in DMs or on a document of your own. And next week I’ll tell you what to do next.
I promise this will be fun, and you’ll meet some very interesting characters.