Short Stories – Skeletons in the Closet
Sunday, I presented a new story at The Encyclopedia Show in Minneapolis. The theme of the show as Pirates.
Since I’ve been writing short fiction, my typical focus for these shows is to put together a short story. Initially, I’d been thinking about a time travel story involving Blackbeard. But then I decided I’d write about something I knew a little better.
I also drew a tiny bit from a story some friends told me about this attraction. I’m afraid there are no Jungle Book skippers in this one. Literally five people will get that reference so I left it out.
For those who read my stories, thanks! I’m going to try to work back up to once per week (from once per month)!
Short Story – Chole the Andean Marsupial Tree Frog
I wrote a piece for the Encyclopedia show this weekend. The topic was marsupials and originally, I’d planned on writing some mad libs because last week was a crazy week and mad libs are funny and easy to write. Also, audience participation is awesome!
So as I was doing research for my Mad Libs, I discovered marsupial tree frogs, which are a real thing. Zoologically speaking, they aren’t “true” marsupials for a whole lot of reasons that are not the least bit interesting or relevant here.
But having discovered the marsupial tree frog and being fairly certain I would be the only presenter at the show who talked about them (I was right), I decided to scrap my original, easy, idea and instead write a short story about all about a Andean Marsupial Tree Frog named Chloe. And zombies.
And so I did. And here it is. My inspiration was true life nature documentaries. And Andean Marsupial Tree Frogs
I hope you like it!
Short Story – The Forest
This week’s story is a very brief little horror piece. In a rare occurrence, the entire narrative came to me all at once. I knew the beginning, middle, and end. Often, I know only the end or the beginning when I start writing.
When I think about horror, sometimes what I’m looking for is an object that isn’t particularly dangerous but has a hidden feature that makes it dangerous. In this story, I picked something that often ignite people’s imaginations but aren’t inherently dangerous outside of your own fears.
Then I asked myself “what if there was a really good reason to be afraid?”
As always, I hope you enjoy and please comment and share if you are so inclined!
Short Story – Halfway to the Haven
I had some writer’s block slowing my writing for a few weeks. I was working on this one and just didn’t really know where it was going. I forced myself to push on and just figure it out.
About halfway through, I had an “a-ha” moment where I finally realized what I was writing. Then I had to go back and make some massive changes on the opening. Eventually, I came up with this.
I can’t deny there is more to this story. I expect a lot of readers are going to have questions and I do have answers to a lot of them. I left a lot of stuff intentionally vague because I think it is more interesting if the reader comes up with their own ideas about certain parts of the story.
If you do read any of my writing – thanks! I’m always interested in your feedback and thoughts about my writing.
Short Story – Dinner by Candlelight
I’m still writing horror stories for October. I read this one at The Not-So-Silent-Planet open mic last night. After reading it, I decided to tweak it a little bit more before posting.
I don’t know if other writers do this, but I find reading my writing out loud has a huge impact on my response to the story. I catch things that I don’t notice when I’m just reviewing it on the page. Perhaps it is because I’m a playwright.
The story here is very dark. I mean, that’s not such a surprise since it is supposed to be horror. I think it’s a bit more nihilistic than some of my other work in this genre, though.
As always, thanks for taking time time to read my stories. Please share, comment, or simply enjoy!
Short Story – The Surface
I’ve been participating in an open mic night since January and one of the requirements is stories that are about 5-7 minutes in length. That translates to about 3-4 typed pages. At least once a month, that means I’m trying to write a very compact story around 1000 – 1500 words in length.
It’s a different kind of challenge. A lot of the time, I’m working with suggestion and ambiguity because I don’t have a lot of time to fully realize a world. The goal is to create the feeling there is more on the edges of the story and to give the reader/listener the opportunity to fill in some of those edges for themselves.
I feel like this would make a good series of comics. At least the ending seems to lead to something that could, I think, be explored in a more visual format.
As always, please feel free to share, comment, and give advice. Thanks for reading!
Short Story – The Contest
I was working on private piece last week so I didn’t have a chance to post a public story. I know not too many people read my fiction but if you are one of those folks, I’m sorry to have missed you last week.
I’m still playing around with horror and ghost stories this week. I’ve always been fascinated with ghosts. I think the idea of a place that somehow holds on to people is fascinating. What binds them there?
So this week features a dialogue heavy story about a young man trying to beat a haunted house. If there was such a thing as a haunted house, I’m not sure if you could ever beat it.
As always, please feel free to comment, share, tell me you hate it, or ignore this story completely!
Short Story – Promises
I’m still working on horror stories for Halloween. One thing about horror for me is even when I’m working with supernatural horror, I think people are far scarier than monsters. Monsters are, for me, what we create. They are the darkness within ourselves.
This story is on the long side and is another one I think could be turned into a play. So now I need to think about how I can turn it into a longer narrative.
As always, please read, share, comment, or move on to other more important things in your life. Thanks for your time!
Short Story – A Windy Day
I’m working on some horror right now because I have a few Halloween shows coming up and while I have been writing some horror, I want to make sure I have the right tone for the shows I’ll be doing. Always good to have extra, you know?
This story started with the idea of taking a fairly benign object and making it dangerous. I also feel I sometimes use dialogue as a crutch so this story is dialogue free. There is some violence and child endangerment so if you are going to read, be warned.
It is strange to me that I have become a storyteller in the last year. It was not something I ever envisioned for myself. I’m not sure if I’m all that good at it but at the very least, I’m not awful.
As always, please feel free to share, comment, or ignore my writing. If you do take the time to read it, thanks! Read More…
Short Story – The Bear
Sorry I missed last week. Fringe festival messes with my writing schedule. I’ve been toying with horror and revenge lately. There is some triggery stuff in this week’s story that involves incest and suggested rape. So be warned about that.
I keep toying with this idea as a play. Not sure if I could turn it into a 45-50 minute show as it is right now but the pieces are there for it to expand to something more than what I’ve written here.
The story itself is self contained. But I can feel there is more that could be explored with this character.
I was in Utah earlier this year so I chose the area that is now Arches National Park as the setting. I don’t typically worry about such things but I wanted to give a little bit of a sense of place.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it!
Grail Diary 