So I’m pretty sure I mentioned last week that I’m working on a short story to submit to an online litmag contest this month. Right? Yes, here!
Five on the Fifth‘s submission deadline for their short fiction contest is looming rather large on August 31. I currently have about 1,500 words of a first draft, with a pretty clear idea of how I will set up the final act and conclude the story. I think my submission will end up finishing around 2,500 words, but I’ve been known to miscalculate projected word counts in the past.
Anyway, I thought I would actually introduce my short story a bit. I’m writing a horror story set in Úr’Dan (oor-DAHN), the fictional world I have created for The Warden of Everfeld: Memento. Everfeld, the great coniferous forest that is the setting for WoEM, is in the northern region of Úr’Dan.
This short story, which I’m currently calling “Wolf’s Moon Night” takes place in a grassy valley to the south, and is wholly separate geographically and temporally from the characters and events of WoEM. As I said, “Wolf’s Moon Night” is a horror story from the perspective of a child living in this region.
I’ve never written a horror story before, so I’m treading into new, self-conscious territory here. Future Wife will tell you that my dreams – which cause me to talk and sometimes sit up abruptly in bed – are vivid enough for any horror my imagination can conjure. While I do tend to have an overactive imagination, I’m leaning pretty heavily on the child’s POV to carry the horrifying aspects of the story. How does an 8-year-old boy perceive the world around him? How do the folktales he has heard all of his life shape and meld what his mind’s eye sees, especially when what he believes he is seeing may be embellished out of terror?
That is the essence of “Wolf’s Moon Night”, without going into any real detail. I should have a first draft finished this coming week, and a horror/thriller-loving friend (and one of my alpha readers) has already volunteered to read it over for me.
I’ll update further as I’m nearing the submission phase and my anxiety over having my work critiqued by professionals bubbles to the surface.
Steve D
Evening Satellite Publishing 
Really like the concept of narrating the story from an 8 yr. old’s POV and tapping into that dreamscape consciousness as inspiring motivation. The title is a brain twister when said aloud but it makes me curious….! Happy to have found you too…
Jana
Thanks for stopping by! I remember how vivid my imagination was (and still is to an extent) and how easily perceptions can become clouded and even mutated under unfamiliar circumstances. Writing such descriptive, embellished horror is a real challenge for me! I’m enjoying your poetry as well 🙂