Tag: story

Chamber of Knowledge – Very Short Story

The darkness, all engulfing. The silence – thought to be everlasting – penetrated by a continuous thumping. The muffled noise drew nearer as the walls of limestone slowly cracked until it crumbled into bits. Wind gushed inside, drawing fresh air into a surrounding that had laid dormant and stale for untold millennia. From the opening, a man appeared. Wrapped with a piece of cloth around his mouth and his hair turned yellow by the dust, his flashlight scanned the interior, revealing only more darkness in its depths. Making an effort to remove the rubble from his path, two more people appeared; one a man, the other a woman. The woman, named Olga, clutched her husband’s arm, who was named Ivan, both grinning excitedly as they entered.

“Amazing, professor!” Ivan said. “You were right all along.”

The professor, having gone deeper into the darkness, ignored Ivan’s remark. Unconcerned with their approval, the professor just stared into the nothingness.

I was right… I was right… he repeated in his head.

Continue reading “Chamber of Knowledge – Very Short Story”

by Stamphers

The Song of Haze – Flash Fiction Contest

Photo copyright K. S. Brooks. Do not use without attribution.Use the photograph above as the inspiration for your flash fiction story. Write whatever comes to mind (no sexual, political, or religious stories, jokes, or commentary, please) and after you PROOFREAD it, submit it as your entry in the comments section below. There will be no…

via Flash Fiction Writing Prompt: Fog — Indies Unlimited

Another writing prompt for a 250 word flash fiction contest.

Here is my contribution:

Sitting on top of the lighthouse and staring into the haze, I cannot help but reflect on all the wasted summers I’ve had at my grandparent’s house. There is nothing to do here on this godforsaken rock. No ships even come through here any longer since they’ve found a much safer route a few kilometres to the north…

Sometimes I think my grandparents enjoy the monotony, the all engulfing silence. I cannot understand it. At least, when I was younger, I could gorge in the stories they told. Stories about adventure, about monsters and ghosts – the hazy weather adding to the mystery.

As I stood staring into nothingness, trying to remember the one story about a ghost ship, I began hearing a peculiar sound. I wondered if it was the ocean hitting against the lighthouse, but it definitely had a melody. Forgetting about the story, I peered my ears until everything was silent again.

I slumped on the railing, disappointed, and my mind drifted again towards the story. And as I did, the melody returned. I imagined it to be a sea chanty, course and without rhythm. Thinking about it more strongly, I swear I heard the creaking of wooden planks near me – the sounds and music growing stronger.

But as I tried to rationalise what was happening, the sounds disappeared and I was once again alone in the haze. Maybe there is more to it, this place that nobody visits, a place where stories comes to life.

by Stamphers

The Rightful People – Poem

A people with no roots

No land to claim as their own

Vanquished from their place of origin

They journeyed through the generations

Alway on the move

Only through wits have they retained their identity,

Their culture,

And their spirit

*

Through hardships they had become undone

No longer tied to the rational

Hence they can unleash their wrath upon everything

For life is no longer holy in the eyes of the desperate

And through the ashes they will rise as the victor

Remembered by noone

by Stamphers

Book of Legacy: The Carrier

Chapter 1: The Tainted

The breeze is rarely still this high on a mountain, especially near the coast where the wind blows freely on the high seas. That’s why the people here are used to it; their houses have no glass windows, only metal bars and wooden panels that they close whenever the wind gets unbearable. I guess it makes the neighbourhood look more like a prison than a place of residence. Which is ironic since you’d be hard-pressed to find a more exclusive place to live. Well, there is the capital, of course; rich people live there too. But then there is also the Tower of Avos… there is no comparing the splendour there – so I’ve heard.

I don’t know much about the world, not really. I’ve read a lot about it, but never seen it for myself. Not that I need to go anywhere. My future is set here in the city of Vale, after all. It is my home, and always will be.

The wind blew through the paved streets, whining eerily and making wooden panels crash into the walls of the neighbouring houses. A large street snaked through the neighbourhood, connecting alleyways and smaller streets into one. Along it, a lone a boy walked with a stack of books in his arms.

Continue reading “Book of Legacy: The Carrier”

by Stamphers

Free Stories Should Never Be Expected to Be Perfect

Little over a year ago, I decided to become an author. Since then, I’ve been reading countless articles about writing stories and how to publish them. And what I could glean from all those articles were: there are immense expectations on the writer by the reader.

This is not by itself a bad thing. High expectations incentives you to do your very best.

However, it seems to me that no flaws are acceptable whatsoever when you publish your story, whether it’s free or for profit. For some reason, we are expected to spend hundreds of dollars on editors and professional artists to make our product perfect from the start.

“Don’t dare post or publish a flawed story, or your reputation will suffer,” they say. As if you could make a perfect your first time around…

Where did this idea come from? This idea that independent writers must have the same standards as a multimillion dollar publishing business?

Because frankly, we neither have the time nor resources to make it flawless and I have no inclination to spend a lot of money on something that will ultimately be free (or even 99 cents).

I think this idea of the flawless writer deters many to publish their works, even on their own blogs or other free sites. I know I had my hesitations.

But after browsing around the early works of other artists on DeviantArt and on Youtube, I began to wonder: they can put out free content without nearly as many expectations as writers; their early work being incredibly low quality.

But even if they did suck, they still had a certain charm to their content, a uniqueness that made them grow their audience, and slowly, they improved the quality of their work.

Meanwhile, writers hold on to their stories because they either cannot find a publisher or because they are too ashamed to publish a non-professionally edited story themselves.

Why should a typo, a badly written character and some pacing problems ruin an otherwise good story? For sure, it’s a shame that it isn’t perfect, but there will be other stories later made. And if the author is lucky, a publisher will notice him/her and correct all those mistakes in a printed edition.

What I’m saying is, publish your stuff. Make it available to the internet. Critiques be damned!

Amazon is our Youtube, our DeviantArt, the only difference is we cannot make it free on this platform. Which makes all the difference, unfortunately.

I highly recommend you read this article if you want to learn more about what demanding perfection can do to a creative. “When Perfection Goes Wrong“

by Stamphers