Improving our 300 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST!

[Peter V]

Nothing specifically wrong with the story JS, the idea is fine. A slightly better economy of words can be achieved (below for some examples) but mainly the reason it missed a mention from me was purely because I thought there was treasure in the cave. A memory of lost loved ones is a treasure, no matter how painful that memory is, or guilt reminded - I mention the latter because I was unsure whether Damn you Cassandra! The warnings were true and you did not listen! is in relation to the warnings about the cave, or whether she may have been the cause of her families death. If it was the former, then certainly I think the cave was indeed full of treasure and her reaction to flee surprising. If the latter, then it would have been nicely set up for a bittersweet introspection.


Some thoughts to save a few words (although please bear in mind that grammatically I am middle of the road myself and others may have a different opinion).


Cassandra rowed the dingy across glass smooth water. Ahead, framed by light blue sky above and it’s own reflection below, jutted a small island with a small cave. Her eyes sparkled like the sea with rumors of treasure hidden within. the cave.

Sure, there were warnings. There always were. were always warnings. But Cassandra didn’t believe in ghosts, nor shy from threatened psychotic fantasies of unattainable desires. She certainly didn’t - wouldn't let tall tales dissuade a treasure hunt. So in into the cave she went.



Ultimately the economy of five words that I save was almost certainly not necessary but I always try and save all the words I can, so that when it comes to editing I have more flexibility to radically change things if I think of something better.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

I appreciate any and all feedback on my Q3-2021 entry, reproduced here in its entirety for your convenience. Thanks!

In all honesty I don't have much to say - I think it's well written and constructed. The bitter pill of the treasure was a nice touch.

If I was to nit pick it would probably be over her rage at seeing her family, and that I think there should have been an emotional journey from almost forgetting her family are an illusion, being delighted in their presence, to rage at coming to realise they're not real. But that would probably have required more words than available - so as is, a great effort!

 

[Wayne Mack]

@JS Wiig, I felt that the cave of dreams was a wonderful setting and I really would like to hear more about it. Unfortunately, I felt the ending let the story down. The opening promise was that Cassandra was in search of treasure, but the conclusion was no treasure to be found. The high point was the memories in the cave, which were quite well done, but then the story just ended without resolution. One sentence to say that her family was killed, then a single line at the end to say no treasure found.

 

[Elckerlyc]

There were many excellent stories. In such a situation nitpicking is required to reduce the numbers to get a shortlist. Which can sound a bit harsh. There were a number of things I stumbled across when I read your story. Which doesn't bode well for a possible shortlisting.

I wasn't very happy with the metaphors you came up with. That's something of a personal taste, I suppose, but when they are contradicting each other or even unnatural, than I start to stumble.
In sentence 1: "across glass smooth water." Sounds a bit artificial, but OK. However, when she is rowing back, it is: "Burning arms heaved against swells." Do the 'swells' refer to waves on the smooth water? What about the 'heaving arms?' I suppose it has to sync with the swells, but in that case her dingy would heave, or her chest, not her arms.
"She pulled hard against the oars." Shouldn't that be "'she pulled hard at the oars.""? Or "against the waves or current."?
There a few more of these phrases that didn't rang with me, but enough of that.

I can imagine that the hallucinations were an emotional shock. But her reaction "Grasping for one last thread of sanity," I found a wee bit over the top. Considering that afterwards she "stopped to curse an empty sky." (she didn't, she cursed Kuiper Maffia, herself and the cave, so perhaps she cursed at an empty sky.) she seemed mostly angry, not about to lose her mind because of what basically seemed to be innocent memories. Nothing to be afraid of, in and of itself. Or did the cave know what had happened to her family and that she was sure to almost lose her sanity because of these illusions? If the cave was indeed malevolent, which the warnings about it seems to suggest, it should have shown pictures of her murdered family in gory detail.

So what was the story about? Does the cave hide treasure or not? Are the hallucinations a means to frighten of treasure hunters? If not, where do the stories about treasure come from when the cave only does cause hallucinations, without further intentions? Did Cassandra lie about there being no treasure in the cave to hide the fact that she had fled the cave to save her sanity? Her wistful look seems to suggest this.

Casandra had quite a distance to row: "until the island was a speck in the distance." And still she wasn't near her ship. I suspect you used the distance she rowed to show how angry/fearful she was, but it made me wonder why she hadn't landed her ship somewhat conveniently closer to the cave.

So, all in all, too many things to earn you a mention, certainly when compared to the high quality of some of the other stories.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Some good points already made. Not only does tidying up sentences improve your word availability, it makes them more pleasing on the eye. I also think that you need to grab the reader's attention in the first paragraph with something to draw the reader into the story.

I was also a little puzzled that she did not embrace the opportunity to see her family again. In such a vivid experience, it would surely be treasure to see your murdered loved ones return. The fact that she was apparently seeking monetary reward doesn't really make for a unique tale. As part of a larger story it perhaps works, but (imho) it didn't really work as a story in itself.

An alternative idea could have been to meet her dead family, who initially appeared pleased to see her (and she them), but the beautiful vision turns into a nightmare when they start to accuse of being the cause of their fates 'Where were you when we will being slaughtered?' 'Did you not hear our cries?' 'Did we not warn you to stay away from the kuiper mafia' etc.

 

[JS Wiig]

It seems one major point that I have portrayed poorly is that Cassandra is in extreme denial of what happened to her family, which is why she is acting thus.

Any ideas on that front? Perhaps (as always) too much for the challenge media…

Thanks!

 

[Cat's Cradle]

First, @JS Wiig, I think you nailed your interpretation of the picture; I see the water and island and the warped reality (illusions) she experiences in the cave directly in the photo, so good job there. And there is some nice writing throughout the story.
But I think my feelings are similar to Elckerlyc’s as to the overall effectiveness of the story (and I have trouble doing critiques because they can sound harsh… I hope my thoughts/ opinions might be helpful in some way. They are not meant to be negative, but hopefully constructive.).
I thought there was some loose writing that led to confusion in a few places, and pulled me out of the narrative. From the opening:

Cassandra rowed the dingy across glass smooth water. Ahead, framed by light blue sky above and it’s own reflection below, jutted a small island with a small cave. Her eyes sparkled like the sea with rumors of treasure hidden within the cave.

then later:

Burning arms heaved against swells…

I agree with Elckerlyc that it’s a bit jarring to go from glass smooth water initially to struggling against swells later (unless there is some sort of psychic/physical manifestation of her trauma within the waters of the sea… but I don’t think there is enough of a reference in the story so far to justify this as a possibility). On the surface, it seems the glass-smooth water is mentioned to add the artistic framing reference of the island mirrored in the sea.

This use of the reflection imagery leaves little word-count left for the description of the island: a small island with a small cave. And to be honest, this cave description led to some confusion for me when paired with the lines:

So into the cave she went.

then later:

Grasping for one last thread of sanity, she pulled hard against the oars to extract herself from the cave.

I was totally surprised, and distracted from the narrative thread, by the fact that Cassandra had rowed into the cave. If a story tells me there is an island with a cave, without any more detail, I assume the island is inland a bit, maybe amongst palm trees and rocky hills. I never imagined the cave was at the shoreline. If the line I mentioned above had used description something more like this (and sorry to rewrite, this is just to illustrate my thoughts, and is crudely written):

Ahead, mantled by the blue sky above, jutted a rocky island with a sea-accessible cave yawning in darkness at the shoreline.

That’s one word longer than your sentence, but I’d think the blue sky bits could also be deleted, because it seems more important to describe the island and cave in a bit more detail. This gives, to me, more useful information than that the island is reflected in the calm waters (especially when the waters are said to be not still later). And it makes sense now when Cassandra later rows out of the cave back to the sea. I wouldn’t mind even more detail, namely what the inside of the cave looked like. If a few words could be found to tell us - before the illusion starts - that the cave was dark and dank, with a luminescent fungus growing on the walls (for ex), that atmosphere could lend some weight to the onset of the illusions.

Then, the line:

So into the cave she went.

seems so passive. Here you can tell us she is rowing into the cave, to make our mental image clearer. In saying she went into the cave, we don’t really understand how she went in; did she slink in, or run, or walk slowly. Telling us she rowed in at least gives us more of a specific mental image of the scene, and ties in with her rowing out of the cave, a bit later.

Another thing that confused me was the out-of-the-blue reference to the Kuiper Mafia. Cassandra is from the planet Kovar, so we are in deep space. But the only ‘Kuiper’ I know of is the Kuiper belt in Sol system (our own star system). It made me stop to wonder if her family had been killed in the asteroids around Sol, instead of on Kovar. I think just some arbitrary, futuristic-sounding name might have been less distracting here; it just seemed odd that a deep-space mafia would choose the name of a Sol system asteroid belt for itself.
Overall, I found her thoughts here a bit too melodramatic, and unfocused to be effective.

I was a bit surprised that she would set down so far away from the island, and then row to it. I thought: Is the island so small that a spaceship couldn’t land on it? I also wondered whether or not a big spaceship could just float on the surface of a sea. If she was rowing back to the spaceship at a fixed point, then it must be floating in the sea miles away (the length of her frantic rowings). And I wondered why the spaceship - if it can float on the sea, and take off from the sea - didn’t just come retrieve her. Or is the spaceship on some larger body of land? We don’t really know.

And finally, I agree that the final bit lacked potency. It was a bit unsatisfying that she didn’t see the glimpses of her family as treasure. I wonder if a final line such as this might have worked better:
“I can’t reclaim the treasures lost here.”
That might have seemed more enigmatic to the first-mate too, which isn’t a bad thing in an ending.

I think the photo inspired a good idea from you, and that you write well. But there were just a few bits throughout that seemed to me unclear, or inadequately descriptive (and there were a few places where description was added that could have been deleted, to focus things more… such as the sea-reflection vs more detailed cave description). It was just a great Challenge for stories, and this is a good story, but maybe it could have been just a bit better. Keep entering though!

ps - RE: your post just above... I understood Cassandra's denial over the loss of her family.
I am thinking that this might just be too much story to adequately tell in 300 words, as you want to present it. When I have too much story, I cut out characters, and subplots. You could easily have eliminated any reference to a first-mate, and that person's dialogue. The references to the blue sky could have been eliminated, or minimized. The Kupier Mafia could have been eliminated. I don't know that you really needed her rowing to the island, and then didn't necessarily need the word-count required to get her rowing out of the cave... rowing vigorously back to the boat... and then the descriptions of how the island looked like a speck in the distance. Eliminate that all by just having her pilot a small, single-person spaceship and landing directly on the island. Use the word count to describe her interior struggles, and loss... and maybe more of the trauma she experienced within the cave. I think focusing more on her loss, and not necessarily who was responsible for her loss, could have been effective here. But perhaps cutting out all the geographical stuff would have let you focus on her interior state more effectively. (Sorry to be so long-winded!)

edit - it just hit me that, IMO, structurally and narratively it is more effective to have her alone on this planet. She is suffering, her entire family has been killed, and how much deeper the pain would be if she were alone with it, when she is immersed in it. And the first-mate doesn't seem to add anything of substance to the story. Okay, no more from me!

 

[Astro Pen]

There hasn't been a 300 crit for a couple of months. So I thought I'd put mine up to glean where it failed.
I don't tend to blow my own trumpet but I confess I was really pleased with this little story to the extent that I am writing a full short 5-6k from it.
I thought it was an interesting world and worth the effort of expanding. Yet it tanked with only 2 votes.
So, curious as to why most people walked past my shop as it were?


Preservation

The planet was not completely navigable by boat but her temperate zones were girdled with canals. Sail and sled dogs hauled the barges. No coal or peat because life had not existed here until the monastery was founded.

Their colony ship had brought plants, fauna, fish and insects with them and was afterward ceremoniously dispatched to fall into the sun. All contact with metals intentionally lost.

There were memories of technology but no means available for its making.

So, for 800 years, this idyllic world enabled the quasi religious People of Nature to pursue a life in a land of pastoral beauty.

Aldred sat on deck, moored at The Bridge Alehouse, and played The Wassailing Rambler on his flute for the gathered evening drinkers. Annie was below deck mixing her honey and herb medicines for the Tuesday fair.

Reed Warblers flitted for insects and duck calls followed sunset.

Erwin joined him on the barge, bringing a welcome glass. The pair gazed up into the night, indulging their habit of naming new constellations in the alien sky.

"The Mouse", said Aldred, pointing south.

"More like a shrew", mused Erwin.

To their surprise a new star appeared, glowing bright. With a faint roar it descended toward the village, some seven miles distant.

Aldred scowled and looked at Erwin.

"So, the day has come."

"The day for what?" asked Erwin. "And what is that light?"

"Come below, quickly," ordered Aldred. "It's a ship, likely from the corrupt Earth that our forefathers escaped."

He lifted his bed and hauled out a heavy trunk, opening it with a carved key.

"Knives!" exclaimed Irwin.

"Yes. Now call the men down here, they will have to learn fast."

"But - Learn what Aldred?"

Aldred ran his finger along a blade.

"One last use of metal."

 

[The Judge]

I liked the beginning of the story, AP, and on my first read I was putting it into a mental long list as a result, but the second half didn't work for me. I should say that I'm a gut-instinct reader, so what follows isn't what I sat and considered at the time of that first -- or subsequent -- reading, but how I've now looked at the story in detail to try and determine why I reacted to it as I did.

Certainly, though, the abrupt shift in tone rather jolted me even on first read -- you've got pastoral bliss sliding into bucolic festivities which was fine, but then *wham* it's space craft and murder. There's no hint in the first half that anyone lives in dread of the colony being found, no foreshadowing or portending which would have served to create a unified whole. I also found it jarring that Aldred immediately jumps to the conclusion that the newcomers must be from Earth -- after having left them alone for 800 years?! -- and so must be killed, which doesn't sit well with this idea of the kindly semi-religious group you seem to be pushing.

I also wasn't taken with the premise. I found the idea that a colony could thrive without metals somewhat simplistic, but even if I accepted that, the spin you implicitly put on it that no metals = paradise is utterly untenable -- people were killing each other with rocks and pieces of wood and beatings/strangulation long before they found out how to work metal. And the exclamation of "Knives!" shows recognition, so clearly they do have cutting implements, if only of knapped flint or the like, presumably with which they butcher their animals or cut their vegetables, and undoubtedly they'd also have axes, otherwise how do they chop down the trees to make/mend their boats, which couldn't possibly have lasted 800 years even if the originals were brought there. So if they have similar weapons, why keep a hoard of metal knives? That wouldn't give the colonists any advantage, much less against a possible enemy that has had 800 more years to produce even better weapons and defensive systems. If the hoard had been of guns, at least there would have been some justification for the idea of metal being important, and the guns, being used at distance, would be of more use.

And that's before we start thinking of how they'd kept up the knowledge of the knives over 800 years, and how unlikely it is 800 year old weapons would be immediately useable, or that the spacecraft would land handily close to the one person who has got the knives and knows how to use them.

So for me it felt like you'd had a good idea but you hadn't properly thought through the backstory, or if you had, you didn't think to show it better in the writing.

As for the writing, it felt almost like two separate stories rammed together and not properly bridged and made a unified whole, and while on first read I enjoyed the omniscient/authorial voice of the opening, the loss of that when you introduced the characters also created for me a lack of cohesion. To my mind, too, you rather wasted too much of your word count on things that weren't necessary eg Annie when you could have made more of the plot.

One more thing, do be careful about what roles you give people. I note that while the men are drinking and playing music, the one woman referred to is working, and it's "Now call the men down here" ie the women won't be taught how to use the knives. If this religious society is sexist, make something of it, because as it stands it does seem to suggest you've not thought of how women would be present in this world.

So, overall, a neat idea, but for me it didn't come together well enough to get onto my shortlist.

That help?

 

[Parson]

I agree with The Judge here. It felt like two stories. I loved the first half. It's the kind of story that doesn't get written, or at least published, enough in S.F. I also found it jarring that someone had been preparing for war/murder for 800 years without any external threat. Then there was the whole unequal thing. If we have a starship landing, and especially landing for bad purposes, how would a bunch of mostly untrained people armed with knives be any kind of deterrent to any known (to say nothing of unknown) weaponry.

Either story had possibilities for me, but together they did not work.

** My usual caveat here: Two votes is not paltry. Obviously your story worked for some people and that alone makes it a pretty good story.

 

[mosaix]

Unlike TJ, I thought the beginning was the weak point of the story. For me, it was too slow and didn't grab me - which is important when I'm wading through a sea of 300-word stories.

Looking back at the story now I feel it should have started with the fifth paragraph. That's not to say that the first four aren't important (although they are a bit telling rather than showing) it's just that I feel they could come later. I like to read an opening paragraph that, rather than providing information, leaves me with unanswered questions and a desire to read on. The fifth paragraph does this immediately - who is Aldred? I have to read on to find out.

I say this in the full knowledge that I feel that my own 300-word contribution was a bit of a slow starter as well.

 

[sule]

As someone who voted for your story, I feel I should share some of my thoughts.

The thing that mainly grabbed my attention (and my vote) was the quiet gentleness of the world and its characters, which the ending directly undercut. This worked for me, because there was a sense of disruption of this idyllic world - my interpretation of the ending was that, even if the main characters were able to drive away the interlopers they would have lost something greater that could not be recovered. Also, the characters naming constellations I thought was a nice touch of specificity that gave them some life.

However, I agree with mosaix that the beginning went on a little too long setting up this world, and that took valuable words away from the later parts of the story. For instance, the sentences: "All contact with metals intentionally lost." and "There were memories of technology but no means available for its making." to me feel like they could be trimmed down or combined in some way; they seemed to say very nearly the same thing. I also agree with The Judge that Aldred's knowledge and distrust of Earth could have been addressed better as it felt important to his character as well as the story's ending (and its implications).

That being said, I liked this story.

 

[Elckerlyc]

For the most part I can only repeat what others have already pointed out. A lot of words were spent on picturing the world and it took a bit too long before some action entered the plot. Some details fell in the water and went nowhere, like this Tuesday fair?
800 years is a really long time. You might expect that after 800 years all the possible constellations would have been named, Earth would have been forgotten or at least that the assumption that it would remain corrupt forever a bit nuanced. Keeping a trunk under your bed full with metal knives (despite the apparent taboo) just in case Earth shows up is a wee bit paranoid.
Besides, what's wrong about metals? Is this what made Earth corrupt?
All in all it raised too many questions for me to enjoy.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I agree that the story should have started at paragraph 5. A third of your wordcount was spent on providing background information, which would be necessary in a novel , but not so much in a 300 word short story. What was important in the context of your story could have been alluded or referred to in the conversations that follow.

A couple of things that did puzzle me were that if they had landed on a planet with absolutely no form of life/vegetation, how could they possibly have survived with just what they had brought with them? Could dogs pull a barge? How would you build anything without metallic tools? Where does the wood come from? Why would Aldred know who their unexpected visitors were, but Irwin be seemingly ignorant?

These are all things that could be answered in a longer story, but are hard to fit into a 300 worder. I do think that it has the makings of a good story, and could throw up a few interesting situations. Perhaps some of the colonists want to go back to the technologically advanced Earth. Why is Earth making contact 800 years later, is there something the colonists have that they desire? Is the spacecraft the last remnants of a devastated Earth, and trying to take over this colony . Are they bringing with them technology that is forbidden by the colonists, but which those from Earth insist on using? Lots of interesting possibilities, but unfortunately outside of the realms of a 300 word story.

 

[Wayne Mack]

@Astro Pen, I liked that your story seemed to be a retelling of the garden of Eden tale. It also provoked a strong reaction in me with the ending.

In the introduction of the story, I didn't quite buy into the idea of metal as evil, though, I was willing to forego that doubt, if the second part of the story was not dependent upon it. Ending the story with the characters planning for mass murder, did not provide an enjoyable conclusion. Also, the rejection of metal seemed too close to current day's rejection of science. Given that I usually read for escape, this last to themes, though powerful, limited my enjoyment of the story.

I think the story was technically fine, but the ending was a little too dark for my tastes.

 

[JS Wiig]

I appreciate any and all feedback on my October entry, reproduced here in its entirety for your convenience. Thanks!

One Way Out

Cassandra’s pulse pounded as she raced from the village of the cannibal Mantis Tribe. Warriors were in hot pursuit, intent on reclaiming the stolen treasure she had (in fact) reclaimed from them. Out of the deep woods she burst, across a wide and grassy clearing. Behind, the war cries faded slightly as she put some distance between herself and the hangry primitives.

She skidded to a halt before the most frightening tangle of cobweb strewn thorny bushes she had ever seen. It reminded her of the terrible crawlspace under grandma’s house, where her big sister had made her retrieve lost balls and other misplaced playthings. She had yet to outgrow that childhood nightmare. Beyond, just at the edge of obscured sight, waited her shuttle, idling and ready to depart with the bounty.

I don’t think I can do this.

A poison-tipped blow dart whizzed past her head and changed her mind; she plunged headlong into the thicket. Thorns tore clothing and ripped flesh. She tried to keep her mouth shut tight, but panicked escape forced heavy breath through parted lips, quickly sticky with webbing. Thoughts of how many bugs plunged into her open shirt collar withered her iron wit.

Finally, she fought her way through to the other side. The warriors screamed—with luck cursing her tenacity and their unwillingness to follow. She spat and wiped clingy threads from her mouth, nose and eyes. A thousand tiny legs crawling under her shirt sent her sprinting to the shuttle where she dove into the open cargo door. Her partner Alex stood there, a clever smirk stretched across his face.

“Did you get it?” he asked.

“Yeah I got it, now get us the hell out of here!” she said, hysterically stripping clothes and smashing scattering spiders and insects under her boot.

 

[sule]

It's an admirable effort, a fun adventure yarn. My main issue with it was the lack of specificity regarding the treasure she'd reclaimed from the tribe. It felt that, for something that so many people were willing to go to such lengths to obtain, we should have gotten some idea of what it was or why they wanted it.

Beyond that, the ending didn't feel like a resolution to me, specifically because it didn't find a way to come back to her flashback and her personal feelings about bushes and such. It didn't feel like she'd conquered it or that she'd failed to conquer it, certainly her self-image remained unchanged. The way the story ended mainly treated it as a thing that happened, which fell flat for me since you went to the trouble of including that internal struggle by way of the flashback. In my opinion, you could have cut the whole flashback, instead giving something like "She groaned at the thought of the thousands of insects lurking inside" and kept the focus on her struggle to get away from the tribe, which is the main conflict (at least, it's the conflict that is resolved by the end of the story).

I thought it was a fine story, but those two issues were mainly what kept me from adding it to my shortlist.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

JS, I thought this was a good improvement on your July entry. The writing is more focused, the physical elements of the world your MC is experiencing are more defined, and the pacing throughout was very good.

If I had to say why I didn't list this I'd point to two things; first, the storytelling seemed a bit generic, or familiar. I'd stay away from some of the more cliched descriptions; they can make a story seem almost like satire of older writing.
Examples from the first paragraph:

...pulse pounding...
Warriors were in hot pursuit...
...(she burst) across a wide and grassy clearing.
Even the use of the word 'primitives' would seem off-putting and old fashioned.

Second, I'd encourage you to expand your storytelling palette. Some folks might remember entries from Challenge to Challenge, and to my mind the story arc in One Way Out - at least the bare bones of the story - are too similar to your July story. A woman is on a hurried trip to retrieve something of value at an isolated locale; she grabs it, then has to rush back to a shuttle/spaceship where a man is waiting for her.
I agree with sule about the ending of this story; there was no true denouement; what was the significance of this episode?
And that's the last thing - with this ending, this felt less like a story than a scene, or an episode.

But all that said, I did enjoy this and think you are moving in the right direction. A good effort, and keep writing!

 

[paranoid marvin]

I would agree with many of the comments above. It was well written, with some well described, well paced action sequences. Very reminiscent of the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

For me though, it wasn't enough of a story; what had been stolen, why was it being recovered and what was so important about it. It also didn't make sense that the pursuers wouldn't follow her; after all it was more of a psychological barrier (for her at least) and not a difficult physical deterrent for them not to follow.

There is nothing wrong with using recurring characters and/or 'episodes' from an overall bigger story - others have done it very well, and very successfully - but it still needs to be a story in and of itself, which I don't think yours was.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Firstly, I would like to say congratulations to Phyrebat for winning this month's competition, and to Astro Pen for a very close runner-up. Secondly, I would like to again say thankyou to those who chose to vote and shortlist my story. I was very, very happy with achieving 5 votes, a number of shortlistings and some really nice comments on my entry.

But I would now ask a favour of those who didn't vote for my story as to where I could have improved. And for those who did, what would have helped to make it even better.

I would also ask a second favour. My intention with this entry was to try to emulate a M R James type of ghost story , but in only 300 words. My personal feeling is that the first part of my story followed his style of writing, but the second didn't, so I wrote what I felt to be a more 'Jamesian' ending. I was toying between the two , and I would appreciate your comments as to whether I chose the right one for my story.

Thankyou in advance, any and all comments (good and bad) are very much appreciated..






The Night Stair


Samuels was most satisfied with his appointment as Canon of the abbey. "Pride is a sin" he had to remind himself; but nevertheless he couldn't resist a smile when regarding the magnificent edifice with it's intricately detailed stained-glass windows and tall Norman arches. What most impressed him was the Night Stair; a flight of forty worn stone steps that rose from the North transept and led to his rooms, formerly the monk's dormitory before the Suppression.

One thing puzzled him. "Why is a lantern left burning every night on the Stair?" he enquired of the churchwarden.

"It's always been the way" replied the warden. "Ever since a young monk late for Matins hurried down the Stair without his candle, tripped and broke his neck. From that day to this, a lantern has been left lit."

"Superstitious nonsense" declared Samuels " And a waste of good oil. If I ever wish to descend those stairs at night, I'll use a torch." And so the light that had burned for centuries was extinguished.

That night Samuels woke from fitful sleep to the sound of loud crashing, accompanied by a blood-curdling scream. Leaping from bed, he ran from his rooms and to the top of the Night Stair.

As his eyes started to become accustomed to the gloom, he sensed the presence before discerning the outline of a cowled figure.

*************************** original ending ****************************************************

"Who's there?" he demanded.

The figure said nothing.

"Churchwarden, is that you?"

The figure said nothing.

Samuels started to feel a little uneasy. "Look, I'm sorry that I put out the lantern. I'll make sure it stays lit from now on, I swear."

The figure said nothing.

His voice now shaking "What... what can I say, what can I do to make things right between us?"

The figure said "NOTHING."


************************* alternative ending ******************************

It's said pride comes before a fall. This was certainly true for Samuels, whose broken body was discovered at the foot of the Stair the following morning, The coroner ruled 'death by misadventure', the likely cause a combination of slippery steps and poor lighting, although the look of abject terror etched on the Canon's face was less easily explained.

The Stair lantern was relit, and I believe remains so to this day.