Category Archives: Story Shard

It seemed like such a good idea.

The concept had been sound.  Grab various important figures from all parts of history, ask them questions, and clarify so many questions and quandaries that had bedeviled historians for so long.

Carl looked round at the roomful of squabbling historical figures and wondered how it all went wrong.  Washington was yelling at Kennedy, Lincoln was being badgered by Jackson and Grant, A possible knock down, drag out, fight seemed to be more and more probable between Franklin and Roosevelt (teddy).

Apart from the start of the project, it had all gone wrong.

From a young age Carl had a keen interest in history.  To him the facts, figures, personalities, and events were more than just mere words on a page.  They weren’t just dull, lifeless, two-dimensional characters.  They lived and breathed and spoke to him and he so wanted to know more about them.  He devoured everything he could find about his favorite historical figures but the sources he could find were limiting and he yearned for more.

As he matured he found he had a talent for theoretical physics and pursued twin improbable degrees in history and physics.  As he did his post-graduate work alongside some of the leading physicists in time and space research a ludicrous idea popped into his head.

His mentor, Dr. Hideyoshi, had proposed that everything in the universe was at its core just energy.  All matter, energy, space, and time were just expressions of energy.  That energy all had a particular address in a complicated matrix of time and space coordinates.  If someone wanted to travel time or to bring an object through time to the present all they would need do is to figure out the particular address and then manipulate the energy to move it to another time and space coordinate.

Dr. Hideyoshi had spent decades doing the theoretical work and now with a team of assistants he was putting together what he called his dimensional manipulator.  A high energy machine that could bend and twist time and space to move objects from the past to the present.  Carl had definite ideas as to what it should be used for.

From time to time I write out bits and pieces of a story.  Most of the time they go nowhere but sometimes they are the kernel of a short story or novella.  They can be anything from a sentence to a whole chapter.  This will be the main point of this blog.  Read along, comment, correct.  I won’t be offended.  It’s just exercise after all.

May 8th, 2013 (Character and scene description exercise)

Parent’s weekend at the college.  It was late April and already there was a slight warm breeze in the late Friday night.  He walked round the campus.

Mom and Dad had come up a few weeks earlier so there was no point in them coming back.  Not that they had much of an urge to come up.  They were strict Brooklynites and never liked to leave the neighborhood, much less leave the city and come out all the way to some little town in western Massachusetts.  The air didn’t smell right, the people talked funny and they no doubt had strange ideas.

Everywhere around the college kids led their parents round to see their classrooms and points of interest.  He deftly sidestepped a large mob taking pictures in front of the academic hall.

His best friend Jake who had indifferent parents had left him stuck.  Jake had a gig in Boston playing some dive pub near the water front and would be gone all weekend.

Becca had dumped him on Monday.  She had decided that a penniless english major was not the best prospect to present to her parents that weekend.  Instead she would present Pete Mayweather from the Boston Mayweathers.

He was past morose now and was somewhere between bitter and cynical right now.  He was also at loose ends.  All the school activities were centered on families and he didn’t have the money to go to some bar so he just wandered round the campus.

A baseball game.  The local team was hosting and the stands were packed with parents and kids.  Those unlucky enough not to have a ticket crowded behind the right outfield on the train tracks trying to get a peek at the game.  He was certainly never into all that rah rah school spirit crap that most of his classmates liked but this was better than nothing.

From time to time I write out bits and pieces of a story.  Most of the time they go nowhere but sometimes they are the kernel of a short story or novella.  They can be anything from a sentence to a whole chapter.  This will be the main point of this blog.  Read along, comment, correct.  I won’t be offended.  It’s just exercise after all.

April 4th, 2013 (supernatural business implications)

When considering a profession in the darkness elimination field one should be aware of the many opportunities and pitfalls involved with these.  In the past it was argued that one monster is another, is another.  But should you really take this attitude?

After all vampires are not subject to the same lunar conditions that werewolves are and mummies shrug off silver bullets and stakes to the heart.

Don’t even get me started on ghosts and demons.  Rather this presents an opportunity to discuss these in two broad categories; the physical and psychical.

The physical opponent is one you will be able to beat down time and again and it just matters the amount of firepower you are willing to invest into this or whether you use a specialized tool.  The psychical will require an investment into research and into mental preparation.

For the CEO thinking of launching such an enterprise it would behoove them to expand the hiring net out to include scholars, police officers, certain types of criminals, scientists, and the generally adventurous types.  Plus of course the requisite support personnel (accountants, secretaries, weapon smiths, salesmen, etc)

Too often it is that a lack of fore planning at the start of such a venture leads to lack of operating capital or lack of job opportunities.  Thus a well balanced support team is just as vital as the actual fighting team.

Marketing is also vital to the nascent evil fighting team.  How exactly do you market your skills out to the public at large?  Do you take out ads in national press outlets?  “Hello, we kill monsters.  do you want to learn more?”

The need is clearly there but how to connect the end user with the service provider?  Mostly it would involve going out and scouring news sources for news of the strange, for unexplained deaths and occurrences and putting in a lot of leg work.

You don’t just walk up and ask if they have a monster problem.  Develop them slowly.  Allow them to realize and come to terms with their problem and then let them reach out to you for help.  Making them admit that they have a problem and need help to cope is often the hardest step in the process.