The Series That Might Have Been

I have a lot of unfinished pieces. I even made a joke about it in my entry into the Posthumous Author Challenge, “The Writer I Could Have Been”. From my well-received Elon the Alien drabbles to my lesser-known “The Soul Dragon” from the Fantasy Prologue Challenge, I have had several promising starts that have made their way onto this platform. The one that I feel deserves the spotlight—and the most explanation—however, is a two-parter: “La Belle Fatale, Parts One and Two”.

For those of you who don’t know, “La Belle Fatale” was a short story I had written based on Beauty and the Beast. I twisted the tale so that the Beauty was an assassin hired to kill the Beast. I won’t spoil the rest of the story for you; you can read the rest in this link and the sequel here.

For all intents and purposes, I consider the first part, “La Belle Fatale”, complete. It accomplishes exactly what I set out to do, and I am very proud of the piece. It is the sequel, “La Belle Fatale, Part Two”, that I feel is incomplete.

As a story, Part Two seems as though it should be complete. There is a narrative arc, character development, and plenty of action. The problem comes with the cliffhanger at the end. It leaves the story wide open for another sequel. That is because, unlike with Part One, I had actually anticipated writing another sequel after Part Two—a sequel that has yet to materialize.

You see, when I wrote “La Belle Fatale”, I had envisioned it as a self-contained short story. Thus, I was happy with keeping it more close-ended. Then it got a bit of a following—not a huge following, mind you, but one big enough to stroke my ego. So, I wrote Part Two with a vision of having an entire series based around this version of Beauty and her Beast. However, I made a mistake: I did not give myself the time to plan out the entire series. I just dove into Part Two and posted it. Then, when I went to write Part Three, I got writer’s block. I got stuck on the plot. And so, like the little turtle that I am, I retreated into my shell and wrote other things instead. “La Belle Fatale” never became the series that it could have, and Part Two remains incomplete because of a cliffhanger.

On their own, perhaps, “La Belle Fatale” and “La Belle Fatale, Part Two” might be complete. As a series, though, they are wanting. Not because of form, character development, or narrative style, but because of hubris and me jumping in before I was ready to truly take on the task at hand.