Hey so a while back I wrote a bit of a horror story and submitted it to Smoking Pen Press emag and they picked it for some reason and now you can read it!
Look at that cover. Doesn't it look nice?
Look at that cover. Doesn't it look nice?
I've not read the other stories included, but I'm excited to once I get my contributor copy. Apparently, mine isn't the only story to include revenge. :)
As for my writer insight: I wrote it to see if I could do a story with a gender-neutral protagonist. You are free to interpret the character's gender in any way you wish. I had also been writing a thesis on revenge tales in Shakespearean drama, so revenge was on my mind and it worked its way into the plot. Revenge is often a gendered theme, so I was curious whether I could avoid some of those implications with a non-specified protagonist.
But also, the ending came about because I'm not the best plotter in the world, so I was just like, "Errr...how do I wrap this up? Murder? OK murder sounds good I guess." Ever since middle school, when I first found out I could scare my friends with stories about dead bodies in the woods and murderers hanging out in the treetops, I've had a tendency to end plots with murder.
It's called "River Road." River Road is a street in my home town in Maryland, and it served as partial inspiration for the story. The whole thing doesn't necessarily take place in Maryland, but you're free to imagine it there. Or imagine it taking place anywhere in the American South. Preferably somewhere humid. In summer. In very hot, murder-y weather.
Intriguing. I read the protagonist as male. I'm not sure why, but I did. I enjoyed your story, though. Murder was a good end to things there.
ReplyDeleteHaha, thanks. :) It's up to the reader for interpretation. Always nice to hear someone's take on it!
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