Theoretically: The Vic Titious Hypothesis

Theoretically, it is a comic-book-style retelling of my novellas about Vic Titious and his colleagues from WHAT! — the World Headquarters of Advanced Theories — and its affiliated institutions, the School for Highly Improbable Theories (acronym pending) and the Faculty of Unproven Concepts and Knowledge (acronym pending).

Each chapter is a condensed visual adaptation, relying on image panels and short captions to keep things moving. It is part serial, part experiment, and a new way to follow the story.

The Team

Meet the Cast and Institutions

WHAT! — World Headquarters of Advanced Theories

WHAT! (the exclamation mark being non-negotiable in all official correspondence, as per Institutional Nomenclature Protocol 13B) operates on the principle that if one is to pursue the impossible, one ought to do so with conviction and adequate punctuation. Founded on equal parts ambition and audacity, WHAT! exists to ask the questions other institutes quietly misplace. It specialises in ideas that are not yet sensible, not yet funded, and not yet widely regretted.

**Vic Titious**
**Role:** Director of Wild Ideas and Unsubstantiated Hypotheses
**Says:** ‘If it sounds daft, it’s probably correct.’
**Also:** ‘People think I’m joking. I’m not. That’s the alarming bit.’ ‘Yes, it’s outrageous. That’s why it might work.’ ‘The universe is under no obligation to be sensible, and neither am I.’

**Dr Una Likely**
**Role:** Chief Probability Analyst and Statistical Denier
**Says:** ‘Possible, yes. Likely, no.’
**Also:** ‘People say I’m negative. I’m numerical. They also think I enjoy saying no. I enjoy saying ‘not likely.’

School for Highly Improbable Theories (acronym pending)

**Dr Connie Jecture**
**Role:** Senior Theoretical Synthesiser and Hypothesis Wrangler
**Says:** ‘Give me the mess. I’ll make it make sense.’
**Also:** ‘They think I write theories. I translate them into something you can hold without gloves.’

**Dr Sue Rely**
**Role:** Lead Chemist of Theoretically Possible Substances
**Says:** ‘That will explode. Let’s do it properly.’
**Also:** ‘They hear “theoretically possible” and forget to ask about “safe”.’

**Dr Nona Sence**
**Role:** Specialist in Biological Oddities and Evolutionary What-Ifs
**Says:** ‘Nature’s done worse, honestly.’
**Also:** ‘It’s S-E-N-C-E. They want S-E-N-S-E, but then I’d be Nona Sense, and that would be nonsense.’

Faculty of Unproven Concepts and Knowledge (acronym pending)

**Dr Polly Graph**
**Role:** Head of Speculative Physics and Engineering
**Says:** ‘Show me the numbers. I’ll make it work.’
**Also:** ‘People think I just draw graphs. I build arguments that happen to have axes.’

**Dr Ida Noh**
**Role:** Cosmic Thinker and Interdimensional Hypothesis Expert
**Says:** ‘Reality is optional, on a good day.’
**Also:** ‘They assume space is empty. It’s full of inconvenient possibilities.’

Professor Fay Bull
Role: Historian of Imaginary Science and Fanciful Philosophy
**Says:** ‘History is just gossip with footnotes.’
**Also:** ‘People think history is dates. It’s people insisting they were right.’

The Theoretically Series

This site is being built slowly, and I hope to add one abridged, very abridged chapter a week. Each novella is between 21,000 and 59,000 words, and I am currently editing them. When the title page for each has been added, a link will form below. The nine books and their details are:

01: The Crumb Constant: At WHAT!, even biscuit theft comes with standards. No one steals Rich Tea on purpose, after all, they’re the beige wallpaper of biscuits. So when the Chocolate Hobnobs vanish without crumbs, wrappers, or witnesses, Professor Vic Titious knows something is badly wrong. What starts as a missing snack soon points to a far stranger possibility: reality itself may have taken a bite—16 Chapters plus epilogue; 28,000 words.

02: Geoff, Schrödy and the Conceptual Wardrobe: The biscuits were only the beginning. Now, a theoretical man called Geoff has appeared, documents are developing opinions, and the boundary between idea and object has started to fail. At WHAT!, the team must figure out what they have unleashed before it completely rearranges the world—17 Chapters plus epilogue; 32,500 words.

03: The Viction Particle: Thought is becoming dangerous. Emotions are starting to alter the fabric of reality, and the team at WHAT! uncover a force that may connect feeling, matter, and existence itself. Then the auditors arrive, and they have no patience for joy, accident, or human mess—12 Chapters; 28,000 words.

04: The Socio-Ontological Function of a Nice Cup of Tea: Reality has been saved before. Keeping it human may be harder. When a colder, tidier order begins pressing in on WHAT!, Vic and the team must defend the small, inefficient rituals that make life worth living, from tea breaks to jokes to the right to pause for no good reason—12 Chapters; 30,000 words.

05: The Shadow, the Doubt, and the Sentient Metaphor: At WHAT!, language is no longer staying on the page. Metaphors begin to manifest, doubt takes on shape, and meaning itself turns unstable. As words become dangerous in new ways, the team faces an enemy that need not break reality. It only needs to be rewritten—12 Chapters; 21,000 words.

06: The Kintsugi Principle: Reality is breaking again, but this time the answer may not be repair. As cracks spread through the world they have fought to save, Vic and the team are forced towards a reckless idea: perhaps the flaw is not the weakness. Perhaps it is the strength—12 Chapters; 25,500 words.

07: The Empathy Problem and the Borrowed Feeling: Chaos was one thing. Forced harmony may be worse. When people begin to grow calmer, kinder, and strangely less themselves, the team uncovers a threat that does not want to destroy humanity but to smooth it into something safer and emptier—16 Chapters; 31,000 words.

08: The Cartographer’s Paradox and the Unmappable Heart: Some things cannot be measured without being damaged. When a new threat begins mapping WHAT!, classifying its mysteries, and reducing the unknowable to tidy systems, the team must protect the one thing no chart can hold: what a place means from the inside—16 Chapters; 59,000 words.

09: The Kintsugi Echo and the Golden Flaw: The final danger is not destruction. It is seduction. When the past begins offering perfect alternatives, old comforts, and the chance to undo every wound, the team must choose between a flawless dream and the damaged world they fought to keep—16 Chapters; 56,000 words.

Only click if you work in publishing, or you know someone who does. If not, skip it.

If you know someone who works in publishing, I’d love it if you could point them my way. I’m trying to make writing my living and, so far, I’ve earned a nicely rounded zero pence. Yes, you read that right. Nothing.

I write comic sci-fi satire with a British slant, speculative metafiction with contemporary bite, and I’ve even had a go at a Jane Austen-inspired piece of modern literary fiction, which is either range or a cry for help.

I’m still finding the niche that fits, so if you know a person with a contract, a commissioning budget, or even a suspiciously open inbox, I’m keen to talk about the work and where it could go next.