A serialisation of a theme.
When I I began to write, my pieces took the form of short essays, memoirs of amusing incidents. An editor friend gave me two suggestions. Aim for fifteen stories, a magic number for publication. Then, when assembling a collection of short stories, develop a theme to form a coordinated whole. I gritted my teeth, read the stories already written and thought about the ones I wanted to write. My analysis led to an unanticipated conclusion: betrayal was the common thread. This was bewildering as further reading will reveal: in Finding My Voice, for example, I label myself a humor writer. Betrayal is not regarded as a particularly humorous topic. But I continued writing, researching and broadening my understanding.
The writing process is complete some long months later, I observe that I did not betray my original finding..