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The Shooting of Dan McGrew by Robert W. Service is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Midjourney and Canva Pro.

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From the Loom of the Dead by Elia Wilkinson Peattie is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Midjourney and Canva Pro.

Music and SFX licensing courtesy of Artlist.io

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The Dream of King Karna-Vootra by Lord Dunsany is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Midjourney and Canva Pro.

Music and SFX licensing courtesy of Artlist.io

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If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing, or share it with someone you know. There are more immersive audio stories on The Storyletter which are exclusive to XPress members. Enjoy ~ WM

THERE was only one possible objection to the drawing-room, and that was the occasional presence of Miss Carew; and only one possible objection to Miss Carew. And that was, that she was dead.

She had been dead twenty years, as a matter of fact and record, and to the last of her life sacredly preserved the treasures and traditions of her family, a family bound up—as it is quite unnecessary to explain to any one in good society—with all that is most venerable and heroic in the history of the Republic. Miss Carew never relaxed the proverbial hospitality of her house, even when she remained its sole representative. She continued to preside at her table with dignity and state, and to set an example of excessive modesty and gentle decorum to a generation of restless young women.

It is not likely that having lived a life of such irreproachable gentility as this, Miss Carew would have the bad taste to die in any way not pleasant to mention in fastidious society. She could be trusted to the last, not to outrage those friends who quoted her as an exemplar of propriety. She died very unobtrusively of an affection of the heart, one June morning, while trimming her rose trellis, and her lavender-colored print was not even rumpled when she fell, nor were more than the tips of her little bronze slippers visible.

“Isn't it dreadful,” said the Philadelphians, “that the property should go to a very, very distant cousin in Iowa or somewhere else on the frontier, about whom nobody knows anything at all?”

The Carew treasures were packed in boxes and sent away into the Iowa wilderness; the Carew traditions were preserved by the Historical Society; the Carew property, standing in one of the most umbrageous and aristocratic suburbs of Philadelphia, was rented to all manner of folk—anybody who had money enough to pay the rental—and society entered its doors no more.

But at last, after twenty years, and when all save the oldest Philadelphians had forgotten Miss Lydia Carew, the very, very distant cousin appeared. He was quite in the prime of life, and so agreeable and unassuming that nothing could be urged against him save his patronymic, which, being Boggs, did not commend itself to the euphemists. With him were two maiden sisters, ladies of excellent taste and manners, who restored the Carew china to its ancient cabinets, and replaced the Carew pictures upon the walls, with additions not out of keeping with the elegance of these heirlooms. Society, with a magnanimity almost dramatic, overlooked the name of Boggs—and called.

All was well. At least, to an outsider all seemed to be well. But, in truth, there was a certain distress in the old mansion, and in the hearts of the well-behaved Misses Boggs. It came about most unexpectedly. The sisters had been sitting upstairs, looking out at the beautiful grounds of the old place, and marvelling at the violets, which lifted their heads from every possible cranny about the house, and talking over the cordiality which they had been receiving by those upon whom they had no claim, and they were filled with amiable satisfaction. Life looked attractive. They had often been grateful to Miss Lydia Carew for leaving their brother her fortune. Now they felt even more grateful to her. She had left them a Social Position—one, which even after twenty years of desuetude, was fit for use.

They descended the stairs together, with arms clasped about each other's waists, and as they did so presented a placid and pleasing sight. They entered their drawing-room with the intention of brewing a cup of tea, and drinking it in calm sociability in the twilight. But as they entered the room they became aware of the presence of a lady, who was already seated at their tea-table, regarding their old Wedgewood with the air of a connoisseur.

There were a number of peculiarities about this intruder. To begin with, she was hatless, quite as if she were a habitué; of the house, and was costumed in a prim lilac-colored lawn of the style of two decades past. But a greater peculiarity was the resemblance this lady bore to a faded daguerrotype. If looked at one way, she was perfectly discernible; if looked at another, she went out in a sort of blur. Notwithstanding this comparative invisibility, she exhaled a delicate perfume of sweet lavender, very pleasing to the nostrils of the Misses Boggs, who stood looking at her in gentle and unprotesting surprise.

“I beg your pardon,” began Miss Prudence, the younger of the Misses Boggs, “but—”

But at this moment the Daguerrotype became a blur, and Miss Prudence found herself addressing space. The Misses Boggs were irritated. They had never encountered any mysteries in Iowa. They began an impatient search behind doors and portières, and even under sofas, though it was quite absurd to suppose that a lady recognizing the merits of the Carew Wedgewood would so far forget herself as to crawl under a sofa.

When they had given up all hope of discovering the intruder, they saw her standing at the far end of the drawing-room critically examining a water-color marine. The elder Miss Boggs started toward her with stern decision, but the little Daguerrotype turned with a shadowy smile, became a blur and an imperceptibility.

Miss Boggs looked at Miss Prudence Boggs.

“If there were ghosts,” she said, “this would be one.”

“If there were ghosts,” said Miss Prudence Boggs, “this would be the ghost of Lydia Carew.”

The twilight was settling into blackness, and Miss Boggs nervously lit the gas while Miss Prudence ran for other tea-cups, preferring, for reasons superfluous to mention, not to drink out of the Carew china that evening.

The next day, on taking up her embroidery frame, Miss Boggs found a number of old-fashioned cross-stitches added to her Kensington. Prudence, she knew, would never have degraded herself by taking a cross-stitch, and the parlor-maid was above taking such a liberty. Miss Boggs mentioned the incident that night at a dinner given by an ancient friend of the Carews.

“Oh, that's the work of Lydia Carew, without a doubt!” cried the hostess. “She visits every new family that moves to the house, but she never remains more than a week or two with any one.”

“It must be that she disapproves of them,” suggested Miss Boggs.

“I think that's it,” said the hostess. “She doesn't like their china, or their fiction.”

“I hope she'll disapprove of us,” added Miss Prudence.

The hostess belonged to a very old Philadelphian family, and she shook her head.

“I should say it was a compliment for even the ghost of Miss Lydia Carew to approve of one,” she said severely.

The next morning, when the sisters entered their drawing-room there were numerous evidences of an occupant during their absence. The sofa pillows had been rearranged so that the effect of their grouping was less bizarre than that favored by the Western women; a horrid little Buddhist idol with its eyes fixed on its abdomen, had been chastely hidden behind a Dresden shepherdess, as unfit for the scrutiny of polite eyes; and on the table where Miss Prudence did work in water colors, after the fashion of the impressionists, lay a prim and impossible composition representing a moss-rose and a number of heartsease, colored with that caution which modest spinster artists instinctively exercise.

“Oh, there's no doubt it's the work of Miss Lydia Carew,” said Miss Prudence, contemptuously. “There's no mistaking the drawing of that rigid little rose. Don't you remember those wreaths and bouquets framed, among the pictures we got when the Carew pictures were sent to us? I gave some of them to an orphan asylum and burned up the rest.”

“Hush!” cried Miss Boggs, involuntarily. “If she heard you, it would hurt her feelings terribly. Of course, I mean—” and she blushed. “It might hurt her feelings—but how perfectly ridiculous! It's impossible!”

Miss Prudence held up the sketch of the moss-rose.

“THAT may be impossible in an artistic sense, but it is a palpable thing.”

“Bosh!” cried Miss Boggs.

“But,” protested Miss Prudence, “how do you explain it?”

“I don't,” said Miss Boggs, and left the room.

That evening the sisters made a point of being in the drawing-room before the dusk came on, and of lighting the gas at the first hint of twilight. They didn't believe in Miss Lydia Carew—but still they meant to be beforehand with her. They talked with unwonted vivacity and in a louder tone than was their custom. But as they drank their tea even their utmost verbosity could not make them oblivious to the fact that the perfume of sweet lavender was stealing insidiously through the room. They tacitly refused to recognize this odor and all that it indicated, when suddenly, with a sharp crash, one of the old Carew tea-cups fell from the tea-table to the floor and was broken. The disaster was followed by what sounded like a sigh of pain and dismay.

“I didn't suppose Miss Lydia Carew would ever be as awkward as that,” cried the younger Miss Boggs, petulantly.

“Prudence,” said her sister with a stern accent, “please try not to be a fool. You brushed the cup off with the sleeve of your dress.”

“Your theory wouldn't be so bad,” said Miss Prudence, half laughing and half crying, “if there were any sleeves to my dress, but, as you see, there aren't,” and then Miss Prudence had something as near hysterics as a healthy young woman from the West can have.

“I wouldn't think such a perfect lady as Lydia Carew,” she ejaculated between her sobs, “would make herself so disagreeable! You may talk about good-breeding all you please, but I call such intrusion exceedingly bad taste. I have a horrible idea that she likes us and means to stay with us. She left those other people because she did not approve of their habits or their grammar. It would be just our luck to please her.”

“Well, I like your egotism,” said Miss Boggs.

However, the view Miss Prudence took of the case appeared to be the right one. Time went by and Miss Lydia Carew still remained. When the ladies entered their drawing-room they would see the little lady-like Daguerrotype revolving itself into a blur before one of the family portraits. Or they noticed that the yellow sofa cushion, toward which she appeared to feel a peculiar antipathy, had been dropped behind the sofa upon the floor, or that one of Jane Austen's novels, which none of the family ever read, had been removed from the book shelves and left open upon the table.

“I cannot become reconciled to it,” complained Miss Boggs to Miss Prudence. “I wish we had remained in Iowa where we belong. Of course I don't believe in the thing! No sensible person would. But still I cannot become reconciled.”

But their liberation was to come, and in a most unexpected manner.

A relative by marriage visited them from the West. He was a friendly man and had much to say, so he talked all through dinner, and afterward followed the ladies to the drawing-room to finish his gossip. The gas in the room was turned very low, and as they entered Miss Prudence caught sight of Miss Carew, in company attire, sitting in upright propriety in a stiff-backed chair at the extremity of the apartment.

Miss Prudence had a sudden idea.

“We will not turn up the gas,” she said, with an emphasis intended to convey private information to her sister. “It will be more agreeable to sit here and talk in this soft light.”

Neither her brother nor the man from the West made any objection. Miss Boggs and Miss Prudence, clasping each other's hands, divided their attention between their corporeal and their incorporeal guests. Miss Boggs was confident that her sister had an idea, and was willing to await its development. As the guest from Iowa spoke, Miss Carew bent a politely attentive ear to what he said.

“Ever since Richards took sick that time,” he said briskly, “it seemed like he shed all responsibility.” (The Misses Boggs saw the Daguerrotype put up her shadowy head with a movement of doubt and apprehension.) “The fact of the matter was, Richards didn't seem to scarcely get on the way he might have been expected to.” (At this conscienceless split to the infinitive and misplacing of the preposition, Miss Carew arose trembling perceptibly.) “I saw it wasn't no use for him to count on a quick recovery—”

The Misses Boggs lost the rest of the sentence, for at the utterance of the double negative Miss Lydia Carew had flashed out, not in a blur, but with mortal haste, as when life goes out at a pistol shot!

The man from the West wondered why Miss Prudence should have cried at so pathetic a part of his story:

“Thank Goodness!”

And their brother was amazed to see Miss Boggs kiss Miss Prudence with passion and energy.

It was the end. Miss Carew returned no more.

A Grammatical Ghost by Elia Wilkinson Peattie is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Midjourney and Adobe Creative Cloud Express.

Music and SFX licensing courtesy of Artlist.io

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This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storyletter.substack.com/subscribe

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Due to the nature of this recording, I’ve decided to make it free. If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing, or share it with someone you know. There are more immersive audio stories on The Storyletter which are exclusive to XPress members. Enjoy ~ WM

The Idle City by Lord Dunsany

Narrated by Daniel W. Davison

There was once a city which was an idle city, wherein men told vain tales.

And it was that city's custom to tax all men that would enter in, with the toll of some idle story in the gate.

So all men paid to the watchers in the gate the toll of an idle story, and passed into the city unhindered and unhurt. And in a certain hour of the night when the king of that city arose and went pacing swiftly up and down the chamber of his sleeping, and called upon the name of the dead queen, then would the watchers fasten up the gate and go into that chamber to the king, and, sitting on the floor, would tell him all the tales that they had gathered. And listening to them some calmer mood would come upon the king, and listening still he would lie down again and at last fall asleep, and all the watchers silently would arise and steal away from the chamber.

A while ago wandering, I came to the gate of that city. And even as I came a man stood up to pay his toll to the watchers. They were seated cross-legged on the ground between him and the gate, and each one held a spear. Near him two other travellers sat on the warm sand waiting. And the man said:

"Now the city of Nombros forsook the worship of the gods and turned towards God. So the gods threw their cloaks over their faces and strode away from the city, and going into the haze among the hills passed through the trunks of the olive groves into the sunset. But when they had already left the Earth, they turned and looked through the gleaming folds of the twilight for the last time at their city; and they looked half in anger and half in regret, then turned and went away for ever. But they sent back a Death, who bore a scythe, saying to it: 'Slay half in the city that forsook us, but half of them spare alive that they may yet remember their old forsaken gods.'

"But God sent a destroying angel to show that He was God, saying unto him: 'Go into that city and slay half of the dwellers therein, yet spare a half of them that they may know that I am God.'

"And at once the destroying angel put his hand to his sword, and the sword came out of the scabbard with a deep breath, like to the breath that a broad woodman takes before his first blow at some giant oak. Thereat the angel pointed his arms downwards, and bending his head between them, fell forward from Heaven's edge, and the spring of his ankles shot him downwards with his wings furled behind him. So he went slanting earthward through the evening with his sword stretched out before him, and he was like a javelin that some hunter hath hurled that returneth again to the earth: but just before he touched it he lifted his head and spread his wings with the under feathers forward, and alighted by the bank of the broad Flavro that divides the city of Nombros. And down the bank of the Flavro he fluttered low, like to a hawk over a new-cut cornfield when the little creatures of the corn are shelterless, and at the same time down the other bank the Death from the gods went mowing.

"At once they saw each other, and the angel glared at the Death, and the Death leered back at him, and the flames in the eyes of the angel illumined with a red glare the mist that lay in the hollows of the sockets of the Death. Suddenly they fell on one another, sword to scythe. And the angel captured the temples of the gods, and set up over them the sign of God, and the Death captured the temples of God, and led into them the ceremonies and sacrifices of the gods; and all the while the centuries slipped quietly by, going down the Flavro seawards.

"And now some worship God in the temple of the gods, and others worship the gods in the temple of God, and still the angel hath not returned again to the rejoicing choirs, and still the Death hath not gone back to die with the dead gods; but all through Nombros they fight up and down, and still on each side of the Flavro the city lives."

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in."

Then another traveler rose up, and said:

"Solemnly between Huhenwazy and Nitcrana the huge grey clouds came floating. And those great mountains, heavenly Huhenwazi and Nitcrana, the king of peaks, greeted them, calling them brothers. And the clouds were glad of their greeting, for they meet with companions seldom in the lonely heights of the sky.

"But the vapours of evening said unto the earth-mist, 'What are those shapes that dare to move above us and to go where Nitcrana is and Huhenwazi?'

"And the earth-mist said in answer unto the vapours of evening, 'It is only an earth-mist that has become mad and has left the warm and comfortable earth, and has in his madness thought that his place is with Huhenwazi and Nitcrana.'

"'Once,' said the vapours of evening, 'there were clouds, but this was many and many a day ago, as our forefathers have said. Perhaps the mad one thinks he is the clouds.'

"Then spake the earth-worms from the warm deeps of the mud, saying 'O earth-mist, thou art indeed the clouds, and there are no clouds but thou. And as for Huhenwazi and Nitcrana, I cannot see them, and therefore they are not high, and there are no mountains in the world but those that I cast up every morning out of the deeps of the mud.'

"And the earth-mist and the vapours of evening were glad at the voice of the earth-worms, and looking earthward believed what they had said.

"And indeed it is better to be as the earth-mist, and to keep close to the warm mud at night, and to hear the earth-worm's comfortable speech, and not to be a wanderer in the cheerless heights, but to leave the mountains alone with their desolate snow, to draw what comfort they can from their vast aspect over all the cities of men, and from the whispers that they hear at evening of unknown distant gods."

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in."

Then a man stood up who came out of the west, and told a western tale. He said:

"There is a road in Rome that runs through an ancient temple that once the gods had loved; it runs along the top of a great wall, and the floor of the temple lies far down beneath it, of marble, pink and white.

"Upon the temple floor I counted to the number of thirteen hungry cats.

"'Sometimes,' they said among themselves, 'it was the gods that lived here, sometimes it was men, and now it's cats. So let us enjoy the sun on the hot marble before another people comes.'

"For it was at that hour of a warm afternoon when my fancy is able to hear silent voices.

"And the awful leanness of all those thirteen cats moved me to go into a neighbouring fish shop, and there to buy a quantity of fishes. Then I returned and threw them all over the railing at the top of the great wall, and they fell for thirty feet, and hit the sacred marble with a smack.

"Now, in any other town but Rome, or in the minds of any other cats, the sight of fishes falling out of heaven had surely excited wonder. They rose slowly, and all stretched themselves, then they came leisurely towards the fishes. 'It is only a miracle,' they said in their hearts."

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in."

Proudly and slowly, as they spoke, drew up to them a camel, whose rider sought entrance to the city. His face shone with the sunset by which for long he had steered for the city's gate. Of him they demanded toll. Whereat he spoke to his camel, and the camel roared and kneeled, and the man descended from him. And the man unwrapped from many silks a box of divers metals wrought by the Japanese, and on the lid of it were figures of men who gazed from some shore at an isle of the Inland Sea. This he showed to the watchers, and when they had seen it, said, "It has seemed to me that these speak to each other thus:

"'Behold now Oojni, the dear one of the sea, the little mother sea that hath no storms. She goeth out from Oojni singing a song, and she returneth singing over her sands. Little is Oojni in the lap of the sea, and scarce to be perceived by wondering ships. White sails have never wafted her legends afar, they are told not by bearded wanderers of the sea. Her fireside tales are known not to the North, the dragons of China have not heard of them, nor those that ride on elephants through Ind.

"'Men tell the tales and the smoke ariseth upwards; the smoke departeth and the tales are told.

"'Oojni is not a name among the nations, she is not know of where the merchants meet, she is not spoken of by alien lips.

"'Indeed, but Oojni is a little among the isles, yet is she loved by those that know her coasts and her inland places hidden from the sea.

"Without glory, without fame, and without wealth, Oojni is greatly loved by a little people, and by a few; yet not by few, for all her dead still love her, and oft by night come whispering through her woods. Who could forget Oojni even among the dead?

"For here in Oojni, wot you, are homes of men, and gardens, and golden temples of the gods, and sacred places inshore from the sea, and many murmurous woods. And there is a path that winds over the hills to go into mysterious holy lands where dance by night the spirits of the woods, or sing unseen in the sunlight; and no one goes into these holy lands, for who that love Oojni could rob her of her mysteries, and the curious aliens come not. Indeed, but we love Oojni though she is so little; she is the little mother of our race, and the kindly nurse of all seafaring birds.

"And behold, even now caressing her, the gentle fingers of the mother sea, whose dreams are far with that old wanderer Ocean.

"And yet let us forget not Fuzi-Yama, for he stands manifest over clouds and sea, misty below, and vague and indistinct, but clear above for all the isles to watch. The ships make all their journeys in his sight, the nights and the days go by him like a wind, the summers and winters under him flicker and fade, the lives of men pass quietly here and hence, and Fuzi-Yama watches there—and knows."

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in."

And I, too, would have told them a tale, very wonderful and very true; one that I had told in many cities, which as yet had no believers. But now the sun had set, and the brief twilight gone, and ghostly silences were rising from far and darkening hills. A stillness hung over that city's gate. And the great silence of the solemn night was more acceptable to the watchers in the gate than any sound of man. Therefore they beckoned to us, and motioned with their hands that we should pass untaxed into the city. And softly we went up over the sand, and between the high rock pillars of the gate, and a deep stillness settled among the watchers, and the stars over them twinkled undisturbed.

For how short a while man speaks, and withal how vainly. And for how long he is silent. Only the other day I met a king in Thebes, who had been silent already for four thousand years.

The Idle City by Lord Dunsany is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Adobe Stock and Adobe Creative Cloud Express.

Music and SFX licensing courtesy of Artlist.io

storyletter.press

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storyletter.substack.com/subscribe

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Welcome to a new, exciting month of The Storyletter Substack!

I had predicted—based on steady growth —that we’d make it to 150 subscribers by July (our one year anniversary), but recent spikes have now placed us one month ahead of schedule. One of these spikes was The Great Substack Story Challenge where a group of fiction Substackers are co-authoring an improv serial fiction story each week. My chapter has yet to be written, as I need to see the chapter ahead of mine coming later next month, but the cross promotion aspect of it has already sent a few folks our way.

There’s a lot developing here at The Storyletter. I feel like a say that every month now, but it’s true! We’ve got a contest launching soon (more on that below), and we would love to see you participate. With free fiction and audio stories, an active writing community, insights into my publishing journey, and monthly indie newsletters, we hope you find something worth your while!

Serializing a Novel Online

As some of you know, I finally finished publishing my fantasy/horror/comedy entitled “Crocodilian” a few weeks back. I’m beyond thrilled about this, but not for all of the reasons one might think. See, Crocodilian was supposed to be a short story that only spanned six weeks, with a chapter releasing each week, and it sort of evolved into a reptilian monstrosity that lasted over ten months.

That’s not to say I’m not happy with it, I think I did it and the readers as much justice as I could manage while discovery-writing the story—plot holes notwithstanding. The mission to deliver the best story I could with what I had set up was basically my main driving factor for finishing it. Also, the feedback here on Substack and over on Royal Road was very motivating.

Story aside, here is what I found by accidentally publishing a 55k word novel online chapter by chapter:

What Not To Do

Initially, the Crocodilian was a 3k word short story. I decided that I hadn’t produced something true to my original vision, so I set out to rewrite it. I plotted out a six-chapter outline that would push a 10k word goal, then I started writing. I got three solid chapters done and said, “Hey, you know what? I’m ahead of schedule, I’ll just start posting.”

And well… that didn’t turn out so great in hindsight.

By week six, I knew that the story had so much more to it that needed excavating. So, I plotted out another six chapters in order to end it on a climactic action scene (which are my favorite things to write).

The problem here, however, is that I caught up to my weekly posts and therefore I needed to then write, edit, and revise entire chapters roughly every seven days while also managing the rest of the Substack.

I quickly discovered that I couldn’t keep up with this pace. The chapters lagged into two week and, at times, three week territory. This was extremely demoralizing as it potentially put off readers due to the lengthy pauses in-between posts. Side note: I was publishing on (Substack), Medium and Royal Road at the same time.

My advice here is to not discovery-write a serial unless your readers are aware of the context in which you’re publishing it. I think if I only had to worry about Crocodilian each week, it would have been fine. I wrote my first novel on Wattpad serially over the course of a year, inconsistent weekly posts and all, and readers were still happy by the end of it (because I was up front about the process).

What I Recommend

Write ahead of schedule, or simply complete the story altogether.

The real kicker was the fact that my story wasn’t completed before I started publishing. The twelve chapter outline—the one that eventually became twenty-five chapters—would have worked itself out behind-the-scenes beforehand.

Stay consistent.

This one is hard to do, but I think having one or two days a week reserved for your serial posts helps readers follow the progression of your story. Since I didn’t follow this myself, I’m not sure how much this affected the experience of “Croc”. One thing I do know is it would’ve been published over the span of four months instead of ten.

Edit, revise, edit, revise.

I can’t stress this enough. One of the major reasons why I couldn’t meet the weekly goal was due to my newly-adopted revision process. I read my chapters a minimum of five times before publishing (and on different screens in different word processors), in addition to one pass through out loud so as to make sure it sounded correct. Of course, there’s always something that slips through, but trust me, this elevates the quality to a whole new level.

Post on various sites and share each chapter on social media.

I noticed that I would get more readers the further along I went. When I’d post a new chapter (on social media), I would add a little snippet detailing an exciting new aspect of the adventure, all the while promoting that it wasn’t too late to hop aboard the story train. People would open the link and then click on Chapter 1.

An Example of What’s Working

If you’d like to see a great example of a serialized novel, go check out The Problematic Pen’s historical fiction novel “Of Wind and Wolves”. J.M. Elliot has woven a compelling tale that has kept my interest right from the start. Plus, the historical and anthropological posts flanking the chapters really add to the depth of the story itself. Here is a quick synopsis:

On the ancient Ukrainian steppe, an aspiring young Amazon finds herself a pawn in the schemes of powerful men, but deciding her own fate will mean confronting the dark consequences of war and the true meaning of sacrifice.

Summer Contest Announcement

I’m excited to announce the 1st Annual “Storyletter Summer Short Story Submission Sweepstakes” or “S6” (working title so let me know if you hate it.) I’ve been hammering out the details with several close writing colleagues over the past month and I think we’re ready to host our first writing contest. I’ll post a separate announcement later in June with all of the rules, but I’ll give you a brief overview so you know what to expect.

It will likely run from July to August for 30-45 days.

It’s a short story contest between 1000-5000 words.

The theme won’t be released until the upcoming Rules post.

There will be 1 winner and 2 runners up with a small cash prize.

Entry will remain free with the caveat that you are also a free subscriber.

There will be a panel of judges for deciding the winners.

The idea here is to drum up some excitement for the one-year anniversary of The Storyletter by doing something fun and inclusive within the community given that the whole point is to share stories and highlight under-recognized top performers in the industry. I really hope you share this with family and friends who are aspiring writers and we have a blast with our first ever contest.

Interview with M.S. Arthadian

This month, I had the privilege of being invited on the Arthadian Anthologies podcast as a guest. It was my first ever interview and despite the fact that I was speaking very slowly for some reason, I think it turned out pretty well. Matthew, who runs the podcast and is the creator of the Reborn in Power table-top RPG, was very patient and asked some great questions. We’ve got some projects in the works and I’m looking forward to announcing them in due time.

New Merch Available

Head on over to The Storyletter Gift Shop! We’ve got an eco tote bag, 4 T-Shirts, and a new mug design this month.

Songs

Dan + Shay - One Direction:

The Ghost Club - Same Graves:

Storyletter Read Aloud: Recent Episodes

Winston Malone