Endings

The Story Ark

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Hey Y'all. This is a place for story lovers. Whether you create stories, or you just love to experience them, come join us as we write and talk about the tales which inspire us.

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Sheldon@TaleTold

October 06, 2025

Endings

How are the WIPs going?

This last week, Eden got my main focus somewhat to the exclusion of my Dragon Hunters story. However, I think I did some good work on both. I wasn't quite comfortable with how I had ended the fourth part of Eden, but I was hit with inspiration and wrote two new endings for it that just manage to make the book a bit more depressing than it was before. By God, I pray I can finish this series. This is supposed to be the darkest part in the whole story, and I don't want it to end here. The next book should start to shine a little ray of hope. Maybe I'm just getting carried away by my own writing.

Oh well. I've printed out the second part of Eden—so far, I'm calling it "Stained"—and my red pen is ready for battle. This one, I fear, is the weakest part of the whole collection. It has some good bits in it, but so much of the story is just me setting things up for part three. It's been a while since I've read through it, though, so maybe I'll feel differently this time around.

Regarding my Dragon Hunters, they're still trapped in that overlong chapter that just keeps growing. However, I do think I see light at the end of the tunnel now. Praying I can get through it and start moving the story forward again. I'll probably have to go back and slash a good quarter of what I've written, but I'll let it sit for now; I'll come back when I've finished the first section off and make my decision, God willing.

In other news, I finished The Infinite and the Divine. Good book, though I felt the gravity of the status quo reasserting itself in the epilogue somewhat cheapened the conclusion, though I suppose that's the cyclical nature of the story's underpinning Yin-Yang philosophy. I guess that's what you get in a long running series like this; you can't have these characters really change. Robert Rath plays with the toys and puts them back where he found them, like a good camper leaving nature untouched. Nevertheless, there is something deeply poetic in this mass market paperback; I felt it most in the image of Trazyn going down, layer by layer, into the planet. That Saturnine theme of the inevitability of time infused the whole work and almost had to be told from the alienated perspective of an undead monster like a Necron, someone for whom time and tragedy were sad memories.

I did think it was interesting how this story's ending mirrored the ending to The Scarlet Gospels, which I also read this year. Don't want to give the endings away on either one, but there were some interesting parallels in their climactic battles; even on the points where they differ in their epilogues (Clive Barker actually deals with the major changes his world and characters suffer), they both set up similar possible stories that might follow.

Anyway, it's spooky season now. Tell me your favorite ghost stories. Tell me what you're working on. Are you a Warhammer fan? What other Warhammer books should I read?

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Sheldon@TaleTold

June 17, 2024

Proof Copy of Post Mortem

A little, sneak-preview, if anyone's interested, in my novella. Still waiting for the cover as patiently as I can. (The artist isn't late or anything; I've been going crazy since I placed the order.)

Are you publishing/self-publishing anything?
Would you, maybe, want a copy of my story?
Would anybody want to read my story?

00:01:30

Sheldon@TaleTold

February 14, 2022

Welcome to The Story Ark community

00:03:42

Sheldon@TaleTold

October 28, 2022

The Right Hand of Doom by Robert E. Howard

A little something to enjoy before Halloween.

Sheldon@TaleTold

April 22, 2022

קהלת | Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

So, I tried my hand at writing my own translation of one of my favorite passages in the Bible.

1 The words of the Preacher, son of David, King in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher. Vanity of vanities; the whole is vain.
3 What is left over for man in all his toil in which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation comes and a generation goes; but the earth remains forever.
5 And the sun rises, and the sun goes [down]; And to his place, there he strives to rise.
6 Going to the South, returning to the North—turning, turning, the wind goes; And over its turning, the wind returns.
7 All the rivers run into the sea, but the sea is not full.
[From] the place where the rivers run, there they return to run.
8 All these words are tiresome. Man cannot utter [it].
The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled by hearing.
9 That which is is that which will be, and that which is done is that which will be done; and there is nothing wholly new under the sun.
10 Where is...

Sheldon@TaleTold

April 15, 2022

The Wind and the Trees

More Chesterton today. Another short one. Please enjoy.

Sheldon@TaleTold

August 31, 2026

Sufficient for Today

How are the WIPs going?

I got a little done on mine. Sometimes it feels like all I'm capable of is rereading what I've already written. It's small steps, but I'm finding, when I have actually been able to sleep through the night, there's material in the storehouse of my imagination to work with. Anyway, prayer and sleep, step by step, I hope I'll start really writing again.

I sadly haven't had much time to sit down and just read lately, but I did manage to listen to a number of short stories on audiobook. A lot of Sherlock Holmes and Poirot, a bit of Wodehouse, and I've been trying to listen through a collection called "The Foundations of Fiction—Vampires." Mainly, I wanted to listen to "Olalla" by Stevenson; I did, and I admit that I mainly found the story confusing. Maybe if I listen to it again, I'll get something out of it. Maybe if I were to sit down and read it, I'd pick up on something.

Anyway, I'm meditating a short story collection of vampire tales within the same world of...

Sheldon@TaleTold

August 24, 2026

A Little Short Tempered

How are the WIPs going?

Mine moved, a little. Not much, but I felt moments of clarity this week while trying to write; almost as if I had been able to sleep through the night. I'm still struggling with a massive sleep debt, but maybe I'm going in the right direction.

In other writing news, I heard about something called Kindle Short Reads. I'm fairly sure, by the time I hear about anything, the idea is already played out, but I thought I'd throw my hat in, as it were. So, anyway, you can now read my short story collection as a collection of short stories, buying each one individually for 99¢. This long and arduous process, still incomplete as Amazon caps you at 10 titles per week, has done nothing, so far, besides confuse and frustrate me, but who knows? Maybe this is the way I'll gain readers.

I might try to make Short Reads a sort of project next year. If I could publish a short story of significant length every month, all parts of a larger story, it might help get people to read...

Sheldon@TaleTold

August 17, 2026

Longing for Narnia

How are the WIPs going?

Once again, mine are not going. Though I started using CPAP this last week, and I think it is helping, I'm just mentally out of order. I'm so exhausted, I can't function. I can barely get through my day's work without falling asleep, and I can hardly keep my eyes open driving home. I need a break.

Not that I've even had a chance to read more than the title page, but I did manage to pick up a copy of The Wicked and the Warped. I really enjoyed the first book, but I've been so worn out, I haven't been able to sit down to read anything.

I did manage to listen to the book Planet Narnia at work, which gets two thumbs up from me. If you're a fan of Narnia, or of C. S. Lewis—if you're his fan but always felt that Narnia, his best known work, is not his best work—then you should read this book. With Lewis, and especially with his books of Narnia, there is always a further up and a further in you can go, and Michael Ward's Planet Narnia provides something like a ...

Sheldon@TaleTold

May 19, 2025

A Bit of My Writing Process

How I Outline

How are the WIPs going?

I have, over the past few weeks, been working on a pair of short stories I hope to submit to a horror podcast, The Other Stories. They want cosmic horror. On a day off, I wrote one in a single sitting, but felt there was another story there. When I saw that authors were allowed to contribute two stories per theme, I thought I would bide my time and see if I could write the other, more ethereal story that I sensed was there.

Now that I have written this second story, at least the better part of it—it wants a stronger ending—I feel there is still more to be written. A series of these short stories might make an interesting read, perhaps even amount to a novella. Who knows? However, now and again, as regards my posts here, I sometimes think it would be a good idea to share some of my own writing/outlining methods.

One of the things I do when I see a project developing like this is to ascertain what patterns are showing themselves. Very often, when I'm writing poetry, there is some line or couplet that appears to me, and the rest of the poem pours out of that initial inspiration. I study what I have been given and ask myself: What are the patterns inherent in this and where is it going?

So, if I were to do that with this pair of stories I find a few patterns/themes:

Horror stories revolving around one POV
Retrospective
Themes of Love + Death
Themes of Chesterton's God, the gods, the philosophers, and the demons
1. God: Padre C
  Believes in a purity of original uncreated/being
2. The gods: Giovanni
  Paradoxically believing in everything and nothing
3. The Philosophers: The Doctor
  Believes in Death
4. The Demons: Jasper
  Hail Satan
Nyarlathotep vs Hastur :: Satan vs Death
1. Order vs Chaos
  1. Nyarlathotep's schemes vs Hastur's madness
  2. Nyarlathotep's temple vs Hastur's decay
2. Weakened will (seduction) vs blackmail (threats)
3. Contract vs Betrayal
4. Human sacrifice vs suicide

Anyway, That's just a quick riff. I don't always write these things out; often, I just think them through. The next question would be where the meta story is going, that is, what is its endpoint/cathartic moment. Now, I have one hint as to the next step, to follow the doctor character, who seems somewhat suspicious, and also to fill in the Chesterton pattern. As such, two more stories appear, one following the doctor and one following Jasper.

So, that's just a little insight into how my thinking process works. I don't know if I'll pursue this possible story or not. Either way, let me know what you think, what you're working on, and what your writing process looks like.

Keep writing.

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Sheldon@TaleTold

October 24, 2023

Writing Prompt: Lovecraft

After my disappointment with The Lovecraft Investigations, I thought it would be a good idea to write our own Lovecraft inspired work.

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Sheldon@TaleTold

August 07, 2023

My (Insane?) Plans

I saw an interesting question posed on twitter: Would you write an entire book series and not publish a single book until it's all done? Now, that is precisely what I've been doing, or, perhaps I should say, what I've been planning. Right now, I've somewhat given up on traditional publishing, partially as it seems like traditional publishers want me to do the marketing as well as the writing, and partially because it seems like most forms I fill out ask me how well I've self-published my own work so far.

So, I started to consider whether to self-publish the book I have written, and it seemed to me that since I had already organized it into three major sections, each about the length of a short novel, it would make sense to self-publish it in those organic pieces. As my original outline extended beyond this book, I figured I ought to finish writing to the end of my outline. That should make a fourth part. Furthermore, when I finished that outline, I jotted down a few notes for a continuation of the story. I've been working on a new outline, off and on (mostly off), and hope to finish it and add it to this possible series, thereby reaching a total of either five or six parts.

Now, why do I want to chop up my story like this? For one, I think these breaks in the story make sense. Also, one piece of advice I've heard about self-publishing is to keep a steady flow of work coming out. So, before I self-publish, I want have a ready well of titles to publish at regular intervals. My overarching plan is to, over the next two to three years, get ten titles ready, half or so consisting of this series and the other half based on a few short outlines I've jotted down here and there throughout the years. Then, take the leap and self-publish.

Am I being stupid?
Would you try something like this?
Have you written any series?

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