#106. Strange Sparks and Shadow-Play: Urban Fantasy After Dark

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Show notes: The list of categories for the second round of brainstorms (chosen with a roll of the dice) is: 1) a book or magazine 2) a job or role, taken on reluctantly, 3) a pub or café, 4) a portal or means of travel, 5) a piece of treasure or magical, sought-after object, 6) a monster or creature, 7) an invention, 8) a weapon, 9) a hidden identity or disguise, 10) a scar (physical or psychological), 11) a ghost, or 12) or a cocktail or special tea (which, let’s face it, is likely to be a magic potion or poison).

Hello imaginative people. I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 106 of Brainstoryum.
 
As I record this, I’m feeling rather excited and a bit wired because… I have booked my editor. As regular listeners will know, I’ve been working for some time on a collection of short stories that, since an epiphany I had in November, I’ve turned into a novel by joining them up into one overarching story, with the help of a dear old lady running a tea shop who is in fact a shape-shifting monster. (That’s my protagonist who tells each story, not a description of my editor.)
 
Yes, I have booked the wonderful Heather, who is completely human, for early June. We have left it at that slightly vague deadline, but it is still a deadline, and ever since booking it, I’m obsessed with the calendar, and with lining up all the other things that go into the preparation for publishing a book. Within the next couple of weeks I’m going to be in touch with Emily my cover designer (of Emilys World of Design) and that’s… that’s just a really exciting part of the process when it starts to become more real, somehow.
 
Emily normally makes it so difficult—in a good way—by creating a few different options that are just almost excruciating to have to choose between. I just want them all! But no, I have to choose one design in the end. If you would like to be part of that journey, because I would like you to be part of that journey, I welcome the feedback, then please subscribe to my private email list (if you haven’t already done so) by clicking the “subscribe” button at annatizard.com, because I will be sharing designs and options probably towards the end of May or early June, with my subscribers. I only ever email once or twice a month, so you won’t get any spamming from me. And of course, once you’ve hit that all-important “confirm” button (that will probably go straight into your spam folder, so watch out for that), then you will be able to download a special edition of The Empty Danger, the first volume in The Book of Exquisite Corpse, which includes an exclusive short story not found anywhere else. So please consider subscribing so you can be the first to see the original cover proposals for my next book, Weird Creatures, and please help me choose.
 
I am also, some time in June (it’s not far away), going to be asking if anyone would like an advanced reader copy or ARC as they’re known. If you are interested in reading the book early, as an e-book and yes, it would be for free, then this could be for you. As an advance reader you would be welcomed, but not required, to leave an honest review soon after the publication date, which at the moment is TBC. The timing of all this kind of depends on what Heather, my editor, comes back with, and whether there may be any structural changes needed rather than little tweaks. But more about ARCs later. If you subscribe to my email list then you’ll be the first to know about it.
 
Right! Time to breathe deeply, set all that aside, and get excited all over again about something else: the amazing stories sent in by my talented listeners.
 
**
 
One of the prompts that I explored in depth in the last show was about three children in an orphanage, waking up in the middle of the night, and wandering down corridors they’ve never seen before, opening doors that shouldn’t there, and finding a room full of toys—with a challenge to pick the right one, and so to be privy to the orphanage’s secrets.
 
Nick Vracar responded to this and wrote a little glimpse of what might happen as they children entered a room that’s full of toys including a mechanical talking teddy bear:
 
“Robin approached first, collecting the ornate box. Elsa took the old doll. Wendy scooped up the numbered teeth. The bear smiled, its eyes predatory in the lantern’s light. “Oh, what fun we’ll have!” The bear slowly collapsed to its side, limp, its smile turned into a snarl.”
 
Getting scary, this one. And what about the kid who takes the numbered teeth? I feel like she might have the best chance against this evil teddy bear.
 
Thank you, Nick. You can find Nick’s speculative fiction and articles at Nvracar.wordpress.com.
 
Paul Monteith wrote:
 
“Karat circled the ornamental galleon. She was certain that the ship's mast had been underwater, but now it was a fishtail above the surface. She dipped and nervously nibbled at the rainbow gravel below.

"I thirst," said a hoarse, dry voice beyond her bowl. Although the goldfish was unsure what dry meant, she imagined it described "a fish out of water." Rattled by the thought, she furiously sucked at the gravel to put the idea out of mind.

Beyond her bowl, she saw an umbrella leaning against a wall. "I thirst," the voice repeated.

"Who's thirsting?" Karat asked.

"Me, by the wall," Brella said.

"What's thirsting?"

"Imagine your watery world emptied of wetness, a world that is dry to the fin and a thirst to your wellbeing."

"You mean fish-being," Karat added.

"Yes," Brella replied. "Without water, you're not a fish."

The idea of not being a fish left her perplexed. "If I am not a fish, what am I?"

"Dead," Brella said. "A surface floater if there is water to float in." Karat winced at the notion of a waterless world and sucked at the gravel.

"You're not a fish, why do you thirst?"

"I protect my owner against rainwater, but the prolonged dry season has left me as parched as a dry sun-bleached desert bone. My dessification is pulling water out of your bowl."

"I will thirst too," a bewildered Karat said, looking at the vapor trail leaving her bowl and heading toward the umbrella.”
 
I worked out which Exquisite Corpse Paul has responded to, because surely, this is why “The flummoxed goldfish nibbled on the desiccated umbrella”
 
Ah, actually, that implies that maybe—just maybe?—the goldfish gets its own back?
 
Thank you, Paul. You can find Paul Monteith via his Linktree at linktr.ee/MostlyPaul
 
Finally, the mysteriously named H.L. to a quite different prompt again, from the same show:
 
H.L. wrote:
 
“Dr. Farner broke into the library. The mob was after him. His hair was matted; his claws were broken. They almost had him. His work on multiple universes had riled the masses. Dr. Farner’s supposition that the multiverse was real went against all conventional teaching.

His portal machine showed what life was like in these universes. These closed-minded fools, he thought. If our civilization evolved from capybaras, why couldn’t others evolve from primates or reptiles.

His breathing slowed and he looked around. The library was dark save for the torchlights illuminating the windows from the outside. Dr. Farner saw the propaganda banners denouncing the multiverse. We could learn so much he thought but these terrible fools will be the end of themselves.

At that moment, the windows were smashed and the torches thrown in. Thousands of capybaras cheered at the writhing screams of Dr. Farner.


“One more heretic gone!” screamed the mob.”
 
Wow, this is really strange and inventive. Nice bit of world-building there, such a curious political situation in this story. This was of course based on the rather unlikely Exquisite Corpse, “The dilapidated capybara hid in the library with the ferocious banner.”
 
I don’t really know how you just did that, but thank you, H.L.
 
Right, it is time to venture once into the unknown. Into the labyrinths of stories and ideas that don’t yet exist except through the strange magic that can only be found in the socks of destiny.
 
SOCKS OF DESTINY ORGAN JINGLE
 
This part of the show is un-transpose-able! There's much giggling and rustling of paper as I pull words at random from the Socks of Destiny to create three unique sentences according to the rules of Exquisite Corpse, going: “Describing word—noun—action—describing word—noun.” Today’s resulting sentences are:
 
1. The shadowy prison guard skipped the nihilistic mandrake.
2. The peeved aviator courted the happy noun.
3. The blunt gunslinger spent all of their money on the bumbling stuffed tiger.
 
**
 
And so, looking over these, I am drawn once again to the shadowy prison guard—that is, a prison guard of shadows—I think that’s got to be the one.
 
What is this story about? What is this strange world about, where people’s shadows turn against them and end up being imprisoned?
 
Let’s roll the 12-sided dice and see where that takes things. If you’d like to see the full list of 12 ‘categories of interpretation’ then look no further than the show notes. (That’s so clunky-sounding, I think I should call them ‘categories of suggestion’. Not perfect but a bit less clunky.)
 
(Rolls dice.) 10. A scar (physical or psychological).
 
Oh. This is starting to make some sense. What if people’s shadows are separating from them because of the internal scars they have. Or what if people’s shadows are their scars? Like bad things that have happened to them in the past. The things they cannot get over.
 
But how could this happen to shadows, anyway? What happened in this world, in the backdrop to this dark story that turned ordinary shadows into something psychological? I feel like I need to do a bit of world building.
 
I prefer contemporary fantasy, that’s what I tend to write and that’s generally what I’m more often drawn to, to read, so the question I need to ask is, what has changed in our world that turns shadows into a sort of demon, a very personal demon, that contains all the hurt and grief that a person has suffered?
  
If the light dies and we’re left in perpetual darkness, there wouldn’t be such things as normal shadows. You need light to create shadow. So that might be the cause of this change--?
 
But I’m finding that difficult to imagine, because people aren’t going to automatically adjust to walking around in the dark. They’re going to find or make light.
 
What if there’s a change in the quality of light. A new kind of lightbulb is introduced, and becomes very popular; or possibly it’s just used in streetlights, which changes the quality of shadow that you cast under it. Only when you’re out in the street. That’s weird.
 
And I quite like that there’s a difference—a line drawn—between the relative safety of your own home, versus going out in the street at night. That’s instinctual, right? That there is a potential danger when you’re out in the street at night. So you could start a story with that fairly ordinary concern, it’s feeling quite naturalistic, and then you introduce something darker and more fantastical. You reveal that something different is happening with shadows.
 
But why? This feels a bit incomplete. Or maybe I just want to see what else the dice has to say.
 
(Rolls dice.) 6. A monster or creature. Yes! These new lightbulbs are inspiring something monstrous, but do they come from something monstrous? Is there some sort of natural bioluminescence that is used in these lightbulbs? And without realising it, the council who have made this change to the types of bulbs they use in the streetlights, have unknowingly set this dreadful change in motion.
 
Going back to the original Exquisite Corpse, there is also a nihilistic mandrake involved. Which sounds kind of monstrous to me. It makes me think of the sort of shape your shadow begins to take as you’re foolish enough to step outside after dark when the streetlights are shining with that new, slightly bluish tone to them.
 
The thing about a mandrake is, its limbs are so tangly and ragged, intermixed with dangling roots, some as thin as hairs, sprouting all over its body, it’s quite hard to differentiate at first glance the head from the legs. To know straight away what is up from what is down. And when you stare at the pavement, you find yourself transfixed by the weird shapes dancing in the silhouette that should be your own shadow. The light from above refracts, scattering multiple streaks at different angles. Like Medusa’s headful of snakes, they squirm and writhe.
 
What is the inner scar that has led to this? That has manifested this monstrous part of you that now… turns on you?
 
I’m quite fascinated by this idea now. But going back to the entire Exquisite Corpse, “The shadowy prison guard skipped the nihilistic mandrake” – so one approach (if you’re remaining faithful to the original sentence instead of sprouting like one of these mandrakes in another direction), would be to explore this from a prison guard’s perspective: from a prison full of shadows that have been locked up after having torn themselves from their owners or originators (if that’s the right word), and attacked them, or stole from a late-opening corner shop, or committed other crimes, petty or grisly.
 
And the prison guard “skips” the nihilistic mandrake because that is the freakiest shadow he has seen yet.
 
How do you put a shadow behind bars? Can you trap it in the shadow of bars?
 
I think I may need to leave this up to you. You know what to do: go to annatizard.com, hit the “submit” button on any page footer and give me up to 250 words on the shadowy prison guard, or prison guard of shadows; or, of course, the nihilistic mandrake, if you are looking to go that weird.
 
**
 
And finally! Some publishing opportunities for you.
 
Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is an independent media publishing collective with anarchistic ideals. They are looking for fiction, comics, poetry, memoir, pop-culture analysis and more. They publish one piece a month in a small zine which is emailed to supporters, posted on their website and produced as a podcast. They pay $220 for 2-5K words (or 10-30 pages of poetry). Reprints are fine!
 
They do also publish longer pieces up to 15K words, as well as short anthologies and chapbooks. For these, payment is negotiated. Have a browse at their publications and their full submission guidelines at tangledwilderness.org.
 
Bourbon Penn is a free online literary magazine supported by readers through their Patreon account. This is supremely odd! You have to see some of the imagery on their site to get a feel for this, their cover designs.
 
They pay 5c per word, and are looking for stories from 2-7.5K words long, so quite a broad range there.
 
You can check them out at bourbonpenn.com.
 
As you may realise, I don’t know these publications or publishers personally, so whoever you choose to submit to, always run a check on Google for reviews and comments, and read the terms and conditions of publication to ensure they suit you.
 
Right! I hope that’s given you enough to chew on, and scribble about. As ever, if and when you have anything published anywhere that was inspired by this show, get in touch with me and I will share this with listeners! You will also feature on my Brainstoryum Emporium page which I will promote as well.
 
Until next time, go forth and be inspired!