Tag: Writing

New Short Story: Ragged Flesh

~ allenhuntsman ~ 2 Comments

A jolt shot up Charlie’s spine like a lightning bolt. A spell of dizziness made him stumble a little, standing there holding his exposed penis. He had pulled over to take a piss. Vast horizons of Nevada desert surrounded him

“Whoa!” he whispered. “What the hell? There’s no way! What the hell?” Chills scattered over his shoulders like a swarm of pricking ice-cold fingers.

Despite vehement denial, it was happening. The flaccid corpse of a deer slid across the desert ground before his very eyes, moving over rocks and sage brush, as if pulled by some invisible string. It stopped. Jerked one way, and then back the other way, like two invisible forces playing tug of war.

His wife Carol called from the car: “Charlie! Stop playing with yourself. Let’s get the show going again.”

Charlie waved his hand. “Carol, come see this!”

She groaned. The Subaru’s passenger door slammed shut and she rustled her feet through the sandy rocks of the bar pit. She mumbled as she walked over. Charlie never took his eyes off the deer.

“Charlie, put your junk away,” Carol said.

“Oh!” He quickly stuffed his junk back in his pants and zipped and buttoned up. Then he pointed at the deer. “Do you see that?”

“Yeah. I smell it, too. Someone probably hit the poor thing. Can we get out of here?” She stood there with her hands on her hips, dressed in a white and brown checkered blouse, jeans shorts, and a white sunhat.

The deer corpse shuffled back and forth. “Look! See it moving like that?”

Carol removed her hands from her hips, facing the direction of the corpse. Her body visibly tensed. “Is it still alive?”

 “I watched it get dragged.”

Carol stepped toward it.

“Careful,” Charlie said.

She ignored him, and soon Charlie reluctantly followed, taking a few steps closer. He was a thin, wiry man who spent most of his time in the basement on his computer, working out finances for a company. When he wasn’t working, he spent much of his time watching docuseries or listening to news podcasts while either enjoying green tea in the backyard or walking the same routine route. Charlie loved his order, but hated chaos. He hid inside the shell of comfortable familiarity like a threatened turtle. It was his wife that demanded the road trip, protesting about it for months until Charlie finally couldn’t resist the nagging. Once the trip started, she was pulling him along like an overexcited dog on a leash. His hesitancy at times nearly choked her.

They both now stood over the deer corpse on the edge of a small hill. Both their faces were scrunched expressions of uneasiness and disgust. The blank, dead eye of the deer stared up at them like a black crater. Its tongue amusingly poked out of its mouth, almost in a bizarre and teasing manner.

The limp body writhed back and forth in small, spasmodic jerks.

“What’s moving it like that?” Charlie asked.

Then the center of its abdomen bulged. Carol gasped. Charlie’s eyes widened, and his heart pounded wildly. The fur-covered flesh of the deer’s midsection bulged and rippled, and a short moment later, the flesh ripped open, gushing blood and fluids. Carol gasped and Charlie moaned. Both of them stepped backwards as a swarm of strange multi-legged creatures emerged from the ragged hole in the deer’s flesh.

Carol leaned closer. “What are they? Ants?”

Dozens of them clambered all over the body, some of them burrowing back inside at different sections. Rapid clicking sounds that reminded Charlie oddly of Rice Krispies in milk emanated from these new creatures as they busily swarmed about, devouring the deer’s body. They did look a lot like ants, but some of them were larger, reaching the size of a tennis ball. Others were more the size of a silver dollar with large round abdomens. Their bodies were a fierce red color, and they were covered with patches of wiry, sharp black hair that almost resembled Velcro. The big ones had rows of black eyes. To his mind they had to be spiders, but they swarmed like a large ant colony.

“Unbelievable!” Carol said. “They’re devouring it. Just look at ‘em Charlie! Isn’t that just…wild?” She stepped closer, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

“Don’t get too close, Carol.” Charlie reached out, as if to grab her, but she was out of reach.

“I gotta get video of this, Charlie. I swear. We’ve found a new species.” She hovered around the corpse, leaning forward in an attempt to keep some distance between them and her feet. She recorded the stunning scene with her phone camera.

A small line of them crawled toward her. The moment carried out before Charlie in slow motion.

“Carol! Watch your feet!” He fruitlessly reached for her, but it was too late. Four of them crawled up her bare leg. Carol jumped back, shaking and dancing. She shrieked and dropped her phone. She ran back toward the Subaru but tripped into the sand and rocks along the way.

Writhing and shrieking, she slapped at her legs. Charlie ran over to her aid.

“Are they off me?” She said, whimpering.

“I think so.” He searched around, gritting his teeth with tense apprehension. He saw one that had been crushed into the sand. Its red body like a smooshed cherry. Fluids bubbled from its mangled body like black acid.

Charlie took Carol’s hand and pulled her up. “Let’s get to the car.” She was still hurting. During the short hike up the embankment, she winced and hissed in pain, gripping his shoulder as she limped along.

“I dropped my phone back there,” she said.

“I’ve still got mine. I don’t want to go back there and mess with those freaking things.”

He helped her into the passenger seat, holding her arm as she settled into place. As he hurried to the other side of the car, he mumbled to himself, “I think I can go the rest of my life without another road trip.”

A preacher clamored on the radio when he climbed into the driver’s seat: And we shall go forth and as the Lord has stated…we shall multiply and replenish the earth—

Charlie turned off the radio. Then he cranked the air conditioner to full blast and maneuvered the Subaru back on the highway.

“We’re all good now, Carol. We’ll be just fine.”

He took a deep breath and thought: That was just a little strange turbulence, a little bizarre scare. Now we can find a little motel, get a pleasant meal and maybe be back home tomorrow. Haha. This experience will surely make for some great stories later, a fun story to tell at the neighborhood party Carol liked to hold every summer.

While he told himself these things, his body language said different. He gripped the steering wheel with trembling hands. The muscles in the back of his neck had stiffened to the point of aching. Carol didn’t look well at all, either. She leaned back in her seat, head turning side to side as she moaned. Her face was pale, and a sheen of sweat drenched her face.

“How you doin’ sweetie? We’ll find some place to stop and rest.”

“I feel sick,” she said, her voice husky and hoarse. “And I just realized one of them got me.”

He glanced over and saw where she moved her hand. Blood smeared across her skin. There was a puckered hole in the flesh of her thigh.

“Oh, shit,” Charlie muttered through clenched teeth. “It looks like one of them burrowed into your leg. Did one of them burrow into your leg?”

“Pull over,” Carol said.

“What?”

“Pull over! Now!”

He veered off to the side and stopped. Carol opened the door, leaned out, and vomited. Charlie flinched as his wife blew chunks. He tried to comfort her, patting her on the back, feeling the muscles between her shoulder blades flex with each heave. He glanced to the glimmering mirage on the highway. A crow landed in the center of the road, briefly looking at them before taking flight once again. The scene seemed to foreshadow a dark, bad omen.

Carol collapsed back into her seat, looking worse. Her face was white as milk and a string of slobber dangled from her lips. Her body trembled.

“Carol?”

She mumbled incoherently.

“Carol, honey?”

Her eyes rolled back in her head, body convulsing. “I’m calling 9-1-1.” He fished his phone from his pocket with adrenaline-surged fumbling hands. A familiar sound startled him enough that he flinched, flinging his phone in the air where it landed in the footwell by Carol’s feet. Snapping and crackling.

He nearly reached over to try to grab his phone, but a wave of red bodies burst from Carol’s open mouth like a fountain spouting red. Crimson legs, armored with coarse black spiny hairs, propelled these creatures all over her face and down her neck, some of them viciously burrowing back into her flesh, creating more ragged, puckered holes.

Charlie gazed in paralyzed horror. A bizarre thought flickered in his mind among a string of other thoughts that were just exclamatory static: My God dear you’re a spouting volcano!

Paralysis broke. Charlie rammed his shoulder into the side of the door and grabbed for the lever. The door pounded open, and he tumbled face-first into the gravel. Gasping and whimpering, he stumbled to his feet and hurried away from the car. When he turned around, he got a new unpleasant surprise: the spiders—hundreds, maybe thousands—had overtaken the interior of the car. Carol was no longer visible; she was concealed by the swarming red blanket.

Charlie hopelessly yelled her name anyway. He reached toward the car, wanting desperately to do something, but there was nothing to do. Even his phone was lost at this point, covered up in the swarm.

Horror and anguish swelled inside Charlie. He clenched the sides of his head with both hands and screamed.

Charlie marched along the lone highway under the oppressive summer heat like a mystified zombie. His face was pale with shock. At times the corner of his jaw spasmed, the result of tense panic that had exploded throughout his body. Parading through his mind were the course of events that led up to this tragic moment: Carol stumbling into the bar pit…if only he had prevented her from even getting close to them! He vividly imagined himself stopping her, gripping her by the shoulders and escorting her to the car before any of this could happen. Storms of different emotions worked through him. At times he was merely lost in a disorienting cloud of dejection and shock. Other times the cloud was ripped away with another white-hot flash of panic. Sometimes this was accompanied by the shattering thunder of anger. Before leaving the car, he had yelled obscenities at them, even hurling a pair of rocks at the windshield, wanting so badly to fight.

 Large oval stains of sweat drenched the front and back of his shirt by the time a new sight appeared on the horizon that caused both a feeling of hope to spring inside him as well as greater dejection—a small town. Madly, he thought maybe there was still time; perhaps he could still get help. He was also tormented by the reality of how close they had been to civilization.

An old wooden sign riddled with pocketknife graffiti labeled the town as White Mountain Falls. Most of it was made up of trailers. There were a few old houses scattered about like so many scabs. White Mountain Falls could be a ghost town for all he knew. Regardless, he needed to try something. Perhaps someone had a phone he could use to notify the police that these weird creatures were spreading, multiplying like some pandemic disease. The words of that preacher echoed in his mind as he stood before the leaning wood fence that bordered the first house: And we shall multiply and replenish the earth as the Lord has stated…

Charlie gulped, a chill ran through him. Those words didn’t feel as hopeful in the context of his situation. Perhaps these things were multiplying and replenishing the Lord’s wrath.

He walked along the patchy yellow grass toward the front door. It was a scuffed up old thing with a brass knob. There was a knocker bolted on the front. Charlie flipped the knocker a few times, waiting. No one came. And then he heard it, muffled behind the door—a vigorous, rapid popping. His stomach turned to ice. No…It couldn’t be. They couldn’t have already spread this far…

Charlie opened the door. The sound of cracking and popping boomed in volume, blasting from the shadows of the house. Charlie stepped through the doorway where thousands of them swarmed. Their hairy bodies shifted, scrambling in waves over walls, the floor, chairs, and other house items. Charlie stared in sickened horror, mouth hanging open, as a severed hand bumped and flowed across the floor in the entryway, guided by their crawling bodies. The hand almost weirdly looked like a body crowd-surfing through a concert audience.

Charlie stumbled dizzily backwards, heart slamming in his chest. He shook his head in denial. It couldn’t be. He didn’t want to believe his eyes. But as hordes of them poured out of the doorway into the thinning patches of grass, he couldn’t deny it. There was no escape. Soon they would spread to every city, every town, and human existence would be swallowed up by their monstrous frenzy.

He yelled for help, but no help came. Pain, like fire, spread up his legs and body as a red swarm of a new species engulfed him.   

Crossing Subgenres

~ allenhuntsman ~ 3 Comments

I learned this writing exercise from Tim Waggoner’s instructional book “Writing in the Dark.” It’s a fun way to explore the muscularity and flexibility of story ideas, and a great way to uncover unique ideas.

First, pick one of those story ideas you’ve stowed away in a notebook somewhere. Here’s one of mine: What if a man discovered a strange alien monolith buried in the middle of the desert and becomes possessed by alien entities as he dabbles with it? Initially, it seems to fall in the science fiction/creature horror subgenre. But…what other areas could the idea cross into?

Step two is just that: crossing over. What if this were a psychological horror story instead? Perhaps he’s a professor who finds some Native American artifact, becomes possessed by his obsession with it, and the alien entities are the symptom of his madness instead. What other places could we take it? If this is a supernatural possession, we can cross over into the realm of cosmic and body horror as well, overlapping subgenres.

I highly recommend Tim Waggoner’s book, especially if you write in the genre of horror. However, I think some of the writing exercises from his book are applicable in other genres as well.

Let me know what you come up with using this exercise.

Why Do You Get Writer’s Block?

~ allenhuntsman ~ Leave a comment

Today I want to discuss a writer’s arch nemesis: writer’s block. Writer’s block has many minions of many shapes and sizes. Today I want to take on a few common reasons.

One common reason is lack of interest in what you’re writing. Perhaps you’re trying to chase the marketplace, hoping to catch a popularity wave. Or maybe you think friends and relatives will be pleased by what you’re writing (much of the time, I’m afraid, you’ll discover they aren’t pleased). However, every time you sit down to work on a project, your blood is cold. Every sentence, paragraph, plot point, and character seems stilted, trite, awkward, and lifeless. Sounds like you need to pick a new subject, something that excites you to sit down before the computer or notebook. Readers can tell when a writer doesn’t believe in or enjoy what they’re writing.

Another reason is becoming overwhelmed by the size of a project. It’s hard to sit down imagining the next several months to a year you will spend working on a novel. Such thoughts can overwhelm the writer. As Stephen King once said, I paraphrase, it can feel like floating along the ocean in a bathtub. Instead of looking at the full scope of the project, break it down into smaller tasks. Today you will write one scene, or you will write for one hour. Over time, that one hour per day will prove to be quite fruitful.

Perfectionism is another common cause for writer’s block. Do you find yourself reediting the same page over and over to the point that you and your test readers are ready to rip their hair out? Do you overthink an idea to the point it turns to mush? It’s time to calm down and quit being a control freak. Even some of the most popular movies and works of fiction exhibit imperfections. I started to make a rule for myself: four drafts, and then I’m done; it’s time to send it into the world, even if there is a wart or two. At least I’m being productive, which is more important to me than being perfect.

How do you tackle writer’s block?

Goodbye to Writer’s Block: All Thanks to the Pomodoro Technique

~ allenhuntsman ~ 2 Comments

Over the past several months I was struggling with writer’s block. Everything I tried to write crumbled like wet paper. Recently, I came to realize the reason for my writer’s block, and the means of fixing it.

Writing a story can be quite a task, especially if it’s a novel. You could end up spending three months to a year writing a novel. The enormity of the task can be overwhelming. I found even the task of sitting down for a few hours to work on a story to be overwhelming at times.

Then I discovered the Pomodoro Technique, the method that turns time into your ally, breaking it down into manageable chunks. The technique is simple:

Step One: Pick a task (in this case it’d be writing).

Step Two: Write for twenty-five minutes straight.

Step Three: Take a five minute break.

Step Four: Repeat four times.

Step Five: Take a thirty minute break.

Keep in mind, you don’t have to follow the process stringently if you don’t want to. For instance, you could break your twenty-five minute sessions throughout the day in any way you want. Instead of sitting down before my notebook thinking to myself, “I’m going to write an entire story,” or “I’m going to write for four hours,” I said to myself, “Let’s go for twenty-five minutes and see what we can get down on paper.” Twenty-five minutes didn’t overwhelm me in the way four continuous hours would have. I could manage twenty-five minutes. After my five minute break, it was easy to say to myself, “Hey, I can do another twenty-five minutes, can’t I?” I sure could. It’s a simple psychological trick that gets you focusing on each tree one at a time as opposed to the enormity of the forest. If you’re stuck in the rut of writer’s block for similar reasons, I highly recommend the Pomodoro Technique. It’s a great way to build a writing routine for yourself, and the fun quotient increases as well.

Working Title: Love Bites

~ allenhuntsman ~ 1 Comment

I completed the rough draft of a new story! I am very excited.

So the rough draft of this story turned out far better than I expected it would. The plan: Allow it to rest for a couple weeks, and then it will rise for the revision process. In the featured image are the first lines of the story. This is a love story, a love story that turns in a very tragic direction. It’s also a story about how we relate experiences to one another, and how people respond to them. In other words, it’s a story about storytelling. The working title for this story was “Love Bites.” However, that sounds a bit gimmicky. Maybe I’ll change it to “A Piece of My Heart.” But that sounds so pretentious. I don’t know. Such decisions can be saved for the revisions.

Rough Draft Completed!

~ allenhuntsman ~ 6 Comments

Good news! I was able to make some decent use of the early morning hours. I woke up at five and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I decided to make use of that quiet time to work on a story I’ve been grinding away at for the past couple weeks. The rough draft looks to be more novella length than novel, but maybe the story will expand when I progress to revisions later.

In the meantime, I got a really good idea for a story yesterday on my walk. I will carry on with the rough draft before I go back to revisions of this recently finished project. The working title for my next project: Nightmare Shards. I’m going to have some fun playing with the werewolf myth.

Author Spotlight: Interview With Rami Ungar

~ allenhuntsman ~ 2 Comments

Rami Ungar is a novelist from Columbus, Ohio who has enjoyed writing and scaring people silly since he was young. He has both self-published and traditionally published short stories and novels, including Snake, Rose and The Pure World Comes. When not writing, Rami enjoys anime and manga, reading, and giving people the impression that he’s not entirely human.

Tell us a bit about the stories you write. What do they mean to you, and why do you think readers will love them? 

I tend to write horror and supernatural stories. I love a scary monster, some weird concept or idea turned into a full story. Especially if I can take my interests or my eccentricities and put them into a story. That’s what my stories are, in a way: they’re my love of the dark and the strange, a crystallization of the macabre with my eclectic interests (which includes the macabre). And I think people will not only love the stories for their plots and unique touches, but also for the love and passion I include in my stories.

Do you remember that first moment when the horror genre attracted you?

I think it might have been Stephen King’s IT. I was on vacation and we stopped at a bookstore because my family always needs something to read. I recognized IT from seeing a DVD copy of the miniseries once, so I thought I’d check it out. Probably one of the best decisions of my life, nightmares notwithstanding.

What is your creative process?

 When I decide to work on a story, I come up with a few central characters and their key traits/role in the story. I then work on and outline the story, and then I write the darn thing. I’ll usually have music on in the background, a tea or soda nearby and some incense burning. All those things really help me get the words out (along with a good story, of course).

What are some of your favorite books and movies?

Good question. As you might have guessed, my favorite books are mainly horror. Kill Creek by Scott Thomas is my current favorite, though something else might replace it someday. I’m also a huge fan of writers like Stephen King, Ania Ahlborn, Anne Rice, HP Lovecraft, and many others. As for movies, there are a lot of horror movies there too: Overlord, Perfect Blue, Prince of Darkness. That being said, Avengers: Endgame and The Prom is what I watch when I need a mood lift. And I have a soft spot for Titanic.

What else are you passionate about besides writing?

I’m a huge fan of anime and manga. Every week, I watch several episodes of new and old shows and go through at least four or five volumes of manga a week. I also enjoy going to the movies, seeing live shows like musicals and ballets, and cooking. If there’s a box that I fit neatly into, I haven’t met it yet.

What advice would you give to the novice writer?

Actually carve out the time to write. A time fairy isn’t going to come by and grant you that time to write. You have to make it yourself. Stephen King used to give himself time to write when he was still teaching high school. Back then, he lived in a trailer with several small children and wrote in the laundry room. Yet he still put out several pages a day. Imagine what you could do if you did the same.

I know you’re passionate about Halloween. Tell us a bit about your love for Halloween. 

Halloween is such a fun time! For a short while, a lot of people and places share in my love of the dark and the macabre. I have such fun memories of decorating my house, watching scary movies, putting on creepy costumes and eating way too much candy. It’s because of Halloween that I have the best roommate, the skeleton Jonesy, as well as so many creepy decorations! Not to mention some of the best scary movies come out around this time of year.

By the way, how’s Jonesy?

He’s good. He’s hanging around in my apartment, as per usual. 

Tell us a little bit about your current work in progress and future plans you might have.

I’m actually editing the last story of a collection of short stories. Once it’s done, I want to try shopping it around and find a publisher. I also have some other works I need to edit, and a few more short stories to write. And I’m thinking of writing another novel, one that’s been building in my twisted mind for the past several years. Fingers crossed I not only get to work on it, but that it turns out awesome.

To learn more about Rami Ungar, you can follow his blog: ramiungarthewriter.com.

Follow him on Twitter: @RamiUngarWriter.

Find his books on Amazon.

The Progression Of My Writing Process

~ allenhuntsman ~ 2 Comments

My writing process has definitely changed in small ways over time. Some tools I’ve held onto, while others I’ve completely discarded or modified to befit my own personal needs.

Back in my early teen years I was sure I wanted to be a screenwriter. A brother in-law supported my interest and photocopied a book for me all about filmmaking. The first section of the book focused on building the script, providing examples of different ways a screenwriter will present their work to a producer: it starts with the simple “concept,” a short paragraph summary of the movie’s basic premise; the “scene outline” follows, which is a shallow summary of what occurs in each scene; the “treatment” looks a lot like a novelization of the scene outline with detailed descriptions of what happens in each scene. Finally, the “master script,” including all the key details and character dialogue. I followed these illustrations like they were a step by step process on how to write a screenplay. My school buddies and I spent hours pretending to be the next Steven Spielberg or George Lucas with the little video camera I got for Christmas one year.

Years later someone gave me the idea I could skip the production pains of filmmaking and write a novel instead. During this time someone else gave me a copy of Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft. I took a very different approach to writing my first novel, diving right into composition, putting down my thousand words a day like Mr. King suggested. It was a start. Stephen King’s book definitely inspired the work ethic I hoped to one day achieve.

Throughout my college years I became somewhat obsessed with learning about how different writers approach the craft, trying a variety of methods and tools. One of the most bizarre revision tools I discovered involved making a list of the most repeated word in your story, and then sort of creating a revised spine for your second draft using the themes you derive from this word collage. It was interesting, but I’ve never used it again.

The most helpful tool came from David Morrell’s book The Successful Novelist: A Lifetime of Lessons about Writing and Publishing. I love this method for its simple ingenuity. Mr. Morrell suggests that while you’re spending all that time contemplating and focusing your idea, why not record it on paper as a conversation with yourself? Many would argue this is just like an outline, and it is technically an outline. The difference is you can sprawl. A conversation with myself on paper is informal; I’m not boxing myself in with all those carefully aligned Roman numerals and strict lists. A conversation is loose, allowing me to pick up and test ideas and easily discard what I don’t like. This sprawling freedom allows for depth and detail as well, which in my opinion is more conducive to creativity.

My writing process these days has become focused to four drafts. Before starting each draft I begin by using Mr. Morrell’s method of a written conversation, discussing plot, character, research (if necessary), structure, and viewpoint. Subsequent written conversations analyze and revise these elements in each draft. The final fourth draft is typically a line edit.

How has your writing process evolved over time?

Lessons Learned While Writing A Short Horror Story

~ allenhuntsman ~ 3 Comments

I published “Lights Out” back in the Spring of 2010, but I wrote the rough draft back in 2007. This story went through many incarnations. Most of them were completely ridiculous. Let me tell you why.

Beta readers can be a wonderful asset. Sometimes writers can get too close to their work, falling so deeply in love with their own writing that they miss major plot holes or wonky characterizations. Or the complete opposite occurs and the writer thinks their story is a total drag, an embarrassing mess that should be deleted to the void and forgotten about forever. The beta reader can help us writers in a few ways.

1) They can bring us to the realization that our literary darlings aren’t as dazzling as we think they are, bringing us back down to earth from our ethereal writing heaven.

2) They can emphasize what is working when we falsely think every word is dead on the page.

3) They can drive us crazy, sending us in a vicious cycle of endless revisions and editing.

Number three is what happened to me. At the time I was writing “Lights Out”, I was also taking my first creative writing class. The idea for the story had been on my mind for some time and I decided I could use it for the class and find ways to really improve the story from class instruction. Early on, the instructor for the class, a stocky bald man who went by Dr. Armstrong, emphasized the importance of dramatization, especially when writing a short story of eight pages. In the first draft I summarized too much. You know the old saying every writer gets pounded on the head with now and then: “show don’t tell.” I was telling too much. “Too much exegesis. Dramatize. Cinematic rendering.” I think these were some of the comments my instructor wrote on the first draft.

When it came to my fellow classmates’ comments, they had a far different issue with my story. Their issue had something to do with my use of enigma. “Lights Out” is a story about a detective investigating a scene where a young boy’s parents have mysteriously died. Blood seeps out their ears, darkness has engulfed their eyes. The boy feels certain he is the cause of their death, and Detective Palmer believes this troubled guilty reaction is just the trauma talking. He plans to take the boy to his grandma’s after further investigation at the police station. Matters turn very bad on the drive to town. A deer runs out in the road, causing the detective to wreck the car into a tree. Stranded and waiting for backup, the boy unveils to Detective Palmer that he has a strange light inside him, a power, an entity, that when awakened can cause devastating effects. This power is demonstrated, and when other detectives arrive on the crash scene, Detective Palmer is dead (exhibiting the same death signs as the boy’s parents), and the little boy is gone, until they get a clue of his whereabouts, a mad cackling in the woods.

Fellow classmates liked the story. They were fascinated by the concept and the eerie atmosphere of it, but the enigmatic ending bothered them. Many of my classmates deluged me with numerous ideas of how the story should end; they wanted it wrapped up in a pretty bow. Others suggested the eight pages written were the prologue to a novel (this I have considered, though I haven’t seen the rest of the story yet). I took every one of their comments seriously. I wanted to please every one of them. Let the maddening vicious cycle begin. I ended up rewriting the story nearly a dozen times, trying to correct what everyone saw wrong with the ending. My various incarnations of the story grew so out of hand that they no longer resembled the original draft.

One day Dr. Armstrong flat out told me just to ignore them. I was hesitant to do this. Wasn’t that rude? Didn’t they have something helpful to add to my story? My instructor insisted, “Ignore them.” I did.

A couple years later I returned to the original draft of this story, polished it up again, and submitted it to Dark Gothic Resurrected. The chief editor, Cinsearae S. appreciated it, replying in the acceptance letter that it was “creepy as hell.” I was glad it found a home. All these years later it has found a new home, a reprinting in Dark Dossier.

I learned a couple lessons from writing this story. Even though beta readers are invaluable for the purpose of helping you see your story in new ways, at the end of the day you’re not going to please them all. You’re the boss of your story when it comes down to the bottom line. Also, not every suggestion they make is correct. I think the enigmatic ending of my dark tale works better than a more unambiguous ending. The enigma sends that thrilling shiver up your spine and stimulates conversation amongst readers, allowing them the pleasure to puzzle over together what happened in the ending.

If you’d like the pleasure to puzzle over this dark mystery of my imagination, you can find my story in two locations below:

Dark Gothic Resurrected

Dark Dossier

The Writing Process and my Latest Work The Butterfly Girl

~ allenhuntsman ~ 3 Comments

Story ideas can knock around in a writer’s head for a long time. Inception can happen in a variety of ways: an image of a particular character, an inspiring passage, a plot element, theme (though many authors emphasize never to start with theme), what have you. Nearly fourteen years ago inception happened to me in the form of a title and a memory: The Butterfly Girl.

I knew a girl in high school with that nickname. I can’t remember precisely, but it seemed she liked to sport butterfly hair clips, so classmates gave her the alias. As I reflected on the memory of that girl, I found myself repeatedly saying to myself her nickname. It had a catchy quality to it. I thought it might serve as a great title. There was a mysterious quality to it, suggesting all kinds of connotations. Since my imagination often wanders into the strange shadows of the horror tale, I began to imagine a transformation story, one with monstrous possibilities.

Writers will often use metaphor in the attempt to understand what they do. Thomas Williams described the writing process in his novel “The Hair of Harold Roux” akin to characters standing around a small fire, their faces barely visible in the dim light. The author’s job is to keep the fire ablaze, keep the sparks flying, or the characters will be swallowed up in the dark and forgotten. Stephen King has described the writing process as like excavating a fossil. An idea, character, or phrase is the location of a fossil. Writing the story is the work of digging up the bones. Revision then must be cleaning off the bones and connecting them in their proper formation. I’ve heard others describe the writing process as like planting a seed in the ground and giving it a place to grow. The rough draft is the hedge bush grown to its most rampant potential, shaggy and shapeless. Revision is seeing the true shape that could exist, and making the proper cuts to bring that shape to life. With my story, the title was the first spark of story-creation fire. The title was the first protruding hint of a fossil to be dug up. It was the germinating seed.

Since then “The Butterfly Girl” has now become a full-length story. Right now I’m in the process of cleaning off the fossil and realizing how it all fits together.

How do you envision the writing process?

“Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground… Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered, pre-existing world.”

Stephen King