66
- 2
Colors of the Mind
Their depression was such, their understanding of it had progressed to the extent that they had come to attribute colors to it. Purple, rose, pink, yellow - could have been roses. Black and navy blue were fearsome signals of a depth at which one...
- 3
Interview with Merlin Fraser
How long have you been writing fiction in a serious way? I first started about six, seven years ago with an idea for a children’s television series before discovering I knew nothing about writing for the screen. I was convinced the idea was good...
- 4
Manuscript Critique for Hubbers
Imagine you are sitting in front of your computer (not an unlikely scenario). You have your best manuscript in hand, metaphorically speaking, it is right there on your virtual desktop. You have read it over and over, checked spelling and grammar....
- 2
Great Thinkers Gallery: Lola Taft
1911 – The early shock It happened at the age of 10, her parents were away, and the nanny had fallen asleep. She stood up to get a drink of water from the kitchen, thought she heard something, turned around abruptly, and then saw what appeared to...
- 2
Great Thinkers Gallery: Beaumont Bouxard
Beaumont Bouxard, the French philosopher (1811-1865), only had contempt for his contemporaries, whom he considered almost moronic in their inability to come to terms with the core issues of human existence. One of his main theories, as expressed in...
- 7
Forming a Manuscript Critique Circle
Whether you are a novelist, a short story writer, an essayist, or some other form of creative writer, Fiction Factory would like to welcome you to our Critique Circle. Unlike most writers groups, it is a rather private and low-key affair, for...
- 2
The Grand Old Parlor
From what I had heard, and no one had ever told me anything to the contrary, I could understand that the parlor’s prior owner had gotten weary of listening to the gusty winds, and that she had therefore chosen to relocate to a new house somewhere...
- 3
Santa Barbara Moments
When the car salesman called, I was still only half awake after another lousy night of initial insomnia. His call did not come unexpected, though, and I just delivered my little speech which I had prepared days before during a vacant moment. I...
- 3
The Ultimate Cure
Jay was his name, he had fallen from grace without a warning, he was coming to face the flipside of freedom, the chance to endure a jailhouse consisting of little allure morning had come, so early it was his days they were closing, life not meant...
- 6
Cold Poetic Justice
When an evil man walks – for a hundred days across the frozen plains, carrying deep in his belt the gold coins undeservedly in his possession, the spoils extorted from the frightened men the villagers from beneath the mountains When he sings,...
- 0
A Secret Collection of Poems
The Scribes received a letter from far away. It brought into these cold dwellings, these monastically darkened quarters, a ray of light rarely seen. The Queen of France, being neither needy nor wanting, extended to us her hand of comradeship if only...
- 6
Become a Better Writer: Authenticity
Ironically, your greatest advantage as a writer may also be a handicap. Unlike your future readers, you carry an extra version of the story inside of you, embedded into your body and soul. Many authors tend to overlook the following basic fact, or...
- 1
Diplomatic Dispatch - A State Funeral
At the ceremony that should have been a commemorative, unparalleled event, a number of people representing rivaling factions suddenly appeared and, by virtue of their very presence, made things complicated for everyone. Some people, especially those...
- 3
Death Row - A Bad Case for Mercy
In the first attempt of this year to abolish the death penalty, the Governor issued a number of decrees to the various state levels. He had designed some sort of early detection system, but it had failed due to increased pressure at the lower...
- 8
Become a Better Writer: Abstractions
Some aspiring writers complain that they haven't a grain of imagination, so how could they possibly write fiction? My answer is that you don't need to worry about not having any imagination, naturally you already do, all you have to do is look...
- 0
Lurid Dreams and Fantasies
She had come to a place filled with goodness, something to which she was hardly accustomed. It was a small, self-contained place, a fiefdom of sorts, so tranquil if only deceptively so. The Count and his predecessors had kept the bad spirits at bay...
- 1
Purified at the Monastery
The scrubbing was rapidly underway at the monastery. Rose appeared inward and perhaps a bit frightened upon arrival, but the monks were experienced and knew better than to take such signs at face value. She had to wear a chastity belt as protection...
- 0
How Stories are Written
Our in-house content editor. Also does some line editing, gently noting where something could be done a tad better. Corresponds with sensitive writers. Someone to be loved, not feared. A good editor is a writer's companion, someone who works...
- 6
How to Avoid Becoming a Published Author
Do not write anything too extensive. Keep spreading your thoughts and ideas across many projects, keep expanding and developing into new directions. Do not stick to the same project every day or every week. It is much more fun and relaxing to...
- 0
Cromwell the Magician (III)
It is then that we feel the urge to move for an instant to lighter sentiments. There was a time, and a recurring one at that, where corn flowers swung in the wind mid-summer and no one had a worry thereabout. The men had been there at that time as...
- 0
Cromwell the Magician (II)
Let us return now for a moment to the famous spielmaster whom we had come to loathe and admire at the same time. His colleagues all knew about him but did not know all about him. It could be said that they knew only as much as he had let them know,...
- 0
Cromwell the Magician
“Kindly enlighten me, Cromwell. Have you plans to stay beyond this semester?” “Sadly no. My poor old mother has taken ill, so Papa has asked that I come home.” “Sorry to hear about your mother, laddy. Is there some way I can help? Do you...
- 0
A Girl Named Rosette
It was the rose that stood single in that glass carafe on the white table, so fragile, yet the pride of the room. Its fragrance, mildly sweet, had the potential to distract a sensitive soul. With sunlight coming in through the door, the shadows of...
- 0
A Lawless Utopia (II)
12:15 – I’ve found a suitable trail alongside the perimeter of the huge plow field where cotton used to grow. I’m feeling in pretty good spirits for a man who’s just waived goodbye to a good job, a fancy Jaguar and a sleek BMW. Objects come...
- 3
Of the Dominant Kind
“They live amongst us, these men and women with their super-sized egos, pulling us and pushing us, wearing upon the fragile layers of our attention. They land upon us, crashing down with the same force as a Jumbo Jet setting down on a shortened...
- 6
A Lawless Utopia
06:08: Miss Perkins calls me from her cell phone, complaining the carrier has cut her off for paying her bill 2 days late – 6 years ago! “Don’t worry,” I reassure her, “I’ll sue the living daylights out of them.” 06:14: On the way...
- 5
Proofreading and Editing Services
Every writer faces the same challenge of ensuring that their articles be of an acceptable quality. A few typos may be tolerable all depending on where you publish or submit your articles, but repeated grammatical or typographic errors are a “major...
- 0
Demons Call Twice
Dungeon Master, who rarely leaves these dwellings, is attending a week-long Satanic conference in a secret location somewhere out in the desert. That’s about all his followers will ever know about it, except that the Dutchman’s wife reported...
- 0
Unworthy of Hell
Let us show you the underworld, they had told him. Although what he’d seen had impressed him, it hadn’t totally blown him away. He suspected it had to do with interference, that what he’d been allowed to see thus far was preset. It was like a...
- 4
Dungeon Master Delivers
The dungeons tended to be a peculiar place, at times dead quiet, at other times violently noisy. But even in the most placid of times one should be mindful that there remained people living, voluntarily or as a result of compulsive force, in the...
- 0
One Thousand Steps
The steps to the monastery seem to be leading only one way, up and to, not down and from, there is no exit from this institution that purports to be a celebration of the divine, yet has so many similarities with a diabolic nest. Wonder we, did they...
- 2
A Scriptorium Reborn
“Say Eclisias, how come nobody has told me? As much as I dislike the thought, I’d like to hop on board or the joke will be on me soon enough.” “There’s no joke, Maestro. It’s all around us even as we speak. You cannot tell who is...
- 7
Protecting Your Copyright
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886) guarantees copyright from the moment your writings have been embedded into a tangible medium. Since 1988, when the United States and the United Kingdom finally implemented...
- 0
Intergalactic Academy Dispatch
The matrix has no loopholes they say, its inner dynamics so strong there is no way of knowing when it will ever stop. Sucking in all matter and even anti-matter, like it or not. It happens ever so gradually, not noticeable at first. All the more...
- 1
Miss Emily's Good Fortune
Emily bought a quilt from me yesteryear. Hillsboro motives it was, the fine old kind of thing equipped with laces and embroidery. A rather quiet transaction it was, as her family has been maintaining a cordial relationship with us for many years, no...
- 0
4th Miracle: Closure
She dressed up nicely and went downtown to have dinner with her ex-husband. “You look healthy,” Harry Ashley said. “Yes, I am healthy.” Eleanor sat down. A large pepper steak kept her busy while Harry told her about the progress he had...
- 0
3rd Miracle: Solutions
Things sure had gotten quiet around here since Peter and Nora Johnson moved away. “Flowing downstream with the depression, it’s easier that way,” Pete had remarked when Truman caught him in the act of putting up a “For Sale by Owner” sign....
- 0
2nd Miracle: Understanding
The secret cable had been intercepted, its encryption broken by our supercomputers at Los Alamos. Its intended recipient was the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's headquarters, the sender by every indication a small group of Pakistani nuclear scientists...
- 0
1st Miracle: Harmony
The reasons are many why trees keep changing all around us. We walk as in a trance, preoccupied, stumbling along blindfolded, only to find that all is in order anyway. Nature organizes, restructures, and rebuilds itself for our enjoyment, its...
- 3
The Pleasure Principle
Wilmer thought he had a winning formula from the day he turned nine years old. This was definitely his sort of a day, with flags on the table and people being nice to him, presents and all the trimmings. His slender build and fitness were hardly the...
- 4
Manuscript assessments
Introduction At the time of the initial writing of this article, none of the Scribes had ever purchased a manuscript assessment nor worked with a literary consultant. Our knowledge was limited to the interactions we had in search of qualified...
- 0
Literary Agent Fantasy
If – and only if: 1. You love all good literary fiction; 2. You are equipped with an open mind and a heart of gold; 3. Your pretty knuckles have been hardened and your skin thickened by a fiercely competitive and oftentimes deceptive...
- 0
Compulsion Revisited
Stood in the train compartment many years ago, looking down, staring at the ground in a precious moment of standstill. Seeing that very special stone, I was thinking: “I’ll never be able to think of anything else, that stone will stay fixed on...
- 0
Hidden Qualities
There are the free flows, the tiny raindrops that come down in a strange stream, so slow at first, then unpredictably accelerating. Hard to make a pattern out of this. We regret not this sight, this is the reason we are here right now, we have been...
- 1
The Urge to Know
Ever thought about this one: You are leaving some place, then moving to another. Your focus is on what is right in front of you, right behind you, and to your immediate side. The place you have left will have to fade to give room for what comes...