AWKWARD ZOMBIE

So I have an idea for writing a short story which I want to illustrate in a graphic novel format - as a way of getting myself into illustrating full-blown comics.

The story itself is still pretty lose, but I was just wondering if anybody has any links to websites that offer guides to writing short stories, or if anyone themselves can offer any tips to writing short stories - y'know... like things to avoid doing, ways to plan the story from introduction to conclusion (if short stories even have introductions and conclusions).

Most of the websites I know for writing guides are to do with full-blown novels, so probably aren't the best things to use as reference for writing short stories.

All I remember from my written English education is that short stories should have a 'twist' in the tail, which is kinda vague and - in terms of writing the whole thing - doesn't really help me out massively.

You don't have to have a twist. That's pretty messed up. Honestly, best advice anybody can give you is to just write it. If it sucks, and it will, then write it again. Then when it sucks for the second time, write a third time.

Yeah, if I think about it, if you think about say, a Marvel or DC comic strip as a short story, there doesn't really have to be a 'twist in the tail'. I guess it just has to be that something 'significant' happens - to make the main character(s) react/reflect in some way.

I should just write it/draft it (as a graphic/illustrated short story).

To think that the only bird that would deign let his voice be heard this morning is that blasted crow...

I haven't seen another kind of bird in ages. Whether I am looking at a fresh corpse, a rotten undead or a dry and huddled tree, there is no nightingale to whistle a nice melody, no robin to bring some colour to this wasteland, not even a magpie to jealous the precious resources I'm carrying. Only a plumage black as night and an ebony beak.

Damned crow... I feel like he's following every move I make in the outer world...
More unbearable than his ungracious groan is his black, mocking eye. Even when I'm at the camp, I can't help but notice him standing on the battlements, eyeing my fellow citizens with his dark, deep gaze. A gaze so deep I sometimes wonder if the eyes looking at us really are those of a feathered creature. The dumb looks the hens give me are somewhat reassuring: they don't give the impression that they now everything that is going on in this "town".

No matter what, I can't get rid of that crow. I tried many times to throw a stone or two at it, but it just dodges my projectiles with a flap of its wings. Even if I move in the shadows, even if I hide in the outer world, it's his guttural singing that salutes my every morning. How does it do that?

...If only we had a firearm... Surely it would take care of the crow, once and for all. If only I could get my hand on some gun in this damned outer world... Just a bullet, and this critter wouldn't cause any more trouble. If I could just get one shot at it, just so I don't have to listen to that raucous cry every morning, just so I don't have to endure being in his sight any more. Just so I can forget about that animal that seems to be telling me every time the sun rises up:

"I am watching you."




Man, I still need to work on my English.

"I'm getting married..." she said.
A small frown crawled into life upon her face. She looked at the cup of coffee in her hand, unable to tear her eyes away from the billowing steam escaping from the small hole in the lid. He gazed at her in earnest, waiting for the next word, the next clue to arise. He wanted answers. He wanted a reason. He wanted a name.
"It's really...none of your business Kyle. Not anymore." She turned her head. Anything to prevent herself from meeting his stare.
"I think I'm entitled to know, May. I think that I, of all people, should be...fucking entitled to know." Kyle was losing his cool. He was drumming his fingers on the table incessently. He always did that when he was frustrated. The fall of each finger rang like a solemn church bell in May's ears.
"Look Kyle...I knew this would be a bad idea, ok? I thought I could handle doing this in person but...I just...I just have to go. I have to go Kyle." May got up from her chair. She fumbled with her purse, trying to get her wallet out to pay for her coffee. She stood there, fishing through the bag for the cheddar until Kyle placed his hand gently upon her wrist.
"...I'll just...I've got it. Go home, May."
May looked at Kyle. Kyle looked back to the table, staring at the dried ring left from her coffee cup. Her sad eyes trailed to the window. The rain was picking up, and people scurried around beyond the glass with their hands deep in their pockets and coat collars turned up about their necks. May sighed and grabbed her umbrella. She walked to the front door and stopped, looking back at Kyle. There she stood, staring for seconds, which turned into minutes, into hours, and stretched into decades between the two. All seemed quiet, save for the din of the raindrops colliding with the windows. May closed her eyes and turned her head twords the heavy glass doors.
"He's a wonderful person, Kyle. He treats me well...he'd never hurt me. You don't have to...you don't have to save me anymore." And with that, she left. She opened up her umbrella outside Cafe Delight and made her way to her car. Her brisk pace reflected her urgency. The rain fell like hammer upon the anvil, and Kyle watched May hurry to her car. Again she fumbled through her purse, searching frantically for her keys within its confines. Finaly, May found the keys, opened her car, and started it up. Still, Kyle watched her as she pulled away from the curb and sped out of sight. She was on her way. Into the rain, she went. Back to her home. Back to her lover. Her groom to be.
--

Fun little exercise I did a couple days ago. I listened to a song and, for the duration of the song, I wrote about a scenario that came to mind, and wrapped it up when the song ended.
Song was "Dearly Beloved" from the Kingdom Hearts OST with Rainymood in the background.

So I decided to give myself ten minutes to write a little something about Joust. Turned out sort of okay.


The foul stench of sulfur filled the air as Lorenzo looked up at the night sky. Were it not for, more or less, absolutely everything, it would have been a rather fine evening. The eldritch glow spewing forth from the depths of the volcano dominated the sky above, blotting out the surrounding stars, but the moon still shone down clearly, calming his nerves a little.

That malodour, that fiery, smoky fog belching out around him was slowly filling his lungs with its taint, not to mention filling his heart with hate. It was the same smell that had been in the air all those nights ago, and every other night since. They had swooped into the village. Men - no, not men, demons - demons descended on the people, riding horrible, wretched vultures. They came in droves. Nobody had seen them coming. They couldn't possibly have defended themselves. They spewed out across the town like a plague. Nobody stood up against them. Burning buildings lined the streets. Corpses littered the roads. Screams of rape and murder echoed all around. Lorenzo saw his house, on fire. An empty bed. A bloody cot. Then he saw his friends, his townsfolk. All of them either dying, or on their knees begging.

Not anymore. Lorenzo put that scene out of his mind. Tonight, the tables were turned. Tonight, it was him swooping down on them. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and a voice behind him, breaking his thoughts. "Are you alright, brother?" Miguel said, with sincere concern in his voice. He'd met Miguel many, many moons ago, back in their knighting days. They had both been squires together, and they had ridden together in every battle. Their thirst for battle and glory had waned along with their youth, and despite their skill, they had decided to both retreat to a smaller village, and try their hands at a simpler life. The vultures, apparently, had thought otherwise.

Blinking a few times, Lorenzo met his gaze. "Nowhere near alright, my friend," he replied with a mirthless grimace, the picture of that bloody cot stuck in his head like an arrow, "but I am ready to ride." He choked on his next words, and teared up a little at the corner of his eyes. "I need this," he managed to squeeze out, "we both need this. Those monsters are a hellspawn, a menace to every person in the land, and everybody's just getting on their knees and letting them have their way. It ain't right. We need this." Miguel nodded, and patted him on the back a few times. "Very well," he said, furrowing his brow, " then the die is cast. Mount your bird, friend, and take wing. We ride."

Lorenzo turned to face Avashar, his trusty Ostrich. She'd been by his side for as long as Lorenzo had, and she was as close to him as he was. He gently stroked her neck."You've been the best bird a knight could ever hope for, Ava. We've had a lot of good years." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I just need one last ride, girl. Just one more. I know you've still got it in you." She clicked her tongue confidently, happiness in her eyes. Lorenzo smiled sincerely, for the first time since he'd first seen those deathly vultures.

Hopping on her back, Lorenzo called out to Miguel. "I lead." Miguel nodded back to him. They both roared up into the night sky, then plummeted straight down the center of that horrible volcanic lair. They probably weren't going to make it back again, they both knew that, but it didn't matter. They had to try.

Im thinking of making a short story called "A Day in the Life of My Worst Nightmare". Its about me having to live in a world where everyone is really dogmatic and religious and preachy. Everyone has Bible quotes as their facebook status.

It would be like living in Texas all over again.

Because being anti-religious is so edgy.

But seriously dude, what's the point. Would the plot sum up to "Lots of people talk about God and they're wrong"? There's very little potential for any narrative with that concept.

The point is that I have an extreme hate for preachy people.

So keep it to yourself. Writing a story about how much you hate them is just juvenile.

It wasnt supposed to be a serious story, just a joke, really.

But whatever

So I tried to write a children's story. This would be a first for me.


It was very cold, very dark, very scary and very lonely. Archibald was a spare robot. Smoggy, shady factories towered into the clouds, always making more and more robots, day and night. They did everything in the cities, so nobody ever had to go to work. Each robot got built with their own designation. Some were built to cook, some were built to clean, some were built to dance, or sing, or drive, or teach, but they all got built to do something - except for the spare robots.

Sometimes, something went wrong, and one of the robots would stop working. Because they're very important, they needed to get fixed as fast as they could, but they couldn't always get fixed quickly enough. The cities are always very busy, so everybody needed everything done as soon as possible. So when one of the robots stopped working, instead of waiting around for it to get repaired, they sent out a spare robot, because nobody wanted to wait.

The factories would open up their storage sheds, pull out one of the spare robots in there, and load it up with a designation, so it could go and replace one of the broken ones. It all happened very quickly, and nobody ever noticed anything, because they were all far too busy doing much more important things. All the robots and all the factories became almost invisible, just little things in the background that people didn't pay attention to.

Archibald had to stand in one of the storage sheds, with the other spare robots, all day and all night long. Because they were spare robots, the factories didn't bother giving them something to do. They were all just stuffed into a little metal storage shed, lined up one by one, with no lights, no room, nothing at all. It was very cold, very dark, very scary and very lonely in there for Archibald.

Then one day, when Archibald was just standing still like he always did, the storage shed opened up, and one of the other spare robots got taken out into the factory. Archibald decided that he didn't want to be scared or lonely anymore, so before the shed closed again, he ran outside, into the light. It was the first time in his whole life that he had been outside of the storage shed, and it all looked very different.

He was inside one of the robot factories. There were lots of big, whirring machines everywhere, with long arms moving pieces from one spot to another, and huge metal disks spinning around and around. Everything was making a lot of noise, and moving very quickly. Archibald was starting to feel a little lost.

The lights were all leading to the one side of the factory, where there was a huge metal door. Archibald felt like following the lights, because of all that time he spent in the dark. So he walked past all the whirring machines and over to the door. He pushed it open, and stepped outside for the first time.

It was morning outside, and Archibald looked up. The black clouds coming out of the factory were blocking out a lot of the sky, but he could still see the sun. Archibald liked the sun. It looked very warm, and bright, and friendly. He felt like walking around in the sunlight for a little while, so he took off down the road.

There were lots of cars roaring up and down the roads as fast as they could, and lots of people swarming around the streets, pushing past each other. Archibald strolled by very calmly, thinking that everybody looked really quite busy. It had been some time since he had left the factory, and he was wondering what he was supposed to do now. All the other spare robots got loaded up with a designation before they left, they already knew what they were supposed to be doing all day long, but Archibald was starting to feel more and more lost in this busy city.

All of the other robots looked like they were doing something, so Archibald thought he should ask one of them for help. There was a little book shop next to him, and he saw another robot standing behind a counter there, so he went inside. Archibald walked up to the counter, and asked the robot there if she knew what he should be doing. She said that she didn't really understand what he meant. Archibald replied that he didn't really understand either. They were both a little confused, but she told him that she knew she was supposed to look after the store, so if he wanted to help her, maybe that would work.

That made sense to Archibald, so he went to the closet in the store to get the broom, and he started sweeping the floors. Then he cleaned all of the shelves, dusted every single one of the books, and cleaned all the windows. Then he mopped the floors, and wiped down the walls, and even polished the doorknobs. Archibald worked very hard for a very long time until there was nothing left to do. Even after he was finished with all that work, he still didn't feel any better. He still didn't know what he was supposed to be doing. The other robot behind the counter told him she was sorry, but she didn't think she could help him anymore. Archibald was starting to feel a little scared again.

The sun was starting to go down, and it was getting dark. Archibald really didn't want to be stuck in the dark again, but he didn't know what to do. There were lampposts on every street corner, and he liked the light from them. Archibald started walking down the street until he found a very quiet road with nobody else around. Then he climbed up to the top of one of the lampposts, and took the little light bulb out of the top.

Archibald held the little light very close to him and started walking down the road again. It was very dark outside now. All of the people had gone home, and the streets were empty. After walking around for a little while, Archibald found a small bridge near some trees. He couldn't think of anything else he should be doing, so he lay down on the ground under the bridge, hugged the light very close to his chest, and shut his eyes tight. Archibald definitely did not like night time. It felt like he was back in the storage shed again. Even though he was out now, it was still cold and dark, and he was still scared and lonely.

All night long he lay there under the bridge, hugging his little light until the sun came up again. It wasn't until he heard the fast cars roaring past and the people rushing past in a hurry that he dared to open his eyes again. Archibald still felt just as bad, but now that it was morning again, he felt safe enough to keep walking around. Before he got up, he decided to leave his light under the bridge, so he could come back when it was night time again.

For now, he walked up another street. There was another huge group of people all walking very quickly in every direction again. Archibald stood still, and decided to watch them. They all looked like they had somewhere to be, and something to do, but he started to wonder if they were just pretending. Were they as lost as he was?

There was a very busy little store on the corner of the street he was standing on. More people seemed to be coming in and out of there than anywhere else, so Archibald walked over to have a look. It was a small bakery, and people were eating and drinking inside. They didn't stay very long though; they were all in a rush. Archibald walked up to one of the robots inside and asked if he could help him. The other robot was just as confused as the one from the book shop, but after another strange conversation, he said Archibald could come back into the kitchen and help them work if he wanted to.

There was a lot to do at the bakery. Archibald carried heavy bags of flour up and down the kitchen. He cut big shapes out of the dough, he put trays and trays of bread in the huge ovens, and he made some coffees for customers. Then he pulled all those trays out of the ovens, and made another giant batch of dough, and kept working very hard for the whole day. All of the other robots seemed very pop flyin' with what they were doing, but Archibald didn't feel any different.

The bakery was closing down for the night. The robot that had let him work there shrugged his shoulders, and told him that he didn't know what they could do. Archibald was starting to get very worried that he'd never find out what he was supposed to be doing. He walked out of the shop, and noticed that it was starting to get dark again. This time, though, he had his little light already set up, so he walked straight there past all the empty streets.

When he got there though, he found more than just a light. There was another robot there, sitting next to his light and shaking. She looked up at him when he came closer. Archibald thought she seemed quite frightened. They sat there staring at each other for some time, before he told her his name. After a small pause, she told him that her name was Mildred. She opened up to him and told him that she was a spare robot. Archibald was very surprised, and told her that he was, too.

They sat and they talked long into the night, about how scared they were and how confused they were. They both trembled as they told each other how lonely they were and how dark and cold everything seemed. After a very long conversation, the sun had come back, and it was morning again.

The two of them stood up, looking into each other's eyes. Mildred asked him to take her hand. Nothing had changed. Neither of them had found a designation yet. They were both still just as scared and confused, and the world was still just as cold and dark. That didn't seem quite so bad anymore though, because even though they were both still very, very afraid, they both knew they could try to find out what to do together.

Starting on a story in which a man takes stereotypically evil actions, but make sense in context. I'm having a little bit of trouble coming up with a good list of stereotypically evil stuff though. So far I've got burning down an orphanage, kicking a puppy, taking candy from a baby, and rearranging a blind person's furniture.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

tying a woman to a railroad track

Stealing candy seems pretty childish in comparison to burning down an orphanage. Like, what kind of evil are you going for here? Sith warlord, or vaudeville dick dastardly?