My books are episodic collections

Brookwood Road, circa 1980

Since publishing Brookwood Road in November 2014, I've heard from a lot of people pleasantly surprised by the writing style and format of the book and its 2016 follow-up, Elm Street. The books are both written as episodic, meaning each chapter is a stand-alone story but that all the chapters (episodes) come together to craft a larger work of fiction. Think of the book as a television show and each chapter is an episode. In many cases, the episodes build on themselves.

This is easy writing for me. Writing for newspapers, 1974-1994, any award-winning success that I had occurred through writing first-person columns that appeared on editorial pages. Through these columns, I told the stories of my life past and present. So, for 20 years I was trained to tell quick stories - usually 500 words or less. That form of writing became my sweet spot. I won awards from both the Georgia and the South Carolina press associations.

In 1974, when I promised my Daddy that one day I would write a book about our life on the farm, I began the process by making a chapter list of the stories that I wanted to tell. Those chapter stories became the episodic chapters of my books though significantly expanded for the book and written in third-person to make it feel more like fiction and less like a memoir.

The process is similar to the thousands of pastors who have published books that are collections of their sermons organized under a single theme for the book's purpose. Except, instead of sermons I used my stories - some written for the first time. In writing these episodic chapters for my books, I intentionally wove them together in a subtle way pointing to a larger theme. In Brookwood Road, the theme was a boy growing up and out and away from childhood. In Elm Street, the theme was a boy growing up and finding his purpose and voice.

Readers have reported liking the unique style. They like the ability to jump around within the books and read stories independent of one another. They like the ability to read the book cover to cover, seeing how the stories connect with one another. They like the shorter chapters - most of the chapters are about 2,500 words, and a story can easily be read every night at bedtime.

For the 2018 book, Hickory Trail, I'm going to use this episodic style to close out the Memories of a Home series. The 2020 book is going to be a love story written more as traditional fiction - a complete story spread over multiple chapters. On the drawing board is a 2022 book that will be more episodic from my 25-plus years coaching recreation baseball.

For those writing a book, I encourage you to find and attend a writing workshop that examines all the different styles of writing and then choose a style that fits how you like to tell stories. Too many people don't think enough about their comfortable style, and the book then comes out as clunky.