In the words of Piglet, the time has come for me to spleak painly. It's been just about two years since the first Phil Phorce episode began, and in that time, I have learned a lot about writing. Phil Phorce has given me a way to test out those methods and give them up for feedback. It has been tremendously useful. I managed to plot one episode successfully (a first), develop characters, and give a sagging pile of brown goop feelings. I wrote my first Fringe-style thriller, crafted several unique magic systems, and learned how to structure an episode well within a two scene per week format. It was a tremendous learning experience.
I also had my share of mistakes. The first draft of PP7 was a bust (incorporeal antagonists are not that useful), the ending to PP3 still bugs me, and I'm kind of ashamed that I couldn't juggle emotional arcs of all the Phils at once. (In PP7, I dropped the number of Phils-- intentionally-- to four and barely mentioned the rest.) But nevertheless, it was a great feeling to write all of those things.
I think you can see where this is going. Why sum up your successes and failures just to turn around and succeed or fail again? You begin to sum up when it's time to end.
You may have noticed that PP7 did not end on a cliffhanger. The first one did. The second one did. The third one did. You get the point. All of them ended with cliffhangers except this one. This was deliberate. Usually I hint at the next episode halfway into the current one-- the MLP scene with the Castle, for instance, and the dissatisfaction of Isaac, or the discovery of the time machine way back in episode one. I didn't do that in PP7.
It's the last one. There will be no more Phil Phorce. I'm sorry to break it to you this way, but it's true. I did my best to wrap up everything I could at the end of PP7-- Quirk isn't anxious about leading anymore, the Phils sort of respect him, and that's pretty much all there is to say. The Blanks are friends, Percival and Quirk have a healthy rivalry, and Isaac is back where he wants to be. I wouldn't say everything is perfect-- of course there's room for another 7 episodes-- but this is a good stopping place.
Of course, that isn't the only reason I'm stopping here. The Phil Phorce began because I wanted to write something cool and have people read it. I didn't care about publishing, or even quality-- I just wanted to have fun. And that worked for me for two years. Now, however, I'm changing gears, moving toward publishing more and more. As much as I like the Phils, they aren't getting me anywhere. Instead, they take up weeks of my time, weeks I could spend editing a novel to query with, or writing a completely new one. So there are selfish reasons there too.
I hope you guys understand. The Phils have been awesome, but I want to branch out a little more from conspiracy theories and talking ping pong balls. The Phils have completed their fifth act.
At least it wasn't a tragedy.
But. To make up for this: I know a lot of you have really enjoyed (or have said you've really enjoyed) reading the Phil Phorce. I value your feedback a lot, and if you would like, you can be alpha readers for whatever novels of mine you choose. I'd love to keep hearing your opinions, and I hope this isn't too conceited on my part to think you'll still like me after this surprise ending.
The Phil Phorce will remain on my usual blog, but it will be changed to the Writing Samples menu next to the About page.
