This year I managed to enter Beneath the Lanterns in the 9th edition of the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off. Last year I somehow missed the date, and this year the 300 slots were filled in something like 47 minutes. My book will be judged by the team from Timy - Queen's Book Asylum. Timy, on her blog, offers her contestants five options to be creative and highlight themselves and their books over the course of the contest. I choose the "To be continued" option which involves co-write a short story with three other writers. Each of us are assigned one of four slots in the story to be written in sequence, and we don't know who the other writers are so we can not discuss the story before hand. I thought that it would be an interesting challenge, while at the same time, being something I'd be more comfortable doing, than say throwing a fictional party for my characters, or getting stuck in a familiar book, or writing a character into a magically locked room. I'm not that creative.
I was assigned the third slot in a story tentatively titled Jesting with a Cold Soul, and the writing prompt was "illusion and dream in a carnival setting." Each section should be 500 to 1,000 words long, but you can go longer. Being both a novelist, not a short story writer, and someone who won't use one word where two will do, I ended up writing close to 2,500 words.
Luckily for me, the first author chose not to set the story in an actual magic/fantasy carnival with evil carnies and sinister clowns which is very much not my thing. Instead they went in a grimdark direction, making the carnival into a small band of, I suppose, mercenaries/bandits who dress up like jesters, and starts the story with their carts arriving at a small village to kill, pillaging and rape. Not my type of either, but that was always going to be the challenge.
In the first two parts of the story a fellow named Trisfan, one of this band of jester-murders, in recalling his own youth, ends up killing a fellow member of the band, named Jackal, in order to save a young boy from a fate similar to his, i.e. being taken into this band of killers and being unable to escape. He lets the boy flee, but this deed is observed by the band's leader, the Mad Master. Fearing retribution, Trisfan runs away, only to end up exhausted, back in the very village that they had just sacked, with the Mad Master waiting for him. This is the point where my part begins.
Grimdark is pretty much the opposite of what I write, and being halfway through the story already, I wasn't about to steer it in any other direction, though I suppose I could've if I was creative enough. Instead, I decided just to go with the flow of the story, which as I read it, Trisfan wants to escape, but is bound by some sort of magic that keeps him tied to the Mad Master.
I had him bound to the Mad Master by a magic amulet. Given the murder of Jackal, he decides that he has nothing to lose by attempting to kill the Mad Master as well. He attacks, a brief sword fight and then they fall to the ground wrestling. As they do so, one of the gang, the Mad Master's toady, attempts to end the fight by striking Trisfan in the back with his sword, but with a last second change of position, he ends up killing the Mad Master instead.
With the Mad Master dead, the remaining mercenaries need to select a new leader. Deadeye and Jackal are the two most likely candidates, but of course Jackal is dead, though only Trisfan knows this since the Mad Master is also dead. They all get drunk and eventually drift off to sleep while they await the return of Jackal. All except for Trisfan, who having decided to take his leave of the band, now possessing the amulet that bound him, decides to take along with the Mad Master's iron box filled with the band's earnings to establish a new life as well. When everyone else seems asleep, he sneaks into Mad Master's caravan, finds the treasure box and just as he is set to leave, discovers Deadeye waiting for him, wanting the treasure box for himself. This is where I end my part of the story.
We'll have to see how the final writer ends the story. I know how I would've ended it. I'd have Trisfan get the drop on Deadeye, and kill him. Then deciding not to leave potential enemies behind, he'd silently cut the throats of all his other companions as they sleep, save for the two servants who they employed to drive the caravans, make camp and cook, etc. He would then have these servants hitch up one of the caravans and then set off for the city to reinvent himself with the the treasure. The story would end with the two servants, Nog and Bog, conversing. Nog; 'He wasn't born to be hanged.' Bog; 'Nor lose his head on the block.' Nog; 'Or be drawn and quartered in the town square.' Bog; 'Or die of old age.' Nog; 'Really, having your throat cut in your sleep is such a peaceful way to die.' Bog; 'He should thank us, alas, but I doubt he will.' Nog; 'Not in his present condition, anyway.' They shake their heads sadly. Bog; 'Oh well, virtue is its own reward. Let's dump his body and be on our way. We want to be in the city by morning to get our gold safely into the bank.'
Hardly the most surprising or original twist, but a twist nevertheless. That said, in my opinion, all short stories are just set ups for the twist at the end. This is why, with few exceptions i.e. the stories written by Wodehouse, (Bertie & Jeeves) Doyle, (Sherlock Holmes) or Gilpatric, (Glencannon), I dislike short stories. They seem to me to be mostly gimmick, a mere set up for a clever(ish) twist. However, this ending is only my unofficial ending, we'll have to see how the final author finishes up the story. That will be sometime in August. I'll let you know, and post a link when it is published.
As a side note, I have to say that after writing just part of this short story, I really appreciate my use of the British style single quotation marks, i.e. 'quotes' rather than the usual quotation marks "quotes" since I found having to always hit the shift key for every damn quotation mark to be not only a real annoyance, but a likely carpel tunnel generator.
My own books:
No comments:
Post a Comment