The Monday Poll - True crime stories

[Poll #902807]

True crime stories are...

View Answers
morbid. I can't see how anyone could enjoy them.
0(0.0%)
mmm mmm mmm. My meat and potatoes.
0(0.0%)
too scary and gross. I don't like them.
1(6.2%)
aren't morbid. They're noir. The two are completely different.
0(0.0%)
the only true reality.
0(0.0%)
a giving into negativity.
0(0.0%)
a morality play warning us to watch our step.
1(6.2%)
fascinating glimpses into the human psyche.
3(18.8%)
darkly, utterly fascinating. You either get it or you don't.
1(6.2%)
only appeal to those who enjoy salaciousness and a break down in social order.
0(0.0%)
a chance to experience the dark side without getting your hands dirty.
0(0.0%)
a frank acknowledgement that the world is more dangerous than we like to admit.
1(6.2%)
headline-grabbing tickies!
0(0.0%)
Other (perpetrate in the comments)
0(0.0%)

Consistency

Driving into work today, the young lady in front of me had a Cleveland Browns license plate holder and three bummer stickers:

1. MODELL SUCKS

2. HANG UP AND DRIVE!

3. IMAGINE PEACE


Random quote of the day:

I don't believe in witches, but they still exist.

—Chilean saying

Which story should I tell?

If you can read this, your on my Charged with Folly list, those of you who have actually read some of this sucker and know what I'm talking about—or have foolishly offered to do so.

I've reached a creative crossroads and I'm kind of stuck. I pivot one way to tell one story, pivot the next to tell something completely different. I've laid the groundwork in chapters 1-7 for both stories, but at 8 I need to get onto the onramp and head out on the highway. And it wasn't until I got to the left hand turn lane that I realized I really can't tell both of these stories in one novel. They are two complete books in themselves.

I always sandbag myself like this, but at least this time I realized it early in the process. Well, okay, I realized it with Night Warrior, too, but I didn't listen. I thought I could make it work—and somehow I thought I could squeeze two books into 120k. Har! The good thing here is that I recognized I couldn't do that with Charged with Folly unless I wanted another Night Warrior debacle—and I don't think anyone is ready for that! The horror!

So I'm asking ya'll, in your considered writers' opinion, which story I should tell (no spoilers):

ETA I guess I'm not really asking you what book I should write, but whether it would be dunderheaded (commercially) to choose one over the other.

☛ The action-adventure tale which deals with the Movement's earthly foes and which offers clues to Rye's wheel-within-wheels visions but leaves that mystery unresolved for the next book (but has lots of sex); ETA i.e., the war with the gangs, or

☛ The action-adventure quest northwards to find the final solution to the wheel-within-wheel vision and a big fight with the congregations and Heavenly Realm (with some sex and some philosophy) ETA: solving the central mystery around which this story revolves?

Clearly, the first plot could be a first book, the second its follow-up, with possibly a third book out there in the ether dealings with the aftermath. I'd like to write both, but I suppose if I was asked to choose, could only write one, I most want to write the second story. That's the heart of why I wanted to write this idea in the first place. But there's all this other stuff I'm probably going to have to jettison if I do that, stuff that has also stoked my imagination.

I really do not want to write a trilogy. But my imagination seems to run towards them in scope. Are trilogies even selling these days?