Behind the Scenes of “The Prophet’s Burden”

My latest flash fiction story, “The Prophet’s Burden,” is now available to read on Havok’s website. And, since I’m a volunteer editor, there’s no 24-hour time frame—it’ll always be available, whether or not you’re a Havok member. To celebrate its publication, here’s a short look at how I wrote it.

If you’ve already read the story, you may have guessed that it follows the same exploits of the adventurer from “Sword of the Stones” or “The Tomb of the Ophidian Scepter.” I’d been thinking of writing about another of his expeditions, and the “sixth sense” theme for October 2020 seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so.

So in a way, the “sixth sense” theme wasn’t exactly the seed for this story, but it did help focus it. I thought it would be cool to feature an artifact that would allow the adventurer to sense the future—an extremely valuable skill for someone in his line of work! The idea was that the artifact would allow its wearer to discern the future as long as they were wearing it in that possible future. I wanted removing the artifact to feel particularly weighty, because that is the only course of action that can’t be predicted.

The madness element of the talisman (since that was the type of artifact I settled on), evolved naturally as I wrote the story. It made sense that trying to comprehend a multitude of experiences all at once would be overwhelming. I didn’t quite have the word count to delve into this aspect, but I envisioned the talisman grants/forces its wearer to experience the future in all five senses. So you don’t just see what happens; you feel, hear, smell, and (sure) taste it, too. So the adventurer’s brain was telling him that he was being stabbed, crushed, eaten, hearing his partner scream and animals roar, smelling burning flesh, tasting noxious gases, etc. all at once. Not a very pleasant experience!

I don’t really go into that in the story though. What was interesting was composing scenes from the main character’s future-perspective while considering what was actually going on in real-time. I wanted to give readers the option to re-read the story and understand what Alma was seeing/hearing. For example, the first “real” dialogue after the adventurer puts on the talisman is him answering Alma’s as-yet unasked question, which is why she just stares at him for a moment. It was a unique challenge, but I think I pulled it off.

In terms of the actual writing, the first draft started right with the adventurer putting on the talisman. Herein lies a tip for writing flash fiction. The story really picks up when the main character puts the talisman, but that moment doesn’t offer any backstory to help ground readers. Nevertheless, I wrote that scene first because I knew I would need to get to it quickly.

Later, after writing the majority of the story, I went back to write the intro. This offered several benefits: 1) I knew how many words were left to write the opening and keep the story under 1,000 words. 2) I was already in the writing groove, so instead of spending a few paragraphs warming up my “writing voice,” I was able to jump right in. And 3) I knew what moment I was writing toward, so I knew which information had to be relayed, and which stuff could be left out. The resulting “opening” section lasts approximately 120 words, but it moves toward the inciting incident pretty quickly (compared to what I would have likely done without the constraint).

Because the crux of the story always lay in the scene where the characters finally grasp the talisman’s power, I knew the ending would have to be similarly fast-paced. I wanted to include another scene showing the different futures that could result from an encounter with an enormous crocodile, but the word count just wasn’t there.

Since I didn’t have the space to describe this scene going into further detail about the artifact’s effects on the wearer, I opted for a broader overview as the adventurers exit the temple. Even though I think it could have been interesting to dive into this aspect, I think the end result fits well with the main character’s inability to focus.

The ending was a little tricky. As I mentioned above, taking off the talisman was meant to be a significant gesture and indicate that the adventurer could accept not knowing the future. But since this story felt a little heavier than other installments, I wanted to reintroduce just a little levity at the end. My first draft had the main character commenting about what drew the ancient civilization mad (an idea that didn’t make it into the final story). However, my editor Lisa encouraged me to push this a little more. I’m happy she did, because the end result gives the characters a little more good-natured banter. And adding banter is always a good call.

Of course, you’re invited to add a little banter here in the comments or over on the story itself! I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into how “The Prophet’s Burden” came together. Thank you for reading!

Behind the Scenes of “In Search of the Magma Heart”

Today’s the launch day for Bingeworthy: Havok Season Three! My newest flash fiction story, “In Search of the Magma Heart” is available exclusively in this collection, so I wanted to share a brief post about how it came together.

As a volunteer for Havok, I had the option to write a story for the anthology as long as it matched one of the season’s themes. The “Bingeworthy” season themes were all based on story tropes like Dynamic Duos and Answering the Call. I thought it would be fun to try to pack as many as possible into one story, but ultimately submitted it under the One Thing theme.

And having fun with the story was really the driving idea. Even though I wasn’t planning on submitting to Havok’s Wacky Wednesday genre, I wanted to write something that would make me and readers laugh. When I wrote the first draft of this story, it had been quite a while since I had finished a fiction project. So my goal was just to enjoy the process, and that meant a heavy dose of humor.

That meant starting with developing a funny premise. As I brainstormed, I thought it would be fun to focus on a reluctant hero—who makes no attempt to hide said reluctance. I also decided to create another character so the two of them could banter on their adventure, but it also worked to make her the one who invited him along in the first place.

Of course, the funniest thing that can happen to a reluctant hero is drawing them even deeper into the quest they want to escape. So from the very beginning of plotting, I wanted something to happen to the main character that would keep him from going back. If you’ve read the story, you know this definitely happens.

With this goal/ending in mind, writing the story was a matter of maintaining forward movement while sprinkling in bits of humor. I may have mentioned this in previous posts, but I think one of the best sources of comedy in fantasy is juxtaposing fantastic elements with more modern/mundane sensibilities. This is why one character is named Maelys (a real, albeit uncommon name) and the other is named Tom (which you may know a few of).

I think the most prominent example of this occurs in the first two paragraphs. The first paragraph is supposed to read like an epic, action-packed opening promising a heroic fantasy story. Then the story “cuts” to her friend panicking on a rock surrounded by lava. I think the gambit pays off, giving readers an idea of what to expect for the rest of the story.

Of course, by design, that juxtaposition gets somewhat inverted at the end. (Spoilers ahead.) I tried to write Tom’s rock collecting as another bit of comedy—kind of a jokey side note explaining why he agreed to this adventure in the first place. But at the very end, that hobby has a very serious ramification. As I wrote the story, I tried to balance the humor with foreshadowing, and I think the final version leans slightly toward the latter. It’ll be interesting to hear how readers react to the story, and whether they paid special attention to the rock collecting at the beginning or if they thought it was just a funny anecdote.

Regarding the ending, when I was writing the first draft of the story, I tried to fit in  a little more action to amp up the climax. In this early version, the cavern was home to a serpent that attacked the duo when Tom grabbed the wrong gem. Maelys battled the guardian while Tom ran around being useless. It was a funny idea, but it also would’ve used up a lot of words.

I knew that if I wanted to show this scene, I’d need to trim the tunnel scene. But that walk through the darkness had so much good humor and banter (even more so in the first draft), that I didn’t have the heart to trim it. In my opinion, those elements matched the heart of the story more than a big fight (even if said fight did include one character running around). I was willing to sacrifice the action, but I like to think that there’s an alternate timeline with a >1000 word story that has both bits.

But since we can’t currently access that timeline, I thought it might be fun to share a deleted scene of sorts. When I realized the fight would take too many words, I tried trimming the serpent’s part down to a very brief appearance. This section was still too long, so I cut the snake entirely, unceremoniously sentencing it to a forgotten draft on my computer. Until now.

–

Tom nodded. “Alright, cool. So we just pick the right one of these orbs and you can be on your merry old quest.”

“I guess so.”

“Great.” Tom strode toward the closest gem, arm outstretched. “Now we just need to figure out which one it is.”

Maelys started saying, “I wouldn—”

Tom grabbed the gem, and a hissing sound reverberated through the cavern.

The teenagers locked eyes then looked up. An enormous, ebony snake slithered between stalactites.

“You are kidding me!” screamed Tom.

The snake launched itself at the boy before finding itself suddenly impaled by Maelys’s spear. It thudded to the ground, then shot the swordmaiden an indignant look before crumbling to dust.

–

With that, I’ll conclude this behind the scenes look at “In Search of the Magma Heart!” You can find it and 45 other great flash fiction stories in Bingeworthy: Havok Season Three, available now. Thank you for reading!

Upcoming Story in Bingeworthy Anthology

Exciting news! This week, Havok announced their newest anthology: Bingeworthy: Havok Season Three. As you may know from my previous post, this year I began volunteer editing for Havok. This means (in addition to selecting and editing stories for the website), I got to play a small part in selecting stories for this anthology. I can’t wait to see them released into the world (in digital and eventually print form) all collected together!

I’m also excited to share that I’ll have a story published exclusively in this anthology, titled “In Search of the Magma Heart.” I wrote it with the “The One Thing” theme in mind, but it also fits in nicely with “Dynamic Duos,” “Answering the Call,” “Super Duper,” and even “Strange New Worlds.” That’s almost a whole season’s worth of themes packed into 1,000 words! It takes place in a fantasy world, but I’ve sprinkled in healthy doses of humor and banter, similar to “When Magic Died” and “Salty.”

Other than that tease, I want to leave the synopsis vague until after the anthology releases. But when I do, I’ll be sure to post a behind the scenes look at how the story came together, right here on the blog.

But if you’re intrigued by the idea, be sure to keep an eye out for “In Search of the Magma Heart” and 45 other flash fiction stories in Bingeworthy: Havok Season Three, releasing next week! It’s available for preorder on Kindle right now, with paperback copies becoming available soon.

Behind the Scenes of “Blood Hunter”

Yay! My newest flash fiction story, “Blood Hunter” is available to read on Havok.* It’s a Western about a werewolf bounty hunter whose lycanthropy gives him the ability to track prey by taste. Here, I wanted to share a little about how it took shape.

Like every story for Havok, this one started with the month’s theme. During this fourth season of Havok, each month’s theme is based on a sense. For August, that sense is taste. So I knew taste needed to play a prominent role in the story.

I didn’t have any particular flavors in mind, but I thought it could be interesting to do something with the taste of blood. Of course, I thought it might be weird to have a normal human making a habit of tasting blood, so I thought it would be cool to introduce a werewolf character—which offered reasons for both heightened senses and an interest in blood.

As for the setting, I recently got it in my head that I wanted to do some sort of Western-mashup story. I have no idea what prompted this, but this story seemed like a good opportunity. Werewolf cowboy, anyone? (Because of the weird-West setting, I can imagine this story taking place in the same world as “The Exomaton of Panner’s Bend,” though there isn’t any crossover.)

In terms of the writing strategy, I knew I wanted to retain a strong connection to the taste theme. I was afraid of mentioning it a couple times but otherwise ignoring it. Because of this, one of the earliest beats I imagined was a moment where the werewolf character describes a series of tastes in quick succession. This developed into the middle scene, which ends with Lemuel describing the different things he can taste to McKinsey.

That scene, in fact, is the main reason McKinsey is in this story. In my head, it didn’t make sense for Lemuel to just think about each of these things—he needed to say them out loud. So I developed the concept of Lemuel being recruited by the deputy and them hunting Coyote Sam together.

At that point, I thought McKinsey would be the main character. I envisioned his arc would begin with him being suspicious of Lemuel (because of his werewolf nature), and end with him respecting the bounty hunter. I wanted to portray Lemuel as a misunderstood, mysterious, yet honorable outcast who was doing his best with the hand life had dealt him.

But I quickly realized this story would not fit into 1,000 words. And since the core idea of my story placed the heaviest emphasis on plot, I ended up letting go of things irrelevant to it. This ended up moving the point of view closer to Lemuel’s perspective and eliminating McKinsey’s character growth. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for flash. Even though McKinsey’s role may be diminished in the final piece, his role still accomplishes what it’s meant to, functioning as a pseudo-foil to Lemuel.

The final scene also involved compromises for the sake of word count. In an earlier draft, I toyed with the idea of Coyote Sam’s gang hiding out in an abandoned coal mine, where the taste of the air would affect Lemuel’s ability to track them. That detail, and a more drawn-out fight scene, had to be trimmed to keep things within 1,000 words, but I’m still happy with how the story turned out.

And I hope you’re happy with how it turned out, too! Taste was an interesting theme, and I appreciate the way it pushed me out of my comfort zone to write “Blood Hunter.” Thank you for reading it, as well as this behind-the-scenes post. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or on the original story over at Havok 🙂

*Since I’m a volunteer editor, this story is published as a Staff Saturday post, which means it’s always available to the public! If you want to read my earlier Havok publications, or hundreds of other flash fiction stories, you can always become a Havok Horde member. As a member, you can also vote on stories and influence which ones are selected in anthologies.

Behind the Scenes of “Salty”

Woohoo! My newest flash fiction story, “Salty,” is available to read for 24 hours on Havok today. It’s a fantasy-comedy about a mermaid whose sunbathing sesh is rudely interrupted by a lovestruck human guy. Curious about how I wrote it? You’ve come to the right place.

This was the first story I wrote for Havok’s new season, “Stories that Sing.” Every month features stories inspired by songs from a different decade — in this case, the 1950s.

I’m not familiar with many 1950s songs. Fortunately, my wife owns a soundtrack from a show that features a ton of songs from that decade. So we listened to it on a roadtrip, and I started imagining which stories would lend themselves to a flash fiction piece. As you may imagine, a lot of them are love songs. And since Havok features genre stories, I knew there needed to be some sort of sci-fi/fantasy element.

Which made “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” so intriguing. The mental image of washing conjured images of water—which led to the sea—which led to a mermaid—boom. A story of a mermaid spurning a human guy’s advances to avoid an inter-species romance. In terms of genre, it seemed like a great candidate for a Wacky Wednesday story.

The next day, I sat down to write. But just to double-check on the decade, I googled “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” . . . and learned it was recorded in 1949! Travesty!

Fortunately, there were plenty of other songs on the soundtrack. I figured I’d already committed myself to this story idea (and the deadline was literally the following day) so I identified a different song that would lend itself to the same story.

Ah yes, speaking of “the deadline was literally the following day,” I’m rather proud to say that I wrote this story in a day. This was the “sit in a coffee shop all day” day of our roadtrip, and I’d say I put it to good use! Starting with only the premise and genre, I sat down and starting pantsing (read: writing without an outline).

I knew the story would start with the guy encountering the mermaid, but I had no idea where it would go or end up. At first, I thought it would begin with her saving him from a shipwreck, but I found the setup for that wasn’t leading to a very interesting conversation. I started over, this time with him interrupting her sunbathing. The interruption made it feel like a much more humorous start (as opposed to, you know, saving someone from dying).

From there, it was just a matter of imagining what would make for a funny conversation. The list of challenges of an inter-species romance was an early idea, but bringing Cthulhu in as a deterrent was something I came up with in the moment. Every now and then, things would veer into territory that would considerably exceed the word count or just start leading the conversation off-track, so it was just a matter of reigning things in and keeping dialogue focused on what they wanted (a date, and space).

All in all, the actual writing portion took me approximately a full afternoon. (I’m very impressed with flash fiction authors who write stories in an hour!) Both my wife and I did a read-through before I submitted, but that was pretty much the extent of my revisions. So I’m very thankful for Lauren and Gen at Havok for seeing through its imperfections and helping it become what you can read today!

I hope you enjoyed both the story and this look at how I wrote it! If you did, or if you have any questions, feel free to post here or on Havok’s website. And if you didn’t get a chance to read it during the 24 hours it was free, you can always become a Havok Horde member. As a member, you’ll get full access to “Salty” and every other story they’ve published, as well as the ability to vote on which stories are selected for anthologies. Thanks for reading!

Behind the Scenes of “Alan and the Magic Lamp”

Woohoo! My newest flash fiction story, “Alan and the Magic Lamp,” is available to read for 24 hours on Havok today. It’s a fantasy-comedy about a guy who finds a magic lamp, then gets into a debate with the genie about the best use of his wishes. Wondering how the story came to be? Look no further.

Like my other recent flash fiction stories, this one was written specifically for Havok’s monthly theme. In this case, it was “redo.” I naturally looked to time travel as a theme to explore, but wanted to avoid a sci-fi time machine setup. As I was thinking about what fantasy time travel might look like, I thought it could be interesting if someone tried to use a genie’s wish to return to the past and try to redo a time in their life.

When I did, I started wondering what the genie would think about that plan. Unlike a time machine, a genie can talk back to the person who wants to travel to the past, and maybe try to talk them out of situations that could destroy the space-time continuum. Since I had a blast working on my previous humorous story (When Magic Died), I figured it would be fun to write this for their Wacky Wednesday genre.

With that concept in mind, I knew this would be a conversation-driven story. The crux was the genie resisting Alan’s wish to go back in time, but I still needed to figure out the plot surrounding the conversation. This required knowing the characters’ motivations.

The genie’s motivation was obvious: protect the space-time continuum … and just be lazy. Alan’s took a little more time. I wanted it to be something really minor, to amp up the humor of him using a precious wish to go back in time to fix it, yet still be believable (or at least as believable as a story with a genie). I think the crush works as a good mid-point, and am a big fan of the “How dare you suggest I’d be willing to destroy the fabric of reality for a crush … but let’s pretend I was” line.

With those motivations in place, the story started to take form. Drawing them both out gave the story some substance as well as room to spread bits of humor. For that, I leaned heavily on the genie’s characterization. Now that the live action Aladdin has been out for a few weeks, I can’t help wondering whether subverting the classic genie persona with a hip personality is overdone now. But it felt fresh when I wrote it in April. And I think the G nickname remains brilliant.

That said, I’m still working on humor writing. I think the style I strive for tends toward using unexpected words in certain places (like “Just because I have near-incomprehensible otherworldly powers does not mean I enjoy responsibility” or “you make another series of questionable decisions that eventually bring you here”). But I still try to keep things interesting with a little variety (physical humor in sitting on the “Do not sit” sign or random humor by suggesting a tiger as a pet). I’m sure not everything will work for everyone, but I hope every reader gets a least a smile out of it.

And as G says, “Why waste time wanting to go back to fix things if it distracts us from living in the present?” (Sidenote: I’m very satisfied that, even though this is a humor piece, it still carries that message of truth. In my head, that earns extra points.) I had a really fun time developing this story, and really appreciated editors Lauren Hildebrand’s and Gen Gavel’s notes that made it stronger and funnier.

And I hope that you had a fun time reading both the story and this post about writing it. If so, feel free to comment here or on the post on Havok’s website. If you’re reading this after the story’s 24 hours have passed, you can always become a member and get full access to every flash fiction story they’ve published, plus the ability to vote on which stories are selected for their anthologies! Thanks for reading!

Behind the Scenes of “The Tomb of the Ophidian Scepter”

Hooray! My newest flash fiction story, “The Tomb of the Ophidian Scepter,” is available to read for 24 hours on Havok today. It’s based on classic adventure, Indiana Jones-type stories of powerful artifacts, supernatural guardians, and lots of action. If you’ve already read it and want to know a little about how it came to be, this post is for you!

Like my previous two stories for Havok, this one was written specifically for this month’s theme—in this case, recover. From the beginning of brainstorming, I knew I wanted to interpret this in terms of recovering a treasure. And fortunately, I had already written a story in a similar vein last year to provide inspiration … and maybe a few other elements.

That other story was “Sword of the Stones,” which was published in Havok’s “Extraordinary Exploits” issue in April 2018. You can read more about writing that in this post, and many of the elements mentioned there were repeated in writing “The Tomb of the Ophidian Scepter.” In addition, I thought it would be fun to feature the same main character on a new mission in a different location.

“Sword of the Stones” takes place in a ruined cathedral, which felt like it would be a European location. Wanting “Ophidian Scepter” to take place in a different region, I settled on the Middle East. (As I understand it, the type of mummification the story references is pretty specific to Egypt, but I don’t want to commit the story to taking place anywhere particular in the region.) This choice, in turn, influenced the majority of the new elements (setting, guardian, partner, and artifact, in that order).

By setting, I basically mean the idea to set the story in a tomb. Originally, I considered a story with a lot of exploration. But since I still wanted to have a battle as well as the search for an artifact, I figured those two elements would use much of the word count. That meant the tomb would likely be a large chamber. Thankfully, Havok editor Cathy Hinkle pointed out that the environment could use a little more description, so the final product is a little easier (and more interesting!) to visualize.

As for the guardian, a mummy seemed like the natural choice for a tomb in the desert. But since undead mummies are no strangers to this type of story, I wanted to make it a little more intimidating. That’s how the sickles grafted on in place of hands came into play. A cut line actually referenced that the main character’s impatience is the only reason the mummy was activated to protect the scepter.

Changing the main character’s partner was another nod to Indiana Jones and The Librarian, but I also like the idea of different regions having specialists researching arcane artifacts and tracking down their resting places. In fact, the idea to name her Miriam was less of a nod to Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and more from wanting her to have a name originally from the same region (Miriam is a Hebrew name). Since I was working with a higher word count than I aimed for in “Sword of the Stones,” I wanted her to have more of an active role in this story—and I’d say that worked out

Regarding the artifact, brainstorming powers was more of a challenge at the beginning because I didn’t think it would necessarily be used in the story—I wanted to focus more on the recovery than the treasure itself. That said, I did think it would be fun to name it using an uncommon word. “Ophidian” is one that I’ve learned (and retained) recently. And (in case you didn’t know or haven’t looked it up yet), it basically means snakelike. That idea leant itself to being paired with a scepter, which matches very nicely with the Rod of Asclepius—instrument of the Greek deity and modern-day symbol of medicine. With that connection made, it only seemed right for the artifact to convey supernatural healing powers. Just goes to show what a difference the right name can make!

After that, the story started to fall into place. I had a loose outline of the main beats (fight, trapdoor, retrieve scepter, fight part 2), and started writing based on that. As I wrote, I realized that the scepter might actually be an effective weapon against the mummy. On one hand, it would restore the monster’s hands. But it could also mess with the magic-mummification that allowed the mummy to fight in the first place.

That meant thinking through how the scepter would work—even if I didn’t have room to explain it in the story itself. So if that question was bugging you at the end of the story, you’ve come to the right place. The scepter heals any wound, basically restoring tissue/organs/whatever is damaged through magic (the magic itself I can’t explain—roll with it). The mummy is animated by magic, which not only allows it to live, but also retain a connection with the organs that have been preserved (stomach, liver, lungs, and intestines in Egyptian mummification). The brain’s been ripped out, but the magic that enables it to be the scepter’s guardian takes care of movement. When the scepter touches the mummy, it starts superseding the magic that keeps the mummy animated. This heals the mummy’s wounds, which is why the sickles fall away and its hands regenerate, but it can’t physically take the preserved organs (enchanted to stay in the same condition as the mummy for millennia) and put them back in the mummy’s body. The mummy effectively turns into a couple-thousand-year-old person missing certain guts, which is why it keels over.

And that pleasant image is likely the best way to end this behind-the-scenes look. If you enjoyed the story or have any more questions, feel free to comment here or on the post on Havok’s website. If you’re reading this after the story’s 24 hours have passed, you can always become a member and get full access to every flash fiction story they’ve published, plus the ability to vote on which stories are selected for their anthologies! As always, thank you for reading!

Behind the Scenes of “Transmutation”

Yay! My latest flash fiction story “Transmutation” is available to read for FREE only today on Havok’s website. It’s a short fantasy-mystery about an eccentric alchemist using her skills to shorten her dungeon sentence. If you’ve already finished it, here’s a little background on how I wrote it. (And if you haven’t read it yet and it’s any day after April 1, 2019, you can become a member for a very small fee to get access to it and all of Havok’s other stories!)

Similarly to “When Magic Died,” this story was written specifically for this month’s theme (reform) and the day’s genre (mystery). I had been thinking about incorporating alchemy for one of Havok’s earlier themes (recycle), but that ended up going nowhere. I decided to revisit the idea since one of medieval alchemy’s goals was to transform things into other things. But since I wasn’t sure if that would be a strong enough connection to “reform,” I also wanted to try to have a character change their ways. But I still wasn’t sure where the mystery element came in.

I thought about that part for a while. I didn’t feel confident trying to put all the mystery tropes in a flash fiction piece—I just wanted to treat it as the moment where a key clue is revealed. But how would it all tie together

I’m not ashamed to say it all fell in place while I was waking up one morning (get your sleep, kids!). Since a big part of medieval alchemy was trying to turn common metals into gold, I decided to use that to give the main character a criminal history. They would be imprisoned for using alchemy to pass their own gold off as official currency, but then called on to help solve a case involving alchemy of a far more nefarious sort.

I knew this backstory wouldn’t be a big part of the actual story’s plot (the reason for Ryla’s imprisonment/im-dungeonment only gets a passing reference), but I felt it did offer a starting point for the character to reform. I had a loose idea of the alchemist character uncovering a criminal plot to deconstruct … everything …. to rebuild it a new way. With this rough idea settled on, I felt like I had enough to start writing.

Up until this point, I hadn’t thought much about the alchemist’s character. I decided to make her a woman because I was really concerned about the story turning into an all boys’ club. (As it turned out, the other two, less interesting characters were both male, so I’d say this was the right choice.) But I also wanted to give her a unique personality to both a) clash with the more “professional” guardsmen/pseudo-detectives and b) bring a little more life into this search for clues.

I settled on a Jack Sparrow-type characterization, which mostly manifests in her dialogue. At first you don’t quite get her, but if you watch long enough, you see that her unpredictable attitude and esoteric plans do have a purpose. In my head, years of alchemy have left their mark on her, due to her experiments strengthening her connections to the core elements, but also driving her slightly insane and causing her to disassociate from the real world. It’s kind of the same way that hatmakers were affected by working with mercury, leading to the phrase “mad as a hatter.” … In fact, mercury was one of the elements that medieval alchemists often worked with. It’s all connected!)

With Ryla being brought to a investigation already underway, I needed to come up with a way for her to use alchemy to reveal a clue that the guards would have missed. And for the sake of word count, I needed it to be somewhat simple. This led me to lean into alchemy from the angle of the four elements, which is what fantasy typically focuses on when it introduces the subject.

This is how I came up with the idea of placing each of the elements at the corner of a page to reveal hidden writing. (Not mentioned in the story: every manuscript designed this way is treated to be fireproof, waterproof, and rot-proof—but other than that, they’re quite destructible!) I’ve never seen/read this done in stories related to alchemy before, so it seemed like a plausible “a-ha!” moment for the reader. But if you have seen it done, please let me know in the comments!

For better or worse, the segment of revealing the secret writing ended up using more words than I expected, which meant the first draft of this rushed to a) reveal what the mystery alchemist is up to and b) demonstrate Ryla’s reformation. In the rush, the story almost shifted to Desail as the main character, focusing on him becoming overwhelmed with learning about alchemy’s power and asking Ryla to help track the mystery alchemist down.

Ryla had a great line in this version after Desail asked her to help: “Is that even a question? Yes I’ll help you catch this loon and quite possibly save the world. I may be a fraudster, but I’m no sadist.” Classic Ryla. But the ending overall could be stronger, as editor Lisa Godfrees rightly pointed out in her feedback. She identified that the story needed to be more about what the mystery alchemist was up to, or Ryla’s reformation. With the word count, it’d be hard to do both.

Since the segment with the elements and manuscript took a good chunk of the word count, I concluded that the story was more about the mystery alchemist’s intentions than Ryla. So—in an effort to build tension—I shifted things around and had Ryla take longer to figure out exactly what the other alchemist was up to. I like to think there’s still an undercurrent of her reformation in the final story. But even if it’s not there, there’s still the reformation of the whole world to worry about!

Have any questions or comments about “Transmutation,” how it came together, or alchemy? Feel free to post below right here, or under the story on Havok’s website. And make sure you keep following them on social media or become a member for even more awesome flash fiction stories. Thanks for reading!

Behind the Scenes of “When Magic Died”

Happy new year, all! I’m excited to announce that my latest flash fiction story “When Magic Died” has just been published on the new Havok Publishing website. If you’ve already finished it, read on to learn a little about how the story came together. If not, go check it out now — because it’s only available to read for free today (January 2nd)!

Like previous stories submitted to Havok (when it was an imprint of Splickety), I wrote “When Magic Died” specifically for the theme. But this time was a little different. The theme for the whole month of January is rebirth, but I also needed to decide which genre/day to submit to (mystery, sci-fi, humor, thriller, or fantasy). I sat on this decision *for a while*. Then, in late October, I saw them put out a call for submissions for the humor genre. I took that as a sign, and started brainstorming.

Taking the theme very literally, I figured that something would need to die at the beginning of the story. Since fantasy is my preferred genre, I thought about what kinds of things would die in a fantasy story — and pretty quickly thought of chosen heroes’ quests to do something like save the world. I figured the humor part would come from the hero failing their quest right at the beginning, then doing just as bad a job when they’re invited to be part of the rebirth.

I considered having the hero fail a quest to save the world, but I felt that I wouldn’t be able to describe a world-rebuilding scene without ripping off The Neverending Story. The idea of magic dying struck me as a good replacement, so I ran with that. It seemed like it would be fun to write about an adventurer who’s supposed to help rewrite the laws of magic, but ends up doing so in a very unconventional way.

In terms of writing the story, that was the only outline I worked with. Most of my other flash fiction stories are a little more plotted-out before I start writing. But I figured I’d do better at being funny if I took more of a discovery-writing approach. That way, things would feel more natural instead of being forced in a particular direction.

So when I started writing, some things came more easily than others. I wanted to get to a joke as quickly as possible so I could readers’ expectations from the beginning. The set-up “magic was dying … had the nerve to do just that” was an idea that stuck from early on, and (especially in the first draft), it gave me some space to be not-as-funny in describing the opening scene in more detail.

Which felt like a mini-saga of its own. Since I knew most of this piece would be driven by dialogue, I originally wanted to cram so much information right in the first couple paragraphs to make sure readers understood the point of the quest, show how magic died, establish the dragons in the story, etc.

It was all pretty superfluous, which is a recurring theme in most of the early paragraphs of my flash fiction. Thanks to some incisive editing, the final version gets to the meat of things much quicker — and lets me reference the enormous collections of random objects collected by questers (especially in video games). If this story hadn’t already been so close to 1000 words, you can bet that list would’ve been a lot longer and weirder.

As I wrote, I figured a lot of the humor was going to be juxtaposing traditional, almost regal, high fantasy elements with more modern and banal bits. I’m not well-versed enough in comedy theory to understand why, but I just think it’s funny to have a fantasy world where dragons say things like “Missed it by that much,” and “A magic system. You’re supposed to come up with a magic system.”

I was happy with the way Dave (so named because I thought a non-fantasy-sounding name would be funnier) came together as I wrote. My initial thought was that his character would be just shy of competent. Which is funny, but can also become moderately annoying. Fortunately, when I settled on snark and sarcasm being the basis for magic at the end, I realized it would need to be part of his character during the story (instead of just thrown in at the very end). I feel like that gives him some agency earlier on, especially when the dragons are suggesting different magic systems.

Which leads back to the conversation between Dave and the dragons. As mentioned earlier, I tried exercising my discovery-writing (and comedic) muscles with this story. I enjoyed the challenge of balancing things that just seemed funny with beats that would push the story forward. This made it nice to have five different characters playing off one another — no matter who inserted a wry comment or made a joke, there was always someone to steer things back on track. Five characters in a flash fiction story really is madness, but I was fortunate that this one could revel in it.

And, in case the topic comes up, I take zero issue with developed magic systems, haha. It just seemed like a fun thing to play with in the event of one being entirely erased.

Of course, I can’t talk about what went on behind the scenes without mentioning editors Lauren Hildebrand, Gen Gavel, and Andrew Winch. The story is much stronger than the first draft thanks in no small part to their help and insight, and I’m super honored that they selected it as Havok’s inaugural Wacky Wednesday story! Thanks all 🙂

Have any questions or comments about “When Magic Died” — the story itself or how it came together? Feel free to post below or under the story on Havok’s website. And make sure you keep following them on social media or become a member for even more awesome flash fiction stories!

Behind the Scenes of “Special Delivery”

As you may have seen, my latest story was published in this month’s issue of Splickety. And to follow up, I wanted to share a brief behind the scenes look at how “Special Delivery” came together.

Like other stories for Splickety, this one started with a theme, which was “Christmas abroad.” I personally have always been in the U.S. at Christmastime, so drawing inspiration from real life was out. I did want to make sure there was some type of conflict in the course of the story, but without much familiarity with other countries’ Christmas customs, I wasn’t sure what to work with. Fortunately, I do have experience with an obstacle that can easily be translated anywhere else in the world: running late for a flight.

Splickety emphasizing YA in its imprint this year, combined with the abroad theme, meshed perfectly in the idea of a couple students returning from a semester abroad. In this respect, the story was loosely inspired by real life, since I also gave my brother a Venetian mask after visiting Italy in college. It was also convenient that the different language offered an easy way to incite action (by realizing that the book wasn’t in English).

One area of inaccuracy probably lies in how I portray the airport. I spent … an unreasonable amount of time trying to figure out what shops exist in the Leonardo Da Vinci airport. And my story probably makes it sound a lot bigger than it actually is (as near as I can tell, it just has three terminals). And I really doubt that there are souvenir carts with Venetian masks in the terminal. And I can’t even say that they sell Venetian carnival masks anywhere besides … Venice. BUT all of that seemed more believable than the idea that anyone would leave the airport to find a gift that close to their plane leaving.

In fact, the first draft of this story gave the guys way too much time to get back to their plane. At first, I was concerned about keeping things realistic. But as I read through, I realized that the realism was detracting from the tension. So I kept scaling back the time they had to get back to their gate. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to choose between realism and tension. But if you do, always go with tension. Maybe Nathan’s just really bad with time management.

Regarding the end of the story, I think this is the first time I’ve had a total scene break in a flash fiction piece. I toyed with introducing the mask in the airport and ending the story there, but I think it works better as it’s being opened on Christmas day. This also helped address the issue that the bulk of the story doesn’t have that much to do with Christmas (other than the conceit of looking for a gift). Overall, I think the scene break worked, though I think it’s best to avoid them when possible if a story is less than 1000 words.

Overall, “Special Delivery” was another great writing exercise. It felt quite normal to be writing a Christmas story in August/September, because I’m doing the same stuff at work, haha. If you’re interested in reading it in a collection of fun, short Christmas stories to celebrate the season, make sure you get your copy (of the last issue) of Splickety today!