Today, I’ll be talking about short story writing, while also showing a couple of my previous attempts at the form. Like always, before we get into it, let’s do the weekly briefs:
WRITE Festival 2019
So this past weekend the WRITE Festival (A festival of writing and reading, based of the Word, South Shields, England) launched it’s first writing anthology, the results of a writing competition that started and closed, last year. Why am I telling you this? Well I was one of the lucky shortlisted writers who were published in the anthology.
The short story is called A Portrait of Hope and was quite different from anything I’ve written previously. The theme that they wanted the stories to work around was one of uplifting, again something that is practically alien to me. I didn’t win the contest, but seeing the quality of the top three, it’s not hard to see why, there is truly some excellent writers around, and I hope they all get their due after seeing what they’ve produced for this contest.
Creator Chaos
Looking for the interview with Peter Hartog? Well keep checking your favorite places to get podcasts as it will be going live May 23rd! Also, we’re recording the main podcast this Sunday, so if you have questions about the characters, don’t hesitate to get into contact.There is some sad news however, Matt Brown and the rest of the Creator Chaos have mutually agreed to part ways in an amicable fashion. We hope he has great success with his Ancient Blood series and gets the recognition he deserves.
A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:
Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…
Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun.
Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the second of which is out now so please look for ‘How Not To Be A Scribe’ and give it a read (and if a review, assuming you get the chance!) ! A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.
Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name.
Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!
Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War
I’m afraid due to time constraints, this series is going on hiatus. I’ve missed last weeks update as a new writing opportunity opened up (hopefully I can talk more about this in the future). I shall endeavor to return the trials of Drake and Ava Vern as soon as I’m able.
To catch up on the series so far, click here!
Brief Mentions
Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!Looking for their newer stuff? Click here for their Christmas encounter with a Yeti, or click here for the anthology containing the short ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’, get this one and you also get a whole host of brilliant short stories as well from fantastic authors.
Click here to find me on Goodreads
And now…time for our main feature presentation…
Short Story Tales
So this week, I wanted to look at Short Stories and what I’ve learned about doing them. In school, as part of English classes, we wrote what could be dubbed short stories (as long as we actually finished them of course). Sometimes we were just told to write it to completion, other times, we were given a certain length we had to finish at.A good example of this is the story I wrote for my mock SATs in year 6 when I was eleven years old. We were given just a single side of an A4 page to tell a fully structured story (beginning, middle and end). I was easily influenced in those days, and one of the big things for me was video games, most notably whatever was big on the Sega Saturn. At that time period, the game, House of the Dead debuted on the console release, and I wanted it. It also infected my imagination, as the story I wrote was pretty much a rip off, the game’s plot and one of its characters, filtered through the mind of a eleven year old who didn’t know how to properly balance the act structure then. This was the firsts time I can remember coming against the constraint of a size limit, and it wouldn’t be the last.
The next time came the year later, when I was in year 7, where one of our assignments was to write a story, but we were given six A5 pages to do it in. Ostensibly this was to enforce the structure, with two pages given each to the beginning, middle and end. This time I was enamored with the prophecies of Nostradamus and particularly the one that conspiracy theories said meant the end of the world was nigh…in July 1999. I don’t think I need to tell you that it was rubbish. Anyway, I spun an alien invasion tale, reminiscent of the old sci fi show, Earth: Final Conflict. This one fared a lot better and I was beginning to get a grasp of what to do within a tighter frame.
After that, there wasn’t any creative writing assignments as the English work became more concerned with the work of a very famous bard then anything else. So let’s flash forward to the next time I did a short story or two…In fact I’ll just show them to you.
~
A Future Vision
I have seen the future, and what a terrible thing it is. I have seen things that people would never believe as I scarcely believe them myself, even as I write them down here, though I am only writing them down in order to disprove my fears of madness. First I will start with the beginning, the dreams started about a week ago; starting with me hanging in the air like one of the sea-faring birds, hanging above what I can only assume is a large town.While I hang there I look around, seeing nothing but dark cloudy sky above the town and the strange objects hanging in the sky pretending, like me, to be birds. After hanging there for what seems like an eternity I begin a slow and agonising decent to the town, which I can now see very clearly as what I can only describe as a wondrous nightmare; the buildings stretch up high into the heavens as almost like they can call god their neighbour, but these buildings are made up of a metal I do not know, and some of them are covered in glass.
Then I start to hear the sounds coming from this nightmare sounds worse then any savage animal or any deafening war. When I first had these dreams, it was at this point that I would mercifully wake up, never getting any further closer to the heart of the town, night after night the same point in the dream and I was powerless to stop these dreams, yet I was always glad of their sudden end.
Until recently, however when a morbid curiosity had set in and I started to long to see what lurked in this strange place and to see if the things living in this place were indeed people or demons of my creation. The curiosity seemed to pay off as the next night I had the dream instead of it stopping; I continued my descent into the maze of the tall metal buildings.
On the way to the bottom I look around franticly to see some amazing sights that I have never before seen in this world, I see that the beings that live here resemble me and my people but they move without direction, each one following another, who follows another. They all seem older then what time said they should be; this fact only seemed to bother a few of them.
I passed, on my way down, a large window on one of the buildings and on the inside was one of the denizens of the town, who must have been made to look large through some trick or effect, the person was speaking but I could not understand it and various images passed through the window, and although I knew I should have been frightened by this, I was strangely clam, my gaze fell to the people beneath the window, who were stood watching the window like in some sort of trance, occasionally one of them would break from this trance and walk off, as if to attend some business.
Still wanting to see more of this place I finally made it to the bottom and set my feet on the ground, it was then that I took in another horror, the ground around me, and in fact almost the whole town was almost colourless, save from the oddly coloured clothes of its citizens. There were very few trees that I could see when compared with my own home, and it had seemed that nature had fought against this place and lost its crucial battle. I walked around for a while, noticing that I caught no attention from the other people around me, I looked in all of the shop windows and saw things that should not exist and yet the people were purchasing him them without due concern.
I carried on in my journey, it was then that I found the thing causing some of the noises I heard before, steel behemoths on the road, fighting each other to get ahead, and sometimes the people riding them would get out and start shouting at each other in a language that I’m becoming strangely familiar with. While the steel behemoths on the road scared me it by no means put me off my quest to discover more about this place, so I went on, and found myself in an alley between two of the large buildings and it was here that I found more nightmarish things that may never leave my mind.
The alley was filled with empty grey barrels, some of which had been turned on their side, among these I found rats bigger then I had ever seen. The rats were feeding off the waste of the barrels. I approached them and they scattered, leaving behind their food and a body of one of the citizens, I kneeled down in the waste to get a better look at it.
The person had been young and handsome, but his sleeve was rolled up and in his arms were sharp instruments, the like I have never seen, and apart from the thing in his arm there was also what appeared to be a dagger in his other hand, which was still covered in his own blood. This person had taken his own life. I got back to my feet and then noticed another body, this one was wearing the almost exact same clothes at the other one but his features were different, and it looked like he had died trying to either protect himself, or trying to kill the other one.
Either way they were both dead, my mind started to reel with reasons as to why these bodies had not been taken care of, I noticed people were walking around the other end of the alleyway, the opening a few feet away from the bodies, no one looked into the alleyway they did not care about that their fellow citizens were dead.
Disturbed by their lack of compassion, I left the alley, hoping that the souls lost there would find peace on the other side of life. Moving forward, it was to my relief that I came across a large section of woodland, and as I moved through the place I saw children of different colours playing together while their parents were no where to be seen. I looked up to the obscured sky, and saw it gradually get darker, and as I stood there staring as day faded into night, time seemed to move faster, as the children dispersed and it became very dark, though the town itself was lit up by various far away lights.
Wandering around this new setting, I came across another two young people, holding hands and eventually settling down on a grassy hill, I cried after what happened next, as without warning, the male grabbed a small dagger from his pocket and proceed to slit the young woman’s throat, killing her instantly, from there he began to cut her up. I, the silent observer in this violent act, stood there helplessly, not even turning my head away from the male as he desecrated the woman. And then with his act done, the man threw away the dagger and quietly walked away. I was still standing there when another young couple found the remains.
It was at this point that I wanted to leave this cursed town, with its flock of people and its murderers and demons. I now found myself running from the woodland and back into the streets, witnessing more acts of violence as two males beat another to death for being of a different colour, as far as I could gather of course, it was then when I ran into some people who spoke my language and looked like my brethren, only they too were caught in the fight and one of them was stabbed and left to bleed to death. I continued my flight, screaming at the top of my voice for it to end, but there was no waking from this dream it seemed.
I came to the place where I first descended and saw the people who were following other people who were following others. I fell to my knees and cried to leave this world and time, cried to have the things I’ve seen removed from my mind, for that god to be merciful and to wake me now.
It seems that someone heard my last plea as all of a sudden the people stopped moving and looked into the sky as one; there were no sounds apart from a low thunder that slowly got louder and louder till the night sky was torn asunder by a blinding white light, like many of the people I shielded my eyes from it, lowering my hand I witnessed the final act of horror, as everything around me and everyone around were incinerated, clothing from flesh, flesh from bone, bone to nothing.
Only I was left, alone in this now dark world. It was at this point that I was awoken be the sound of the birds outside my window, and the local traders leading their horses and carts to the market. I wiped my brow from all the sweat that had gathered there due to the dream and the heat and sat up and reflected on what I had seen.
I got up and walked to my desk and opened my diary and wet my quill and started to write about the dream in hope of showing my friend, Christopher when he gets back from finding the rumoured second route to India. But for now this diary will hold the event, and no more will my morbid curiosity make me go into the dammed city, I have seen the future of this world and it is a terrible thing.
Sleepless
It has been four days since I decided to sleep no more, and I’m not sure how long I can go before I either die from exhaustion or succumb to that dreaded state known as rest. A few weeks ago, if this happened to someone else and they told me, I would have sent them to another doctor, or maybe even a psychiatrist, as every one knows, that sleep is vital to humans, without it we would die.Now though I will seek no professional help, not even the help of my close friends and colleagues, as they will force me to sleep and incarcerate me into the asylum, were I will be helpless to defend myself against the waking nightmares, as I know the orderlies will not rush to my aid. As a doctor, I have seen all different kind of illnesses, from the common stomach bugs to other rare diseases, and one of the things that I seemed to have a lot of cases were sleep disorders, people who had insomnia or, a pure fear of sleep itself.
Thinking back about it, it’s very ironic how this is happening to me, as for all of these patients, I dismissed their cases, telling them to get more exercise and that the best cure would be natural healthy sleep, and in the most extreme of cases, I signed the orders referring them to the nearest asylum, where now I fear for their fate. My normal bed pattern would be to read for an hour, while listening to classical music on my headphones before reaching and turning off the light, and turning over about three times before finally getting to sleep, but seven days ago that pattern was destroyed.
I had just finished listening to some Mozart and had just read through the final section in the latest medical journal when it happened; I turned off the light, turned three times but instead of a dreamless sleep, I must have had what they would call a waking dream, I could no longer move my body, and I became aware of something else in the room, something above me, next to me and at one point, inside my mind.
I became panicky and started to stupidly call out, as if there was going to be someone to come to my rescue. As this was going on, strange visions danced in my head, of lands far away, of events eons in the past and seemingly eons in the future and of dread creatures which I will not describe, lest I go insane.
I do not know how long had past before this feeling disappeared, but while the feeling of being paralysed and there being something else in the room went, the horrors that were in my mind stayed. The day came and I returned to my normal routine, trying the best I could to forget about the night that had been, but then came the second evening. I tired to get to sleep straight away forgoing my usual reading and listening, trying to focus on leaving the waking realm and going to the strange land of sleep, where dreams live and memories dwell. But this transition never came for me, for once more I was paralysed and the feeling of not being alone came back to me, but this time in the still darkness I saw an outline of a fiend that words could not begin to describe, a beast that should not exist, yet was hovering above me, preparing once again to repeat what it did to me last time.
I tried to close my eyes, tried to convince myself that I was already asleep and that this was merely a dream, a terribly vivid dream, but a dream nonetheless. This time I could feel the monster inside my mind, touching each of my memories and thoughts, and I could feel it draining my mind, as with each passing moment I felt as though I was getting weaker and as though I had lost parts of my life.
Although that was a terrible ordeal it paled in comparison to the returning visions, each one was something that would be enough to make any one question their sanity, and their reason for being alive.
Dawn came and I was once again alone, but the damage had been done and a fear of returning to such a state had been set in, what could of normally been passed off as a recurring nightmare, has instead become something to fear, to fear bad enough to not ever even attempting to sleep ever again. The next few hours came and went with me still in bed, afraid to move.
Eventually I got up and went to ring the hospital where I would call in sick to avoid having to show myself in this sorry state. A curious thing happened though, I forgot the number, the number of the place where I had been working for the last ten years almost, a number which I’ve rang about a thousand times, while I eventually found the number in my address book, the event had left me a bit stunned, then I remembered that it had felt like I was being drained, and the more I thought about it, the more it became evident that things had been taken from me, things I would most likely never get back.
For the rest of the day, I hung around the house, like a dog missing its master, always checking on the time to see when it would get to the time that night would fall. During this period I went through all the cupboards in the house to try and find something, anything even, that may help against the creature, though in retrospect the mere fact I was doing something like that indicates that I was not of sound mind.
However during this mad search I did come across some strong sleeping pills, while at first I was attempted to get rid of them, an idea sprang to life inside me. What if I could induce a sleep so powerful that the visit of that creature would not wake me? So that I may sleep without fear, and perhaps the event wouldn’t happen and I can convince myself that it was, in fact all a bad dream to begin with.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense and so at the usual time of my retirement to bed, I took a large quantity of the pills, as well as a small glass of water, and went to my room. I lay in bed while listening to some of my favourite pieces of Beethoven, all the way, feeling smug about my plan to end the past two nights of visitations.
Once the music finished I took off the headphones and prepared to ingest the pills and the water, ensuring a good restful sleep, as soon as I took the pills, sleep overtook me, and the last thing I saw of the waking world was of the glass of water falling and spilling on the floor. This plan I made, however, did not work, in deed this third visit proved to be the clincher for my decision not to sleep. As during this supposed ‘good, restful, sleep’ I was woken, not by any noise, but by something else, some feeling.
I was wide awake, and for the first few minutes I could move around as if it was time to get up, but as I glanced over to the clock which displayed the time as two in the morning, I knew this wasn’t the case. Hurriedly I got out of my bed and tried to leave the room but, the sleeping pills I had earlier taken seemed now to work against me as once again I could feel sleep overtake me, but this sleep didn’t feel natural, and as soon as I fell to the floor, I lost all control of my body, and I was no longer alone in the room or in my mind.
The fiend had returned, and as I gazed upon its horrible features, I realised that I could now see all of it, as though it had fully materialised in this realm, I thought not of the things it might do to me if this was indeed the case. The thing came nearer and I fancied that I could hear it mocking me, in its own alien tongue, and once more the thing had penetrated my mind, and started to drain my memories, and as I lay there, I was given access to another slideshow of the things that lay outside of our perception of life. And once more, I screamed out.
It was on that morning, after I awoke on the floor, near the fallen glass, that I made a promise to myself and indeed to that mocking fiend that haunted my sleep, that I would never sleep again if I could help it, as death would be a welcome release compared to a lifetime of visits. Once more I phoned in sick, but this time I managed to get a longer stay off work, as if anybody saw me like this then they would take action, action that would not beneficial for me, or for them.
That was four days ago, I have made it four days without sleep, but now I am weary, for it feels like I am neither asleep or awake. And with this being the case the boundaries between the waking world and the dream world are beginning to break, as today I thought I was being hunted by some of the fiends that I had seen in the visions, but once they cornered me I found myself in my bathroom. And all the while, every now and then, I lose control of a part of my body and I see it trying to get to me, trying to get inside my head to finish what it started, and with these incidents I hear laughing, and the worse part of it is that it is in my own voice.
Now I sat alone in my bedroom, I am sure I am alone as I have not heard its laughing to indicate that it is here now, with my head held in my hands, I cry, not because of the thing coming but because I am to afraid to take my own life, to prevent my own suffering , I can no longer continue this fight against sleep, and I know that soon I will be either dead or asleep, though to tell the truth they will both be the same. As when the thing was stealing my thoughts, I was able to see into its, I know what it plans to do with me, what it has done to millions of others through out time, and with this being the fourth visit, it will be the final one, as all that is me will be consumed.
It is now two in the morning and I can barely move, fear acting as weights on my being, and I can hear the laughing, it has come for me, and already the paralysis is beginning to set in, so I must finish off this explanation for my death, and all I can do now is hope that I die from lack of sleep before the thing gets me, as I said before, death will be a welcome release.
~
To be fair, I was quite happy with the first one when I wrote it some thirteen years ago. This was when I was very much in my Lovecraft phase, though I failed to reach his lofty heights like Dagon. I learned though these that you have to start as close to the action as possible, otherwise you’re just wasting space you don’t have. I also never did any editing in those days, making the stupid mistake of thinking I didn’t need to do it. Ah youth.
Now, you can trace a link from them to the short story that changed my life, Girl in the Water. Readers who know me should recognize that name, as it is of course, the first story featuring Brennan and Riz, and my shortlisted entry in the first Crossing the Tees short story contest, back in 2017.
It has not been an easy ride from, going from my inferior copies of video game plots to a tale of a mismatched duo investigating Water Ghouls but along the way I’ve learned that short stories is a mix of knowing when to start the story.
This is a bit of evolution from what I mentioned in the last paragraph but it’s not just starting close to action, it’s about the effect you want. It’s still possible to do the slow build within a short story, as pacing becomes important, and that leads nicely into my next point.
Less is more. If you’re writing to a word limit, be stingy with your adjectives, choose the best one for what you’re describing, but don’t over describe at the same time. Get you reader to engage their imagination, just from a few prompts. Bloated paragraphs will slow down the reader and will make even the shortest of stories a chore that they will just skip.
Editing is key. Through the hard choices of editing, you can chisel that stone block of a story to a masterpiece. This is something that Tracey Iceton, the fantastic author who ran several workshops I attended in the run up to Crossing the Tees, taught me. The phrase she used was, “Kill your darlings” which roughly means, don’t be a afraid to lose bits you really like in the name of pacing and word count. I’ve had to do this several times in order to meet the limits. I grieve for all the words that I’ve sacrificed this way.
Thank you for reading all of my rambling so far, and I’ll see you all again next week!
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