Short Story: Lifeblood

    I completed a second of my stories this week, and we are getting really excited about the progress we're making. With several of the stories now having been sent out to beta readers (thank you all), we're about half-way finished with our short story collection. So, here is your second sneak peek.

    You remember distinctly the very first life you ever took. At twelve years old, you participated in the traditional rite of passage into adulthood by dueling and killing a prisoner of war who had been starved enough to give you a good chance. Of course the prisoner was fighting for his life which added a serious danger to it.
    But it wasn't the battle that you remember so well. It was the feeling when the body collapsed and the blood pooled at your feet that gives you chills to this day.
    It had been too easy.

    These are not the opening lines of the story, but this gives you a good taste of what the story feels like. This is actually my favorite story that I've written for this collection, I think. It started off as an experiment that I wasn't sure would really work. I wrote the first draft of this story for a creative writing class in which we're supposed to write "literary fiction", which basically means the story is supposed to be character driven and basically a character study rather than a piece of action or plot-pumping entertainment. I wanted to know if I could write a story that was centered around action and violence and still make it character driven. It took a lot of time and a lot of revisions, but I think I have succeeded (and my professor does too).

    This story follows a viking chief named Orvar on a battlefield, trying to get vengeance for the murder of his family, but it's a lot more than that. It's about a father-son relationship. It's about a chief-village relationship. It's about manhood, and what coming of age really means. It's about honor, responsibility, and what it means to really be a leader.

    Some other information abut this story. You may have noticed in the passage from the story that I used the 2nd person point of you saying, 'you did this, you did that', This was the second most experimental part of this story. I wanted the story to feel like an epic poem. I wanted it to feel like a story that is told around a campfire about a legendary hero, like the vikings would have done. And I wanted to see if the 2nd person point of view would work since I've always wanted to write a story like that.

    If you want to know more, stay updated here or contact me with questions, comments, or concerns. Next week, the sneak peek will be about one of my wife's stories, Thanks for taking the time to read this and be part of our process, and let me know if you still want to beta read. It's not too late.