My goal in 2016 is to make a concerted effort to post old stories you really should read and to highlight stories you might have missed. I don’t lack completed works. I lack the persistence to get them to readers who would enjoy them. So, if you read anything on this site you enjoy, please share it with others!
This week I’m posting “The Memory.” I consider this my first really good short story. I wrote it in college after listening to Schala’s Theme from the video game Chrono Trigger on repeat. I think this was my first successful experiment in translating my impressions of music to narrative, a method I use often, especially for flash fiction.
I’ll just add the note for the story I included with a collection of short stories I put together in 2008:
This is the title work of my collection for several reasons. First, it marks for me the first time I finished a story that I felt really worked on all the levels I wanted it to. Second, another writer once called it beautiful, and I can’t help but think that it is. Third, and most importantly, it captures in several thousand words a concept I think is vital to my entire purpose as a writer. In one word, this story is about desire, not about wants or needs, but about a deep, unquenchable desire for something bigger and deeper and more essential than anything else. Without this desire, I don’t think I’d care much for storytelling at all.
So, without further ado, I present “The Memory” (Click this link to download the PDF.)
[…] figured out (or stumbled upon) a way to write a really good story. I place it up with “The Memory” as a personal milestone. Plus, it’s one of the first non-fantasy stories I was proud […]