Three Short Stories in the Making
Since turning in my draft of Saint Death’s Herald to my editor, I’ve knocked out TWO of my THREE impending short story deadlines, and am working on the third.
You know, there’s that age-old question, “Where do your stories come from?”
The answer, of course, varies from person to person (a sliding scale starting at a table flip and moving all the way to a 200-page thesis or perhaps a memoir), but since I know the answer THIS TIME, and there are THREE DIFFERENT ONES, I thought I’d share them.
Story Seed I: Thank you, Negocios Infernales! Also, fellow players. Also, Carlos.The first story was the hardest. I already wrote to our Kickstarter backers about it, so here, have that exerpt uncut:
As we’ve been playing Negocios Infernales games with you, our ADORABLE backers, I’ve sometimes stepped in as a player. And one of these times—back in February—I created a character I sort of adored.
TL;DR, the game was great, but ALSO! I had a deadline for a short story that was WAY OVERDUE, due to my novel ALSO being overdue! Thankfully, I finished BOTH of these deadlines within the last two weeks and turned everything in.
Having just finished my draft of Saint Death’s Herald, I was pretty burnt out on ideas for short stories. Carlos suggested that, since I loved my character “Dorado”—the poet in the birdcage—from our backers’ game, I use her as a seed for my short story.
It was such a RELIEF to have a place to start! And even MORE of a relief to finish!
“With Wings of Crystal” will appear in this year’s Origins anthology, with the theme of “Legacy.” Here’s a sneak peak of the first few paragraphs:
The birdcage on top of Dorada’s head itched, and a headache was starting. All told, that elaborate wire filigree was probably as heavy as the queen’s own diadem which had two swords jutting up from the sides like horns, one silver, one gold the royal blades of Espada and a pearl of so great a size that just to imagine the oyster of origin was to walk in fear of it.
Espada was a nation that loved its swords.
Thankfully, it was currently politically expedient that
Espada also love its poets. Which was good, because being Espada’s court poet kept Almenara Sastre-Escribano (AKA “El Canario Dorado de la Reina de Espada”) (or just plain “Dorada,”
really) in work.
Image borrowed from The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic’s websiteMy second story is for an Air and Nothingness Press anthology that I’m not one-hundo percent sure I can talk about yet, but suffice to say that it is one of the coolest CONCEPTS I’ve ever been invited to contribute to. AND I WILL SPEAK MORE ON THIS LATER!!!
ONE of the SEVERAL enfolded ideas in this anthology’s guidelines is to use archetypes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. We were provided a list of archetypes to choose from (and a variety of other choices to make as well, but I’ll get more into that the closer we get to publication).
I chose “Maiden/Familiar/Monster.”
Partly, I did so because Carlos and I have a very active imaginary home life, full peppered with a fantastic menagerie of characters. And ONE of our sets of characters is a sorcerer sort of person named “Master,” and a familiar sort of person “Famulus.”
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MASTER AND FAMULUS:
Master wants all the magical (and possibly demonic) powers that Famulus possesses. Famulus just wants to please Master. Or possibly eat Master. Or possibly BE Master. Famulus is very loving, and very dangerous. Master adores Famulus, and also will not hesitate to atomize Famulus if Famulus gets out of hand—if Master can catch Famulus at Famulus’s shenanigans in time.
I thought I’d do something with these character seeds. You can see how they might overlap with “Maiden” (Master?) and “Familiar” (Famulus). The thought was very appealing—especially considering the third idea—“Monster”—as a trait shared between them.
Which one, after all, is more monstrous: Master of Famulus?
Answer: THEY BOTH DESERVE EACH OTHER. Or perhaps: TOGETHER, they are the monster.
All of this fun stuff was reeling around in my head, but I had no STORY—at least none that would fit in 1500 words or less.
So I hied me away from that idea and went off to consult The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic’s Enchant oracle deck.
This was a special, limited-release deck of fairy tale cards that the good Doctors of Carterhaugh, Doctor Cleto and Doctor Warman (I’m totally friends with them and can say their name, but I REALLY LIKE CALLING THEM DOCTORS, OKAY???) put together for their Enchanted workshop. They hope to re-release them one day, if they can find a vendor that does not leave the two of THEM with all the overhead of organizing and shipping. But that’s for another day.
For today: I HAVE MY DECK, YAY!
They’re very simple cards. They each have an archetypal fairy tale character right at the top, and a brief, shall we say, breakdown of some of the more psychological elements of the story. The card ends with a question to reflect on, usually pertaining to how a certain element of the given fairy tale might apply in your daily life.
Reader, I pulled—and I kid you not—“Rumpelstiltskin” and “The Milk Maid” (of “Rumpelstiltskin” fame), as well as “Rapunzel.”
So I sat awhile in this perfumed cloud of thought: “Milk Maid” (“Maiden”), and “Rumpelstiltskin” (“Familiar”), together with that interesting extra note of “Rapunzel”—after all, is not Shakespeare’s Miranda a kind of Rapunzel: the island her tower, a powerful sorcerer for a parent, and a prince coming upon her in all his wreckage?).
A story began to form.
I began by doing a little noodling research into Naples of the 16th century. I found out ALL SORTS OF INTERESTING THINGS about eggs and castles and linens and demons!!!
And then I took a good long look at the “Monster” in “Maiden, Familiar, Monster,” and thought a while about what I could possibly say about Caliban. There is a very long and difficult conversation surrounding The Tempest, racism, colonialism, and the silencing and abuse of many of the characters therein. I don’t have any answers, only a sliver of contribution to the discussion.
I had in my head, too, the whole while I was writing, a marvelous 10-minute play by Liz Duffy Adams, dealing with a post-Tempest post-Maiden Miranda unleashed upon the world. She’s a marvelous, sexy, darling creature, liberated and adorable, and I feel like my Miranda would be friends with Duffy’s Miranda. It’s a first-person voice, so it’s always surprising how that comes out each time. ONE CONTAINS MULTITUDES!
Anyway. I like the little thing. And it is a little thing at 1500 words. But it’s mine.
And what’s more, it’s DONE. TWO MONTH’S EARLY, BABY!
Story Seed 3: Again, thank you, Enchant Oracle Deck. And thank you, Tanith Lee, gosh darn it.
Image borrowed from The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic’s websiteMy third story is another invited submission for the forthcoming Tanith Lee tribute anthology, Storyteller, edited by Julie Day.
Some of the inspiration has been trickling in (feeding the boys in the basement, as Stephen King might say) through reading and, in some cases re-reading, a bunch of Tanith Lee stories and novels.
I restarted Silver Metal Lover (I know it’s not everyone’s jam; I know. I still love it!), and I bought a few old Daw paperbacks I’d never read before. I started reading Night’s Sorceress, a story collection from the “Flat Earth” world, where demons and gods still walk the land, and I gotta say…
I LOVE TANITH LEE’S DEMONS!
In fact, I’m over at Delia Sherman’s house today on a writing date, and she lent me two more Flat Earth books: Delusion’s Master and Death’s Master, which I think take place before Night’s Sorceress. But I’ve never gotten the sense, reading the former, that I need anything other than what the author provides me. But I’m into it!
The stories in Night’s Sorceress are very much in a fairy tale style, and eminently LICKABLE down on a sentence level.
I have many other thoughts, but none of them are fully matured yet, and possibly are only of interest to me, so I’ll leave them off this already elaborate blog.
Anyway, since I was full of a Tanithesque “fairy tale feeling” (as my mentor Gene Wolfe used to say), I pulled out my fairy tale cards again to see if they could jumpstart any creative ideas on this, the third short story I need to write before June. And, preferably, before I get edits back on Saint Death’s Herald.
I pulled the cards for “Sea Witch” and “The Girl Who Transformed into Fire” and “Puss in Puts.”
Ha! What a hodgepodge!
The story is still forming, but here’s what I know:
I know that the “Sea Witch” is my central demon. And I have a whole spark for the protagonist based on “The Girl Who Transformed Into Fire.” There’s something in this idea that I think is based on my one-and-a-half-decade-old memory of reading Tanith Lee’s Saint Fire. But I’m not sure! I’m just rolling with it.
I started researching the origins of whatever story “The Girl Who Transformed into the Fire” might come from, since it wasn’t one I was familiar with, and the best I could come up with is this VERY MACABRE German nursery rhyme that Mark Twain did a VERY BAD translation of.
This Paris review article about it CRACKED ME UP!!!
I have no idea if this is the fairy tale the Doctors of Carterhaugh were taking as their inspiration for their card, or if theirs is maybe a take on the Russian Vasilisa, or maybe a Cinderella reference?
But if it’s the German rhyme (see article), then I have to say, the Doctors of Carterhaugh have taken the most generous and helpful and MODERN reading of a DREADFUL story of a child burning herself to death. They’ve, in fact, transformed it into a card all about TRANSFORMATION.
Well, that’s a good place for any story to start, eh?
Where Puss in Boots (mistyped, just now “Puss in Butts”) comes—archetypally or otherwise—into my story, I do not know.
…Although, now that I have written that, I am starting to get an inkling of an idea.
And now that I have blogged all that, I must write!
