Short Story

Patreon Supporter Reward and Other News!

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Hey folks! Max here with some great news! And well, the weekly news.

For starters, there’s a new Patreon Supporter Reward up! Supporters can find it here. This one’s a short I wrote, a classic-style fairy tale I got the idea for a few weeks back called The Farmer and the Giant. It’s … allegorical. But also amusing. I hope you supporters enjoy it. It’ll be another one for More Unusual Events when I get around to compiling things.

In other news, I’m finally done being sick as of today. I did get some writing done yesterday, but I’m two days behind on Jacob Rocke’s newest outing. It’s in the finale, however, so it’ll be done very soon. At which point I can start working on Axtara 2 …

And, uh … yeah, that’s the news. There’s not much to it on a sick week, unless you want to hear about my Stellaris antics while ill. But that’s what the Discord channel is for.

Anyway, I’ve got some errands to run. I’ll catch you all later! And remember, if you aren’t a Patreon Supporter yet, you can always become one!

Enjoy!

Patreon Supporters! A New Reward Has Risen!

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Hello readers! If you’re a Patreon Supporter, than today is your lucky day. Yesterday, I sat down and wrote a new short story for the next shorts collection, and the Pre-Alpha is up on Patreon! If you’re a supporter, you can go read it!

If you’re not, well, it doesn’t take much to start. Supporters keep Being a Better Writer coming and ad-free each week, so it’s always worth considering. But if you’re dead-set against a service like Patreon, but still looking for some reading, best I can do is point you at my books page, the free samples page, or the Fireteam Freelance page.

For those supporters about to click through, enjoy! I had fun with this one, and I think you will too. I won’t spoil anything because it’s short enough to go through in a burst, so instead I’ll just give you the title:

DB Coop.

Good luck puzzling that one out while you read!

Vacation Throwback: The Last Call of Christmas Eve

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Hey readers! Max here! Yup, I’m still on vacation. This post was queued up in advance. A few years ago I wrote a short story starring Jacob Rocke, the protagonist of the first book I ever sold, and released it on my site as a Christmas Eve gift. And while looking for things to liven the site up with while I was gone, well … What fits better than an old Christmas mystery? It’s out of season, but who cares? Not me, since I’m on vacation, and not you, because hey free story you might have missed!

So anyway, enjoy The Last Call of Christmas Eve out of season. Hit the jump.

The Last Call of Christmas Eve

Flash Fiction – Firstborn

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Hey folks!

So last night I was browsing the web before (planning) to go to sleep when I spotted a writing prompt on Reddit, and well … the creative brain took over. Next thing I knew it was past 1 AM, and I’d written a fun little story about man who makes a deal with a witch for his firstborn child, but has already, unbeknownst to her, cheated.

You can see the Reddit Writing Prompt that spawned it here, but for a short bit of flash fiction I was quite happy with how it turned out, and figured it deserved to be on the site. So here you are, folks. Firstborn.

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Being a Better Writer: Keeping a Short Story Short

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Hello readers! Welcome back after a spectacular Life, The Universe, and Everything writing convention! I hope you were able to attend, or if not, that you’ll be checking their youtube channel to see what’s posted as they upload panel recordings! The experience was incredible!

It was not without risks, however. Such as the dreaded “con crud” (aka you’ve just been exposed to around a dozen different colds and you’re low on sleep), so today’s post is going to be a little shorter than normal. No news, possibly some flat-brained typos, but I’m getting it done! So then, let’s talk about keeping your short story short.

This was a topic that actually came up in one of the LTUE panels I was on, in a roundabout way. An audience member asked about keeping short stories short stories, and said that they’d been told the best way to do it was to think of a short story as either the first or final chapter of a story. In other words, they explained, it either set up a beginning, or tied off an ending.

That’s actually a pretty good way to think of it, provided you’re thinking of a story where everything that can come before is capable of getting squeezed into that one chapter (though yes, that’s more important for a story that’s the “end” of something than the beginning, as one sets up and the other ties together).

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Submission Call for Twilight Tales!

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No. Not that Twilight. But rather this one!

Those who’ve been following the site for a while may recall that last year I worked on a short story for the LTUE benefit anthology A Dragon and Her Girl, which will be their 2019 release. LTUE being Life, the Universe, and Everything, an awesome (if not the most awesome) convention for writers, authors, and everything Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and the benefit anthology being a short story collection where the sales go to keeping the costs of the con down for students and other young aspiring writers.

Right right. Well, the call for this year’s submissions to be part of the LTUE benefit anthology are now open, and will be through August 15th! And they’re asking for light horror stories.

Me? I don’t have time right now. I’ve already got way too many projects on my plate on top of life issues to keep track of. But what about you?

Yes, you! That’s right! You! Sitting/standing there reading this!

Look, I know who my fans are. And I’ve seen some of your work. And I know that you guys are talented. I also know that for every fan whose work I’ve seen online or had the fortune to read, there are probably a dozen more who are here following Being a Better Writer, dutifully working on improving their craft and looking for their next challenge or chance to shine.

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Human Resource – A Free Short Story!

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All right, guys, a bit of a warning with this one. It’s … dark. Very dark, especially if you stop to think about it. And grim.

Worse still, it’s not entirely untrue.

A bit of background: I wrote this story after my second frustrating workplace injury and experience dealing with Worker’s Comp and my part-time job’s Human Resources department. If you’re interested in hearing the details about that, you can check out this post here, which is all about how I acquired the injury and the recover I underwent. But the short of it is that within days I was already feeling like I had when I’d had my knee injury. In other words, very much like my company just wanted to practice horse medicine and shove everything under the rug.

In my frustrations, I ended up writing this short to blow off a little steam. It’s dark. It’s grim. And, worst of all, it’s actually pretty true, and like most good fiction, that makes it all the more alarming.

The microphone monitoring tech? That’s real. A certain massive mega-conglomerate retailer patented it last year and has already started rolling it out into stores. It monitors all employees at all times. And yes, they do warn that ‘certain problem words’ can trigger an automatic, computer-driven firing. Boop, a text to your phone, go home, you’re done here.

That’s what scariest about this story: It’s really not that far off. The tech involved here is very real, and already being rolled into the workplace much in the same way you see it in this story. It’s just all in one package, and seeing the sudden jump from where we are now to where we may be in five, ten years really does seem jarring, compared to coming in to a new bit or piece every day.

Am I worried we might go as far as this story? Well … in a way, yes. We were once already there, if you know your history of what jobs used to be like before labor laws were put in place.

But I’ll stop waxing on it now. You’re here to read a story. So, without further ado, I present to you Human Resource. Enjoy!

And try not to let it depress you too much. I can tell you it was therapeutic to write.

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A Multitude of Various Updates

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Hey readers!

I know. Content has been light the last few weeks. Thankfully enough, that’s about to change, starting with today!

First, I can’t tell you how good it feels to be writing again, even if I’m only at the moment doing about 1,500 words a day. Which all things considered is pretty good. But doing more than that makes me pretty sore. And it might get cut down slightly now that I’ve started physical therapy, which has given me a rash of exercises to do that, well, if you’re familiar with how physical therapy works, they wear the recovering area out.

But I’m doing my best to bring things back up to speed. Things may be a little shorter than normal for a while, but I’m trying. But today I’ve got some updates for you on how Unusual Things will be coming back on track. Upcoming features, current projects, etc. And then at the end of it all, a Being a Better Writer topic call! It’s been a while since I’ve done one of those!

So, first and foremost, the current editing project: Hunter/Hunted. Hunter/Hunted is currently in the Alpha, and has been distributed to several Alpha Readers, and now I’m just waiting for them to work their way through. Once that’s done, we can move to beta, and once that’s done? Well, the usual. Out to the public with it! Or at least, the side of the public that’s made up of my old guard fans.

At this point, though, it’s up to the Alpha readers to go through it. I’m excited to let this one out into the wild, but not until it’s ready to survive and thrive.

Which reminds me, I gotta find a new artist for the cover.

Now, onto more news!

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The Last Call of Christmas Eve

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Merry Christmas readers! It’s Christmas Eve here, which is the traditional time in my family to start opening gifts from friends and family. So, as some of you already know, I thought this year I’d give you all a gift in the form of a Christmas story.

A Jacob Rocke Christmas story. That’s right: set in the Unusuals Universe.

Is it weird? Of course it is. And it’s also a bit rough about the edges (it hasn’t seen any formal editing yet, but give me a break, I only finished it Friday). But hey, it’s a free Jacob Rocke story, and that’s a pretty sweet.

Later this’ll make it to More Unusual Events, but for now? Merry Christmas, guys. Enjoy.

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Metro Contest Entry – The Ride

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A bit of a forward, first, by way of explanation.

This story was written for 4A Games’ 4ALives Metro 2033 contest. The goal was to create something (a story, piece of art, etc) set in the universe of Metro 2033 (which I had just recently beaten at the time the contest was announced). Interested in exploring the Metro universe, I spent some time thinking about it and then put together this experimental little story as an exercise in my talents (and I am aware that the series is based on a book series, but alas, I have not read them yet).

Enjoy.

Oh, and as you might expect … just a small language warning. It’s the Metro, after all.

 

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