Troubled by the tragic tale of a queen, who suffered because of a quarrel between two gods, three children question and alter the story.
Music: “Deep” by Nicholas Jeudy
[Video Description: Trailer. Duration, 31 seconds. Music: “Deep” by Nicholas Jeudy. Digital drawing. A creature with the front half of a woman and the bottom half of a shark. She’s underwater. Foreground, a disembodied eye trailing a nerve stalk lies on the floor of the body of water in which the creature is floating. She’s facing forward with both hands planted on the floor as if doing a push-up. Her right eye is missing. The socket bleeds. Her open mouth is filled with shark’s teeth, and part of a second mouth appears to be growing out of her first and under her right cheek. She wears gold jewelry, metal cuffs, and a scarf wrapped upon her head that flutters slightly in the water. Her tail is visible bending towards the right. A watermark of the word “storyfeather” lies over the image. Title card with the words “Short Story” and “Genre: Mythology” and the story title are displayed in front of the image. The title card and story title fade. Lines from the story appear over the image: “For the thing that lurched from shadow to shadow had been summoned by godly powers and imbued with godly powers. As it passed, it left behind a trail of slime that smelled of sulfur and rot. So the guards had no trouble in finding it. What they could not do was stop it.” The title reappears at top just as the last line disappears. A watermark of the site URL appears at bottom right throughout.]
Welcome to Year 9 of Storyfeather
Every year’s short stories (mostly) follow a theme. This year, I will turn the Wheel of Fiction to help me decide what to write. There are thirteen spokes on this wheel. Eight are occupied by the eight themes from the previous years of stories. One is a prompt to turn the wheel again. One is a wildcard (hmm…curious). And three are covered only in question marks. I suppose I’ll find out what’s beneath those questions as we go along.
Welcome to the WHEEL OF FICTION
The Wheel of Fiction landed on ELEMENTS this time. I’ve been doing an art challenge I came across on IG called Creatuanary (Creatures in January). So to save myself from having to draw even more images this month, I’ve attempted to use any relevant image (that’s not already connected to an existing intellectual property) for my stories, assuming I don’t have to force anything.
When I swiped through the drawings I’d done so far, the image of the lamia seemed an obvious choice. The element, of course, is water. The myth of Queen Lamia and her tragic fate at the hands of an envious god provided inspiration and a back story, and gave me a chance to once again write my version of a known tale.
[Video Description: Duration, 6 seconds. Choice wheel made on the Spin the Wheel application. Thirteen spokes or slices in various colors, labeled as follows, clockwise from the top: Objects of Power (the “of Power” is not visible), Prompts, Definitions, Turn Again, Elements, Creatures, S.T.E.A.M., Wildcard, Revisitation, (alternating question marks and apostrophes), Challenge, (alternating questions marks and asterisks), (question marks). The title at top reads “The Wheel of Fiction” and below that the words “Spin the wheel.” Below that is the date of the spin, 1/15/2022. At top left corner is a flag icon labeled with the letter “F.” This represents a function of the application which interferes with true randomness by reducing the probability of receiving the same choice twice in a row. The wheel turns and lands on ELEMENTS. Throughout, a cartoon duck sits at the bottom of the wheel, sipping a glass of water with a straw.]
Genre: Mythology
Tags: CHILDREN, CLAIM, CLEVER, CREATURE, GOD-KING, GOD-QUEEN, MONSTER, NIYAMI, QUEEN, SHARK
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