Possessed of a writing frenzy, my second short story in as many weeks has been sent off. I have sent it to Lamplight Magazine. As with last week’s short story, it’s now just a matter of waiting to see whether they accept it. My biggest concern about my story is that it is not speculative fiction, but rather a dark reflection of current society. Here is their call for submissions if any of you are interested in submitting something yourselves.
This story I call “Can u pick me up?” It is inspired by countless brief SMS messages that fly between my daughter and myself. Indeed, a couple of the messages in the story are ripped straight from actual texts (for example, the title). Premise: an older sister receives a text from her younger sister seeking to get a ride home. This then ends up in the older sister being lured into a life-threatening
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It must be great to have all those ideas =)
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The biggest struggle is structuring the idea and finding a satisfactory conclusion.
For example, one core idea that I want to fictionalise has to do with the idea of a wife waking up in the middle of the night (in the complete dark) and thinking that the sound of her husband’s breath doesn’t sound right. Then she begins noticing other clues that suggest that it is not her husband next to her. She is laying there too scared to move, overthinking everything. She wonders whether she is just being paranoid or something. Lots of self-doubt. Eventually, she decides to slowly reach over and turn on the bedside table, but “click” and it does not work. Strange, it worked when she switched it off when she went to bed. Surely it has to be her husband next to her. How could anyone have switched places with him without waking her. Should she touch him? What if it actually isn’t him? Would touching whoever-he-is be the trigger for him attacking her?
I love this paranoid idea and reckon that it is simple but could be quite scary if done properly. But I am uncertain as to how to finish it. Is it her husband and she is just tripping? Is it really a home-invader and, if so, what happened to her husband and how was it done without waking her? Should I have a supernatural element or is it more frightening without one? Alternatively, could I set this in the future and something like a transporter-beam has replaced him with an assassin as it is suddenly revealed that she is actually some future politician or scientist? And so on.