Category: Behind the Scenes

BEHIND THE SCENES: SPIDERFACE (Short Story)

If you’re a parent, you know sometimes your kids can make you mad.

Thus, SPIDERFACE was born!

I forget the actual circumstances, so let’s assume my youngest was refusing bed or not letting me go to bed after story time. But it was presented for the exact intention to gross out and deliver a moral message.

Or maybe she just wanted me to kill a spider–something I am against.

I don’t like killing spiders. Even if they are in my home. Maybe especially if they are in my home. Spiders serve a nice function, gobbling up the ‘bad’ bugs. Sure, I dislike hiking into a web in the middle of the woods on a hot summer day. I hate finding cobwebs in the corners of ceilings. I’ve even been bitten by a spider (on several occasions) while I slept. So long as it is not a venomous spider, I’m fine with it.

The story was off the cuff. But I enjoyed it, and the reaction so much, that a week or so later, I made sure to retell it. I might’ve even told it a third time at bed time.

But I was never happy with the written story. It’s not the same without the performance: the facial expression and gestures–and of course the listener’s reaction.

So, if you don’t quite ‘feel’ the story, try to tell it to someone else. Try shocking them with it as you walk the line of whimsy and horror.

BEHIND THE SCENES: THE HATCHBACK WOMAN

This year I’m sharing 12 short stories surrounding the mystery of the Hatchback Woman, aka The Lady. In 2022, I also posted 2 other tales of hers. So, I thought I’d give you all a peak behind the curtain in a new series (that’ll be rather irregular) that looks at the making of and my reasoning behind the stories. If you don’t like to see how the sausage is made, read no further . . .

The Hatchback Woman had to wait on the sidelines, wondering where she fit into the JIREverse when I first began collecting the stories that existed in the same universe. Because I had published her under another name many years before, I was just assuming she didn’t really fit in.

But she does.

And thankfully, it wasn’t even a stretch once I realized that her ‘oh so can’t be disclosed motive’ tied directly into some of the other key happenings in the JIREverse.

It wasn’t that she needed to be fit into the JIREverse–she had help construct it with her objects the imbue the users with strange powers.

Mirroring the some of the other entities I’ve introduced in short stories and novels, The Hatchback Woman is someone helping another one of the other dimensional entities cross over into our world.

Maybe that was a spoiler. But if you’re reading this BEHIND THE SCENES, you are interested enough in the inner workings of the stories to accept you’re going to read something that might spoil another story.

The conception of the HBW tales was a writing exercise. I created a formula for a series of stories:

  1. Someone gets a magical object (has to be different way each time)
  2. The object has a magical power (has to be different power each time)
  3. The object either makes their life better or worse

Pretty simple. And with that, I knocked out a dozen tales (a few weren’t good enough to see the light of day or were revised into something different). Another author I traded stories with became a big fan, and suddenly I found myself investing more time into the mythology.

There was a time when it was going to play out more like a novel, with a Mulder/Scully team tracking her down and there are remnants of some of those chapters and characters. But my test readers didn’t like this direct approach.

In truth, the mystery of her actions, is she good or evil, is part of the fun for me to write. Is she helping or hurting?

27 tales were published through 2016, while dozens more awaited either another collection or my final judgement call whether or not they steered the story in the direction I wanted. But while I moved onto other projects, I’d write at least 1 HATCHBACK WOMAN tale per year, always pleased to return to the formula/world.

Around the time of story #27, I remember thinking it would be cool to have 100 Hatchback Woman tales. And hopefully, one day there will be. I don’t plan to give up her story so easily.

Even though I know the end game and keep trying to complete the prequel story as a novel, she’s constantly evolving and by accepting a place in the greater continuity of the JIREverse, I’m excited to let her story unfold as it may in the background of other characters’ stories and how their interaction with her changes their lives.

To see the free-to-read tales, click here and begin the mystery if you haven’t already . . . and remember . . .

SHE HAS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE