FREE SHORT STORY: THE PENNY

Dear Potential Reader,

Sometimes, the only way to get to notice someone is to see what they do when no one is looking. When a young woman helps the Hatchback Woman, she finds her good deed is worth more than just value of the coin she received in THE PENNY.

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Having worked in retail, I can’t recall any cashier every escaping a register that was perfect every time. There’s just something odd or magical about how it can get off. Sure, it probably is user error. A ten ends up in the stack of ones and gets handed out as change to one of the many people too busy to check what’s handed back to them–Gosh, I do recall preferring people who paid by card.

And so, it comes to an end. I hope you all have enjoyed the Lady’s tales for the last 12 months. The 12 stories represent less than a third of what is written, and my hope has always been to reach 100 stories, so there are plenty more to come. Thank you for reading.

Hope you enjoy.

All the best,

DAN JIRE

WRITING TIPS: ON ADVERBS

When I first sat down in hopes of being a published author, I read the rule to eliminate and avoid all adverbs.

I intensely followed this rule for many years. Beginning in the editing stage of deleting all those ‘-ly’ words to avoiding them completely in the first draft.

(You saw what I did there, right?)

Adverbs are fine.

Like all words, they have a place and a time.

Sometimes a sentence is clear without one. Other times it is clearly needed.

It all comes down to preference. I would still say that it is good advice to use adverbs sparingly. But I believe the key to good writing is creating a good cadence. When a reader reads the sentences, does a particular word reduce the flow (intentionally or not) or maintain it?

That said, it is always good practice to place restrictions on word choice, so that we broaden the kinds of phrases we turn. And it is always good practice to analyze our repetitions.

FREE SHORT STORY: THE MIGHTIER

Dear Potential Reader,

After an accident, a father struggles to communicate with his daughter, perhaps a strange object gifted by the strange driver of the red hatchback can help him in THE MIGHTIER.

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This is a follow up to THE CAR–one of the first 9 ever written. But like most of the Hatchback Woman tales, I’ve tried to write them in such a way that you can read them without having to have read them in a specific order. Perhaps, this spoils the events of THE CAR. Perhaps, you’ll have forgotten if you ever read that tale. But I’ve never liked, as a reader, being confined to reading orders.

Check in every First Friday of every month for another Tale of the Hatchback Woman.

Hope you enjoy.

All the best,

DAN JIRE

WRITING TIPS: LEARN THROUGH OTHERS

One of the best things you can do to improve your writing is to look at other people’s work. Offering to edit other people’s stories will open you up to your own mistakes, other styles, and make you more mindful of what a reader’s reaction is likely to be.

When something looks wrong in someone else’s text, it’s a lot easier to spot.

I personally have a set of blinders up on my own writing. I don’t always see what’s missing or how a phrase is jumbled rather than clear. But sometimes I spot something wrong in someone else’s draft and that becomes something to look out for in my own.

FREE SHORT STORY: A CIGARETTE

Dear Potential Reader,

Ever spend time with someone that is so rough, you need something to get you through it? It might just be the promise of a reprieve. It might be a drink or a smoke. For Lauren Pace it is something that has to do with the Hatchback Woman, in A CIGARETTE.

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As mentioned earlier, this is one of the early tales, where I was trying to turn the Lady’s story into something of an investigation with two leads in the same fashion as The X-Files. But the heart of the story has always been how different people handle what they have received. So, while this one complicates the overall narrative with a building of events, it serves as another evaluation of what those in the Hatchback Woman’s vicinity chose to do.

Check in every First Friday of every month for another Tale of the Hatchback Woman.

Hope you enjoy.

All the best,

DAN JIRE