Goodreads asked Mark Paxson:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Mark Paxson The one I'm working on the most came to me this way. A writing prompt: a sales clerk catches a shoplifter and offers him or her a deal in exchange for letting him or her go. I turned that into a short story of about 2,000 words when I realized that there was far more story to tell. I completed a 30,000 word novella from that idea -- in which the story is told in first person from the perspective of three different characters. Once I finished it and my son read the entire thing in one night, I realized that there was yet more story to tell. So, now I'm writing a second 30,000 word novella that carries the story forward through another year. With the same three characters and a fourth added in -- with chapters shifting back and forth between the characters from first person perspective.

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