The month of May is upon us, and besides my birthday month, it is always a busy one because of BayCon and one of my favorite challenges on Forward Motion: Story a Day (SAD). I have done this challenge with varying degrees of success since the very first year. Though I never made 31 stories, I’ve gotten as many as 25 and even on the years I barely managed five, the stories have been among my strongest (a good number of my anthology stories had their start in SAD).

This year, though, I am trying to focus on longer works. I’m finishing up writing Aubrey’s story, then will finish Trainee’s outline and start writing that one. I don’t really have much space for short stories, nor did I think they match my goals of getting titles out there for my readers.

But it is one of my favorite challenges.

Deciding not to do Story a Day this year was so hard for me that

…I decided to do it anyway, but with a twist that supports my goals.

As you might have noticed from my blog posts and books/stories, I’m all about character. Every character in every story, no matter how long or short, has a full and complete existence whether or not it makes the page. Each of them is the hero of their own tale no matter what the main character might think the focus is.

With that in mind, I thought I could use Story a Day to put together a collection of shorter works profiling characters who might not have gotten as much screen time as they deserved…at least so far. I plan these to be flash to short story length (anything that comes out longer will be pushed to another timeframe), but they will be full and complete stories that offer a glimpse of an event from the particular character’s life much like the scene with Fence from Shafter.

The first idea I came up with, though not necessarily the first I will write, is Penelope, the young woman who attempts to form a bond with Daphne as they both begin their coming out. She doesn’t get to play much of her part in Daphne’s story though she’s critical, and her own life is overshadowed by her older sister, so she’s a deserving subject with a lot of potential.

You might be wondering at this point why this is titled a request, so I’ll get to the point now that you have the framework. I’d love to hear from you about which characters you’d like to see more of. They can come from any of my works short or long, and if you happened to critique or read an unpublished story, if someone lingers, bring them up in the comments. Even if they don’t find a tale this month, it will help me decide what to put into the publishing queue and put you that much closer to seeing them released into the world.

As an extra incentive to offer a character who caught your attention, if your suggestion does make the cut for this challenge, I’ll send you a pre-release copy of the story to enjoy.

Just reply to this post with the character name or some key identifier if you can’t remember the name, and what story they appeared in.

I can’t wait to see what you all come up with. This could get interesting.

P.S. If you want to learn more about the challenge and even join in, the information is here: May Story-A-Day 2014. You must be a member of Forward Motion to play.