My novella (about half the size of a novel) is free this week in the Amazon Kindle Store. This is the science fiction horror story of a military space vessel that discovers a new enemy, a creature that targets a civilization’s technology.
Read it free: Here.
Some years ago, I was writing my novel The Teddy Bear Conspiracy. One of my main characters was named Tina, and there came a time in the book where her character had to be killed off. I found this really hard at the time because prior to this moment in the writing, I had really put a lot of life into this character, making her almost as important as the main protagonist and any other character in the novel. But I had hit that point where she had to go, so I gave her the glorious, heart-wrenching death she deserved. And then I was finished for the night.
The next day, I was in my writing office, continuing the novel. My office was located on the second floor of my apartment and somewhat isolated, so it gave me the space to write and not be bothered. And that was when I heard a whisper of a knock on my front door. Not one to answer the door while I’m writing, I kept going. Then the knocking stopped, and my doorbell rang. I still wasn’t planning to answer the door, but then the doorbell started ringing over and over, as it does when some very impatient person is on the porch, not easily dissuaded by someone not answering the door on the first ring.
I realized I had to answer the door because the person wasn’t going to stop ringing the doorbell. So I opened my office door, descended the stairs and then opened the door.
I discovered a tiny woman standing there, someone I had never met before. “Can I help you?” I said.
She said, in broken English: “My name is Tina. I have come back.”
I just stared at her, not sure if she was serious. I mean, she didn’t look like the Tina I imagined in my book, nor did she talk anything like her. But here she was, this woman named Tina saying she was back.
My immediate thought was that I was in some rejected Stephen King novel, or one he wrote when he wasn’t feeling well. Characters didn’t come back from novels. Well, at least not so they’re standing at the author’s door planning all sorts of evil that only killed off characters might do if they were to return the day after they were ritually killed in their prospective stories.
But why was she back? I thought. Did this mean I was mistaken in killing her off?
“What do you want?” was all I could think to say, while imagining all sorts of awful things that you’d see in horror movies. If only I was a horror writer, I might have had a better sense of what was about to happen.
And then she spoke, looking at my bewildered stare as if I was the one out of place here. “I said my name is Tina. I used to live here months ago. I just wanted to check if there was any mail that was still being delivered.”
And suddenly, I realized where I had come up with the name Tina in the first place. It was on a letter that had been mistakenly delivered here a few months back. I had given it back to the postal carrier and thought nothing of it since. Although the name had stuck and reappeared in my mind when looking for the name of that character.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I sent all mail back to the post office that might have been for you.”
She thanked me, and then Tina was out of my life forever.
But ever since then, I think twice before I kill off a character, always wondering if it’s the right thing. Because you don’t want that character showing up at your front door if you didn’t kill him or her right. Or justly.
One of my failings as a writer is I tend to avoid rewriting old stuff. Instead of going back and fixing a lot of my earlier work, I just chalk it up to a learning experience and then write something new. As a result, I have about 150 short stories, 12 novels, and a whole bunch of other writings, including plays, poetry, screenplays and whatnot. But I’ve been writing for about 25 years now, so over this time, I’ve managed to build up quite a catalogue of stuff that just seems to gather dust, or takes up space on hard drives that don’t get used any more.
So, recently, I decided that it was time to start going back, finding this old stuff and rewriting it. A lot of it is actually pretty damn good. Some of it is atrocious. I guess that happens because few people sit down and write War & Peace their first time out. Until that big break, many of us have the bad habit of writing stuff like Raid of the Evil Mole People, or worse….
So, I’ve started with the first of many of my short stories, looking over the list of stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day for years and rewriting them. My first three (figured I’d do this is batches of three and then send them out once completed) are some interesting selections:
“Precipice,” one of my later short stories involving a psychological study of a writer who realizes that his last story may in fact be his LAST story.
“Simple Girl,” a short story of a young woman who sees life in simplicities, but through her daily adventure projects the revelation that perhaps she is the only one who truly understands the complexity of life. This one actually won a contest a few years ago, and I never bothered to do anything with it after winning.
“Postcards From Hell,” one of the last stories in my old Runner series, which was one of my more successful collections of short stories that were heavily published in my early days of my writing career. Most of these stories were dark horror, and at the time I was actually on the way to creating a market for myself in this genre. This was the final story in this grouping, but it was shelved before I ever had the chance to start submitting it. Then I went on a very long hiatus before writing again.
So, I’ll be working on these over the next week. Let’s see if anything comes from it.