Part One: Prediction

Welcome to Census, a short story project in three parts. During part one, I will be writing 52 stories—one for every state in the U.S. (plus DC and Puerto Rico); one per week for a year—using parameters determined by currently available (estimated) demographic data from the United States Census Bureau. The fundamental metrics I’ll be using for each story are as follows:

• The number of characters (people) in a story will be equal to that state’s population divided by 1,000,000. The narrative point of view (first-, second-, or third-person) will be determined by the two places after the decimal point of the quotient, with the range .00 to .33 indicating third-person, .34 to .66 indicating second, and so on. For example: Massachusetts has a population of 6497967, so its story would have 6 characters plus a second-person narrator.
• The number of paragraphs in a story will be equal to the number of households in its respective state, divided by 100,000.
• The number of pages in a story will be equal to the land area of its respective state, divided by 10,000. (Note: due to the limitations on formatting of online publishing, this parameter will not become a factor until part three of this project.)
• The number of characters (letters) in a story will be equal to the number of housing units in its respective state, divided by 1,000.

The order of stories will be based upon the date of their respective states’ entrance into the Union, and for now those states’ names will serve as the stories' only titles. These stories are not intended to be mere descriptions, summations, or cross-sections of life in a given state, however. Rather, they are intended to be imaginative texts—with a connection to their source material that ranges from intrinsic to tangential to coincidental—that will be linked thematically, if not explicitly.

These stories should be thought of as drafts—approximations of their final form—as the subtitle of this part of the project suggests. The Census Bureau is charged with delivering an accurate and updated count of the U.S. population to the president at the end of this coming year, and subsequent parts of this project will involve rewriting these stories in accordance with the results of the 2010 Census, as well revising them for quality.

This space will primarily be devoted to publishing these stories, and the only other posts here will be updates (like this one) outlining the different parts of the project itself. I’ve started a facebook group for more informal communication (and would invite anyone interested to join), and will be reading and responding to the comments section on this site when I can. If you want to contact me directly about this project, I can be reached via email at census.stories(at)gmail(dot)com.

Thanks for reading. Happy new year.