When you pick up a book and read the back of it, what are you reading? In most cases, it is a short summary of the story within. While it is known that you should not judge a book by its cover, the truth is that the vast majority of books need to sell you on their story just with the back cover, within that paragraph or two.
To this end, as a creative writing exercise I have written what I envision as the best summaries of some of my old, current, and upcoming fiction. Most of this is stuff that I haven't finished yet, so I hope this is a good motivator to get back on some of my short stories that have been dormant for a while.
Event Horizon
Kalman Kennard - Kale for short - tires of his routine life at home: the bore of working a dead-end retail job while attending community college finally catches up to him, and he moves from home to attend school at Pine Creek University far up in the Rocky Mountains. A stark contrast to his life in eastern Nebraska, Kale finds university life everything he thought it could be: long hours in the classroom, lots of papers to write, not to mention sex, drugs, music, alcohol, and parties.
While catching up with a "normal" college life, Kale stumbles upon Horizon Dormitories, an ominous building that doesn't quite fit in with the rest of campus, but it introduces him to the freedom of his own limitless dreams, as well as the beautiful Shaylee. With his heart longing for a girl trapped in a dream world that Kale doesn't believe in, he must overcome his own disbelief in the impossible to find happiness.
Minor Thirsts
A young married couple has everything they ever wanted out of life: high-paying jobs, a large house on an expansive yard, a stable of SUVs, and their first child on the way. They also sit on the brink of financial and emotional collapse as they struggle to cling on to the life they know and love in an America that has taken clean, potable water for granted for far too long.
This introduction to the Minor Thirsts series stays simple yet to the point: one day clean water - a necessary element of life - will be scarce enough on this planet to be the subject of war, and the world introduced here sits on the brink of total world war.
Minor Thirsts: Great Lakes Ground Zero
First and third-world nations become equals as the world wages war over the most basic of necessities: potable water. With millions of people around the world dying every day from disease, famine, and thirst, the world's most abundant fresh-water sources become the center of conflict for the survival of the nations of the world.
A young man, Justin, looks forward to his 21st birthday in the coming week, but must celebrate it from the confines of his service in the United States Army as his unit stands as the first line of defense on the edge of the largest and most fierce battleground of any known war: The Great Lakes. Desperate to have fun on his birthday, a chance romantic encounter with a 17 year old civilian Hayley lands Justin in more hot water than anyone can afford.
Beautiful Lies
Adam goes out on the town one Friday after a boring day at work, and every beautiful accountant from the office will be up for grabs, especially Marissa, his long-time romantic interest. Ignoring his unique medical condition, Adam ends the night nearly dead: every time he tells a lie, no matter big or small, a part of him dies - quite literally.
Crawling into Saturday morning as a disfigured shell of his former self, Adam finds that loneliness and lying can go hand-in-hand, and he sets about righting his wrongs with the office staff and especially Marissa, who cannot see him for anything other than a lying, hideous cripple. Adam must correct himself without telling any more lies, or else risk losing both Marissa and his own life.
Deserted Dream
Charles and Denise are en route to their dream wedding on a charter plane in the Bahamas. In perfectly clear weather their single-engine plane fails and crashes to a small but uninhabited island. With a dead pilot and no way of communicating with the outside world, the married couple that everyone was routing for begins to fall apart as each realizes that their choice of who to be stranded with on a desert island might not carry over to marriage after all.
The Reminder
A business man, a family man and an honest man, Erick has an incredibly perfect job as a software developer which allows him to make a ton of money while barely lifting a finger. One night he succumbs to the once and rare temptation of a young, beautiful woman - Jenny - one night after work. He later discovers that his fantasies were a bit misplaced, as Jenny turns out to be an absurdly mature 14 year old - and the daughter of Erick's boss.
Erick's life turns to hell as Jenny forces him to work for her in exchange for her silence. In the mean time, Erick searches for a way out: already worried about his position at his job, he slowly falls apart as he contemplates quitting, moving, or fessing up to his crime before he raises an eyebrow to the idea of murder or suicide. Who will snap first?
Now that you've read what I have cooking, now comes the $64,000 question: how many of these stories would you want to actually read?
B3 out.
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