Flash Fiction Behind the Scenes: “Shells”

First, here’s the story (if you’ve already read it, scroll down for Behind the Scenes and some music).

Shells

The first mushroom cloud held a sick beauty. We watched as billowing death darkened TV screens. On the beach white foam sparkled between shells. I wanted to hold your hand, but tousled your hair to make you laugh.

More mushroom clouds. More cities turned into mass graves. More people huddled together to survive. More lashed out violently. I wanted to hold your hand, but made a silly joke.

Darkness consumed the world as we fled to shelters. Death spread in ash and clouds and black masks. I couldn’t see your eyes behind the fogged lenses. I promised you I wouldn’t leave.

One by one millions of voices fell silent to be remembered only somewhere in the midst of the dead or the fearful memories of the living.

Only broken shells remained. Shells of cities, shells of people, shells of souls, shells of prayers for forgiveness whimpered into the dark sky.

I’d waited long enough.

I slipped my hand into yours.

Nuclear Winter Recon. CC photo by Paul Hocksenar

Behind the Scenes

Like most of the other Flash! Friday pieces, I wrote “Shells” during my Friday lunch break. I’d been playing around with the theory that a nuclear winter will affect the northern hemisphere to a much more severe degree than the southern hemisphere. The first draft was someone describing how an unnamed nuclear war started and how the media slowly came to an end as the winter moved across the face of the earth and communication was interrupted as people died, leaving only a fading digital footprint.

I felt that this was too impersonal and tried to get a way to bring one person to the forefront and show the emotional impact on that one person. Lucky for me “Verwag my terug” by Die Heuwels Fantasties was next on my playlist. The first line: “Ek onthou dat ek net jou hand vas wou hou” (I remember that I only wanted to hold your hand) suddenly gave me the idea for the love story and how the rest of the nuclear war remained almost in the background for the character who only wanted to show her affection without quite knowing how to do it under the circumstances. By then the lines “Only broken shells…” had already been written, so it seemed logical to put them at the beach at the start of the story. 

Here’s Die Heuwels Fantasties with “Verwag my terug”

Worldbuilding Wednesday – Worldbuilder’s Disease

Laudanum

Laudanum stared at the blank page in front of him. From the kitchen he could hear the muffled voices of his parents as they tried not to lead on that they were fighting. He wished for a normal life. Nothing here seemed normal; and every time he heard his name he was reminded of it. No normal parent would name their child Laudanum. It was a wonder his baby sister was christened ’Rose' and not something like ‘Latrine' just because his parents liked the way the word sounded.

He brought his attention back to the page and stared until his vision blurred. Then he closed his eyes and stared at the darkness around him until he could perceive nothing but that black abyss. If he did it correctly, the other world appeared. It was a strange world hidden in the darkness behind his eyes, but a world where he felt more at home than in his own bed. He did not know if he had been the creator; he was quite sure he wasn't.

Yet he did seem to have some say in how it looked and the things which happened there. He added a few people here and there, a couple of dragons and a mythical quest or two. Those he did create. But the rest he was not so sure of. He remembered the first time he visited the place. It had no mountains then, but was simply grassland as far as the eye could see. Then he thought ‘mountains’ and the next moment they were there. A deckled blue edge appeared on the horizon and he was at first not sure what it was until he moved closer and the edge became stone stretching away into mist. One peak even had snow on top. He had never even seen snow. He changed the weather patterns that day with his mountains. He also crushed a few villages and one ended up straddling cliff edges high in the mountains.

After that he tried not to think too much while he visited. But, sometimes, a thought did slip through. And, today, it rained. Not the light drizzle that cooled summer mornings or even the heavy downpours which came at night. This was torrential sheets of water whipped about by wind which beat the leaves from the trees and churned the dust into thick mud. It was freezing. Up in the mountains an avalanche slid down the great mountain and the ground trembled as if from a great fever.

He thought as hard as he could about sunshine, rainbows, and the absence of water. Soon the rain stopped. The mud sprouted into orange and purple flowers as far as his eyes could see. But now the sun was too warm. He needed to cool everything down.

A slight wind began to blow and flowers rippled like waves. The plants needed water. Just enough water, he concentrated, and could feel the water from underground springs and rivers rising towards the surface. The sun not too warm, he thought and could feel the sun's rays fading, although sudden flashes of light streamed from the mountains like northern lights appearing at midday.

“Not too warm,” he mumbled again, staring at the world behind his eyes.

“He’s been like this for days now doctor,” Laudanum’s mother said. “Is there nothing we can do?”

The doctor took his small torch and shone it into Laudanum's right eye. Then he shook his head.

“Not until we can figure out what is going on in there,” he said. “There is a response, but so slight…” his words trailed off as the boy mumbled again. The nurse lifted one of the blankets off of him and drew the curtains.

Laudanum watched the streaming lights with glee. It must be some source of magic of this world that he had not discovered yet. He focused on the light for a moment before he decided that he needed some shade. He thought of beautiful woodland he had seen in a picture once and fully grown trees sprung from the ground all around him. In the dappled shade he smiled at his handiwork.

Laudanum watched the streaming lights with glee... (with thanks to this blog)

Behind the story

Although this story, in its first incarnation, was written a good four years ago, I can still remember what sparked it. Much as Laudanum unwittingly crushed a few villages, I once wondered aloud (while working on a map of a fantasy setting) if the people minded much that I just moved their river to the north and instead gave them a fountain. In my mind, as I erased the pencilled line from beside the town, I saw the perplexed people scattering from the disappearing water, leaving behind a muddy track, some washing and a row boat or two.

When asked “what people?” and “which river?” after airing this thought I realized that it was probably not quite a normal worry to have.

I did give them a very nice fountain, though. It doesn’t even dry up in the winter...

Worldbuilding Wednesday– A Dragon’s Freedom

Part 1: A backstory is needed and a hero steps forth

*Spoiler alert! If you haven’t read “A Dragon’s Freedom” you can click here for the free download (in Issue 5).*

The actual reason for writing “A Dragon’s Freedom” was to write about the life of the dragon Skáhag who plays such a vital role in the later years of the Midlands of Airthai. His death was actually the first thing I wrote about him (poor thing!) as part of the story of both the forming of Naeddre and the love story between Ameragh and Síldu. At that time I was writing a novel about the Midlands (no, it will never see the light of day in its current form – it was practice, or so I tell myself now) and I had built up the people of Naeddre’s mythology of Skáhag. But I needed to know where the dragon came from – and what it was doing in the Midlands in the first place.

Seat-of-Pants Worldbuilding

So, while this story was the first published, it was set in a world I already knew quite well. But, this was all written before the creation story of the world and the story of the sundering. I had just made up the Dragon Guardians on the southern coast and already had a vague story about a ‘not-very-nice’king of the Midlands who gathered dragon tears for riches. Now it was just a matter of putting the two together.

I wanted the dragons to be simply animals in the world (albeit talking animals). So, like any animal, it would be ‘good’ until treated in such a way that it lashed out. Skáhag had been mistreated during his life, and bound by magic to a master, so that his fight was as much against humans as the darkness created within him. When Ameragh sings to him a song that releases its bonds, his death at the hand of his master is bittersweet as he is at last freed.

By this time the (somewhat) secret language used by the Dragon Guardians and dragons was already present in Ameragh’s song (Here’s the song). I then decided that, because it was so powerful, that it was only known by a select few – the Dragon Guardians, the dragons and the Seafolk’s elders, although they knew it to a much lesser extent. This language was gifted to the Guardians and the dragons in much the same way the Tellerassar was given their own language. Therefore, if the king stole a dragon egg, he would need someone who could communicate with the dragon. Enter Nasja...

A boy called Nasja

The first scene of the story which popped into my head was the dragon’s nest and a boy stealing one of the eggs. At first this was supposed to have been done because of greed on his part (and he was older). But that didn’t sit well with what I had in mind for the rest of the story. For me it was a lot more striking to have him do something which is taboo for Dragon Guardians in order to save his family than simply do it for payment.

The next scene I wrote was of Nasja in the king’s palace. Although I needed a reason for him not to be able to escape, he probably would not have had a banged-up leg if it wasn’t that my own bad knee (the right one, not the left – see, it’s complete different…) was extremely painful that day![1]

At this point, I planned and wrote the rest of the story in a rough draft. When I had finished it, however, I realised that I had had Nasja basically act alone and didn’t really give him cause as to why he would suddenly, after a good ten to twelve years, decide to free the dragons and go home. I left the story to stew, pottering around every now and then and then turned my thoughts to some other short fiction and worldbuilding while I figured it out.

Next week: Worldbuilding shape-shifters and magicians

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[1] Mine is banged-up from ballet, though, and not being kidnapped and dragged over a desert... Cold weather, however, doesn’t really care how you ended up hurting yourself. 

Story building – Behind the scenes

(This post first appeared on 16 November 2011.)

It seems that, as the year hurtles towards the end, my mind also gets more scattered. It may be because it’s the time of year when you’re working with two diaries – and trying to remember which day you’re actually busy with. Or maybe it’s just because winter is long forgotten (here, at least) and the holidays are beckoning. Whatever it is, I’m finding myself working on a couple of short stories simultaneously, even though the themes, worlds and even genres are quite different. The one story that seems to be flowing at the moment is called “Stolen Time” for the time being.

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the workings behind the stories I’m writing at the moment – or have already written. People often ask me (and most writers or writerly types) “Where do you get your ideas”? The thing is, I rarely know. Most of the time an idea just pops into my head from seemingly nowhere. “Here but for Grace”, another WIP, started when I saw how awful I looked in a dressing room mirror. Another idea gets planted while I’m on the treadmill and staring at the opposite wall – usually a good time for world or story building! This week I’ll focus on the main story I’m busy with at the moment.

WIP – Stolen Time – Behind the scenes

So, where did that story idea come from? “Stolen Time” is a sci-fi short story, set in the not too far future. The light bulb lit up when I heard about someone being sentenced to quite a couple of years in prison. Add some ponderings about time while washing the dishes and voila! A story which has nothing to do with the original people, crime or judge is born…

When the main character takes the blame for a crime someone else committed, he gets thrown into a hopeless world and starts to wonder whether what he did was really worth it. Throw in a bit of freaky technology, a couple of corrupt officials, questions about justice, life and death – and who deserves either of these – I’ve given myself quite a story to write.

Why write it then?

Because, now that I’ve started the story, I need to see how it ends. I need to answer these questions myself, for myself. It’s really as simple as that. The story needs to get out, it needs to be told. By writing a story, I can take different viewpoints (some very unlike my own sometimes), measure each, see how they will work in a certain context and have a jol doing it.

Research can be fun – and disturbing

All went well until I reached about 2,500 words. The main character was established, the world was established enough for the first draft and I had reached one of the main scenes of the story – a death scene. Basically, it is the death of someone whom you might say deserve it. You weren’t supposed to feel very sorry for him when I set out to write it. But, when it came to writing the scene, I found I couldn’t make it a black and white scene. Gray entered and, with it, more conflict (which I guess is a good thing). So, I scribbled some margin notes and continued on, but then I realised I needed to know more about human decomposition timelines than I’ve learned from shows such as Medical Detectives, NCIS and the like.

After some reading I wish I did before having gone through the trouble of making dinner – I did manage to write a decent first draft of the scene. The biggest problem with this scene will be balance – the last thing I want is a gore-fest slapped in the middle of the story. There’s a certain amount of gore which I’m comfortable with writing (or even reading), but there is also the right amount of gore for a specific story. If you’re not setting out to do a “lone hitchhiker with a love of chainsaws and the colour red” story, there’s really no need to go all-out with the gore factor. I’m quite happy to leave the details to the reader’s imagination. After all, when you write about decapitated human heads being catapulted over a city wall, you don’t need to write about every blood spatter[1]. This is probably one of the scenes I’ll have to edit or rewrite the most once I’m done with the draft.

All in all, I had a good writing night – about 800 words after all the research. Tonight, I’ll tackle the next two (luckily) corpse-free scenes. And maybe even enjoy dinner tonight!

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[1] If you’re going WHAT! o.0 at this moment; this happens in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. And no, every speck of blood isn’t described. 

Story Building – Security

“Security” was one of the flash pieces written for the NaShoStoMo challenge earlier this year. Perhaps you have heard of the “little” problem of crime in Johannesburg? (Not to mention the rest of SA, but anyway…) So, between armed response patrols, electrified fences, spikes and razor wire, the thought of what means could be used for security was turned into the flash piece. Of course, the paranormal and folklore had to feature. It was supposed to be a humorous look at the lengths people would go to to secure their homes; like seeing the funny side of getting your hair caught in razor wire when you’re simply hanging the laundry (something I seem to do quite often :P). But it did not quite turn out as planned…

Security – Day 4 – April 4 – NaShoStoMo Challenge

We were one of the last complexes in the suburb to upgrade our security. The Jones’ residential complex across the street was, of course, the first ones to employ a golem to guard their property. Sometimes you could see it behind the wrought iron gate or its glowing, red eyes at night as it peered between the electric fence wires on the wall. The wall spikes below glowed like bloodied spears and I tried not to look across to their place at all and even kept my living area curtains closed the whole day as well.

Scared that the robbers would come to their properties if they were left protected only by wires, alarms and armed response panic buttons; the other neighbours soon followed suit. As golems could be formed out of clay, it was the cheapest choice in New Era Security. Only the excessively rich and politicians could afford cyborgs to patrol their grounds. But none of them lived near this part of town. As the inner city slums had mushroomed, the suburbs were soon taken over; and previous open tracks of land were walled in before sprawling houses were built and their elite clients driven with police protection into the scattered idylls still existing in the Golden Province. Inside those walls were everything a person could want – solar electricity and water, schools and enough access to the internet that no one ever had to leave to go to work or look further than the fifteen foot walls enclosing their part of the world.

So the rest of us – the middle classes and the lower classes – lived outside the sprawling mansions of the rich; supplying their power, water and food and trying our best to stay alive. The golems worked for a while. Crime in the area dropped steeply and the few “unsavoury persons” that did try to enter property without the owner’s consent were found dead in the street the next morning. Some were not found at all. But it still seemed the best option – after all, those whose golems had killed a robber or two argued, they could have seen the “WARNING: GOLEM GUARD” notice on the gate and the glowing red eyes glaring at them should have been a clue as well. So we all took to checking the street for any bodies before letting the kids out to go to school. We figured that the bodies would stop turning up in a couple of weeks anyway – word would obviously spread that our area was well-guarded. But our complex still did not have a golem.

Then, about a week after the last corpse was found, my house was burgled. Luckily during the day when no one was home; but almost nothing was left inside. They had even emptied the pantry shelf and left only a box of cake mix long past its sell-by date. We had to face up to it – we had to get a guard for our complex. I called the toll-free Guards-R-Us number, but gave up after twenty minutes of tuneless electronic music. Figuring there was nothing left to steal anyway, I booked a cheap room at a local hotel and waited for the next morning to come and the call centres to open.

I wasn’t there when a couple of teenagers tried to sneak into a friend’s house for a surprise birthday wake-up. I also wasn’t there when the parents found that the golem had taken the task of keeping unauthorised persons from the property too seriously. I was thankful that I wasn’t the first one to check the road that day and that only came home after the paramedics and police had left. The grieving parents removed the letter from the golem’s brow and watched its enormous bulk turn to dust. Probably the others will follow suit.

Some people are talking about getting a troll or two for the whole neighbourhood as they would still be cheaper than a cyborg. At least trolls have more intelligence than the man-made hunk of clay and would only attack on command if their owner’s lives weren’t in danger. I left the neighbourhood meeting early. When Jones talked of trolls attacking on command, his eyes seemed just a bit too bright as he looked at his neighbour; Smith I think his name is. I think I would rather have a cyborg – at least they have voice and face recognition. Of course, as they are only available to the few elite in the mansions, I will have to quit my job and move away. I hope someone in the mansions have need of a live-in maid or nanny.  

But there’s more!

For more NaShoStoMo stories, click here.

Or, to learn more about golems from Jewish folklore, click here.

Story building – Behind the scenes

It seems that, as the year hurtles towards the end, my mind also gets more scattered. It may be because it’s the time of year when you’re working with two diaries – and trying to remember which day you’re actually busy with. Or maybe it’s just because winter is long forgotten (here, at least) and the holidays are beckoning. Whatever it is, I’m finding myself working on a couple of short stories simultaneously, even though the themes, worlds and even genres are quite different. The one story that seems to be flowing at the moment is called “Stolen Time” for the time being.

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the workings behind the stories I’m writing at the moment – or have already written. People often ask me (and most writers or writerly types) “Where do you get your ideas”? The thing is, I rarely know. Most of the time an idea just pops into my head from seemingly nowhere. “Here but for Grace”, another WIP, started when I saw how awful I looked in a dressing room mirror. Another idea gets planted while I’m on the treadmill and staring at the opposite wall – usually a good time for world or story building! This week I’ll focus on the main story I’m busy with at the moment.

WIP – Stolen Time – Behind the scenes

So, where did that story idea come from? “Stolen Time” is a sci-fi short story, set in the not too far future. The light bulb lit up when I heard about someone being sentenced to quite a couple of years in prison. Add some ponderings about time while washing the dishes and voila! A story which has nothing to do with the original people, crime or judge is born…

When the main character takes the blame for a crime someone else committed, he gets thrown into a hopeless world and starts to wonder whether what he did was really worth it. Throw in a bit of freaky technology, a couple of corrupt officials, questions about justice, life and death – and who deserves either of these – I’ve given myself quite a story to write.

Why write it then?

Because, now that I’ve started the story, I need to see how it ends. I need to answer these questions myself, for myself. It’s really as simple as that. The story needs to get out, it needs to be told. By writing a story, I can take different viewpoints (some very unlike my own sometimes), measure each, see how they will work in a certain context and have a jol doing it.

Research can be fun – and disturbing

All went well until I reached about 2,500 words. The main character was established, the world was established enough for the first draft and I had reached one of the main scenes of the story – a death scene. Basically, it is the death of someone whom you might say deserve it. You weren’t supposed to feel very sorry for him when I set out to write it. But, when it came to writing the scene, I found I couldn’t make it a black and white scene. Gray entered and, with it, more conflict (which I guess is a good thing). So, I scribbled some margin notes and continued on, but then I realised I needed to know more about human decomposition timelines than I’ve learned from shows such as Medical Detectives, NCIS and the like.

After some reading I wish I did before having gone through the trouble of making dinner – I did manage to write a decent first draft of the scene. The biggest problem with this scene will be balance – the last thing I want is a gore-fest slapped in the middle of the story. There’s a certain amount of gore which I’m comfortable with writing (or even reading), but there is also the right amount of gore for a specific story. If you’re not setting out to do a “lone hitchhiker with a love of chainsaws and the colour red” story, there’s really no need to go all-out with the gore factor. I’m quite happy to leave the details to the reader’s imagination. After all, when you write about decapitated human heads being catapulted over a city wall, you don’t need to write about every blood spatter[1]. This is probably one of the scenes I’ll have to edit or rewrite the most once I’m done with the draft.

All in all, I had a good writing night – about 800 words after all the research. Tonight, I’ll tackle the next two (luckily) corpse-free scenes. And maybe even enjoy dinner tonight!

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[1] If you’re going WHAT! o.0 at this moment; this happens in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. And no, every speck of blood isn’t described.