Page 1 Critique

This continues the reprisal of my series of page 1 critiques - you can read about the project HERE, and there's a list of all the critiques so far too.

I'm also posting some of these on my Youtube channel (like, subscribe yadda yadda).

It's worth noting that I critique whole batches of chapters on a monthly basis for my top teir patrons.

***

I gave doing this up about 6 months ago, but I missed it and asked for some new, unpublished page 1s so that I would be critiquing work where the author had the opportunity to change things if they agreed with any of my comments.

Today I'm feeling too ropey to write my own stuff, so I'm casting an eye over one of the page 1s that came in last month.

(My standard disclaimer)

It's very hard to separate one's tastes from a technical critique. There are page 1s from popular books with which I would find multiple faults. I didn't, for example, like page 1 of Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule (I didn't pursue the rest of the book). But that book has 150,000+ ratings on Goodreads, a great average score of 4.12 and Goodkind is a #1 NYT bestseller. His first page clearly did a great job for many people.

I'm not always right *hushed gasp*. You will likely be able to find a successful and highly respected author who will tell you the opposite to practically every bit of advice I give. Possibly not the same author in each case though.

The art of receiving criticism is to take what's useful to you and discard the rest. You need sufficient confidence in your own vision/voice such that whilst criticism may cause you to adjust course you're not about to do a U-turn for anyone. If you act on every bit of advice you'll get crit-burn, your story will be pulled in different directions by different people. It will stop being yours and turn into some Frankenstein's monster that nobody will ever want to read.

Additionally - don't get hurt or look for revenge. The person critiquing you is almost always trying to help you (it's true in some groups there will be the occasional person who is jealous/mean/misguided but that's the exception, not the rule). That person has put in effort on your behalf. If they don't like your prose it's not personal - they didn't just slap your baby.


I've flicked through some of the pages looking for one where I have something to say - something that hopefully is useful to the author and to anyone else reading the post.


This one is from Amir Hammami-Gulliksen and a projected book called Discovery of Magic.

****

I've posted the unadulterated page first then again with comments inset and at the end.

"Let's do one final check to see that we have everything set up correctly. We only have one chance at this," LoreSeeker says while addressing his camera sitting on his desk, next to his three monitors. The first monitor shows photocopies of two pages from an old book. The second monitor shows the view from the cameras in use so that LoreSeeker know what his viewers see, and can adjust any mistakes or bad angles. The final monitor show the active chat of his viewers. Just short of a thousand viewers today he notices as he glances at the chat. Not his best numbers, but far beyond what he usually got when live-streaming games. It seems people really are desperate to escape reality, grasping at any slim chance of hope for a better world.

LoreSeeker steps back from his monitors and walks to the other side of a large table positioned in the middle of the well lit room. Behind the table is a large green sheet covering the back wall, where for the viewers LoreSeekers personalized logo is projected. A rather simple logo made by some free image generating AI tool, the letters L and S surrounded by swirls of purple color and white stars.

At the corner of the table is a second camera, positioned so that it captures everything laid out on the table in high resolution. On top of the table are three powdery circles, each centered on points of an imaginary equilateral triangle and interlocking so that they form four sections whose interior belong to at least two of the circles. Each circle is made from a drizzle of spice; salt,  pepper and cinnamon. In each of the three outer sections is a cup filled with liquid. The cup in the salt-cinnamon section is a cup of vinegar, in the salt-pepper section a cup of water and in the cinnamon-pepper section a cup of olive oil. In the middle section that all three circles encompass is a burner with an empty bowl sitting on top.

"Okay…," LoreSeeker says while examining a sheet of paper, "We've assembled the trinity circles, with the salt ring facing towards north. With the salt as the reference point we have cinnamon right and pepper to the left." A ding comes from the chat and LoreSeeker looks up "Thanks for the tip McSnuggly, we're pretty sure it means True North and not magnetic north. We covered this in the last stream, you can check out the VOD on Youtube" he says after glancing at the message, returning to the table.

LoreSeeker continues through the list of steps on his sheet of paper and verifies that everything is set up correctly. Will this Wicca-esque ritual hold the secret of magic? Probably not, but it’s worth a shot, and the viewership it attracts is good.

 

"Well then. I say we are ready," he smiles to the camera, "let's discover magic!".

 

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

"Let's do one final check to see that we have everything set up correctly. We only have one chance at this,"

Opens with dialogue - often a good move as dialogue is an engaging form. I would reverse those two sentences as "We only have one chance at this!" is a solid first line and "Let's do one final check etc etc" is rather weak.

 LoreSeeker says while addressing his camera sitting on his desk, next to his three monitors.

I wouldn't lump this scene setting in with the dialogue tag - it's too cluttered. Make a new sentence.

We're in present tense, which is an infrequent choice and the unfamiliar often annoys readers. So if you're going to use it, have a reason for paying that price. Present tense offers an immediacy that can enchance action scenes or tension building. It helps create the illusion that whatever is happening is ongoing rather than in the settled past. 

 The first monitor shows photocopies of two pages from an old book. The second monitor shows the view from the cameras in use so that LoreSeeker knows what his viewers see, and can adjust any mistakes or bad angles.

So, I've highlighted five instances of numbering/counting in the first few lines. That could get irritating/repetitive.

The PoV feels rather shallow, almost omniscient, although there's no concrete example that can be argued to be outside his PoV. We're not getting any of his feelings/sensations except as unvoiced dialogue.

 The final monitor shows the active chat of his viewers. Just short of a thousand viewers today he notices as he glances at the chat. Not his best numbers, but far beyond what he usually got when live-streaming games. It seems people really are desperate to escape reality, grasping at any slim chance of hope for a better world.

Here we've dipped behind LoreSeeker's eyes and are getting his thoughts as if we are him.

LoreSeeker steps back from his monitors and walks to the other side of a large table positioned in the middle of the well-lit room. Behind the table is a large green sheet covering the back wall, where for the viewers LoreSeeker’s personalized logo is projected. A rather simple logo made by some free image generating AI tool, the letters L and S surrounded by swirls of purple color and white stars.

This, along with the careful accounting of camera and monitor positioning, is starting to feel like too much information. It's a mechanical rather than florid description, but the writing question is why does the reader need to know all this detail? The low-budget effects do give us an insight into our character's "mom's basement" vibe, but we already got some of that from his relatively low viewing numbers. He seems to be a mid-tier youtuber.

At the corner of the table is a second camera, positioned so that it captures everything laid out on the table in high resolution. On top of the table are three powdery circles, each centered on points of an imaginary equilateral triangle and interlocking so that they form four sections whose interior belong to at least two of the circles. Each circle is made from a drizzle of spice; salt, pepper and cinnamon. In each of the three outer sections is a cup filled with liquid. The cup in the salt-cinnamon section is a cup of vinegar, in the salt-pepper section a cup of water and in the cinnamon-pepper section a cup of olive oil. In the middle section that all three circles encompass is a burner with an empty bowl sitting on top.

Now we're back to the counting, and have yet more detailed mechanical description. Description works best when it's from a PoV, ideally one with opinions. The description then illuminates both the items/place and the person seeing it.

This description serves to underline that this magic is a fiddly recipe-based type, but 7 more lines on page 1 is too high a price to pay for just that.

"Okay…," LoreSeeker says while examining a sheet of paper. "We've assembled the trinity circles, with the salt ring facing towards north. With the salt as the reference point we have cinnamon right and pepper to the left." A ding comes from the chat and LoreSeeker looks up "Thanks for the tip McSnuggly, we're pretty sure it means True North and not magnetic north. We covered this in the last stream, you can check out the VOD on Youtube," he says after glancing at the message, returning to the table.

This part earns its keep, combining humour with an underscoring of the amateur / crowd-sourced nature of the thing. The repeated description could in fact replace all the previous description since it conveys the same idea by itself without the completionist vibe.

LoreSeeker continues through the list of steps on his sheet of paper and verifies that everything is set up correctly. Will this Wicca-esque ritual hold the secret of magic? Probably not, but it’s worth a shot, and the viewership it attracts is good.

 Again this encapsulates some of the earlier fiddliness in a more palatable form and tells us more about our character. He's only part faking it - he wants to believe it will work and seems to believe that magic is real even if this isn't the key to it.

"Well then. I say we are ready," he smiles to the camera, "let's discover magic!".

And a nice finish which makes it feel potentially like a piece of flash fiction. But if it gets them to turn the page, then job done.

This page 1 had a number of things to recommend it: primarily an amusing situation and some liveliness to it.

The present tense and the shallow PoV don't do it any favours in my view, but potentially their time to shine will come later in the piece. Not everything has to pay off on page 1!

My main complaint though concerns the excess of mechanical description. This description doesn't reflect its source and delivers a very dry accounting of what is where, exactly. The reader doesn't need to know most of the detail, and may even be bored by it. They may be turned away by this level of detail, especially since if it's here on page 1 we can probably expect much much more of it to come. 

The space occupied by the enumeration of which candle was where is space that could have been used to better effect, either by making the character more interesting or by asking more questions that the reader needs the answer to.

We have only one real question here and only a small level of implied threat (and thus tension). The question is: Will the magic work? And we assume the answer is yes, otherwise what are we doing here? And if the magic works it might be dangerous - so there's some threat.

I would trim the description heavily and give the description from LoreSeeker's PoV. I would have him reflect on the nature of the magic being attempted and the dangers thereof. That would pose more questions that the reader wants answered and inject a level of tension that would encourage turning the page.

Join my Patreon.

Join my 3-emails-a-year newsletter #Prizes #FreeContent 

Which is my most successful trilogy?

Because different people focus on different parts of my work, or swim in particular social media seas, they often have a rather warped sense of the relative successes (sales-wise) of my various trilogies.

I have on several occasions seen people stating with certainty that The Book of the Ancestor is my "biggest" series. And I was asked today if that was true.

Here are the sales of my trilogies relative to each other. Obviously there is some contribution from the length of time those series have been on sale. Prince of Thorns, for example, is 12 years old and recently had its 31st reprint in paperback in the UK.

Which is a clue to the answer. The Broken Empire is far and away my most commercially successful work.

I've sold in the region of 2 million books, and the Broken Empire trilogy accounts for over half of those sales by itself.

There are many writers whose career is dominated / overshadowed / represented by one book that they wrote, and that one book's sales may heavily eclipse all the rest put together. Often it's the first book they had published. The mechanism for this is fairly obvious if you think about it.

Would I like some of my other books to bust out just as big? Sure. Do I think they will? The odds are against it, but who knows. Jorg broke down the door, and I'll keep stealing the furniture until someone throws me out.

Join my Patreon.

Join my 3-emails-a-year mailing list.

AI writing results

I put out interim results with 100+ votes on each of the 10 pieces. The results below are after roughly tripling those numbers. The polls with the least number of votes at time of writing has 374, and the one with the most has 911. 

The extra votes shuffled the ratings up and down a little. They also reached the statistical threshold to identify three more of the pieces (obviously the margins here are fairly fine if 150 votes weren't sufficient to reveal the difference but 450 votes were (those extra 300 coming in after the truth had been made available). Of the additional pieces identified: one was correctly decided to be written by an AI, one was correctly decided to be written by a person, and one piece written by a person was incorrectly identifed as AI-written.

Read about the experiment here.

I want to say a quick word on "statistical significance":

If you ask 100 people to answer a question like "do you like oranges, yes or no?" and the result is 49 to 51, that is not a statistically significant difference on which we can say that the larger population from which this 100 were drawn have a majority against oranges. 

The population might slightly favour oranges and still many times you could randomly draw 100 people who would say yes 49 times and no 51 times. They might quite often say yes 47 times and no 53 times...

There is a mathematics which allows us to tell whether a difference is big enough to be taken seriously, and I have applied it here.

So the figure below shows the results for the first 8 pieces of fiction, with the last 2 off to the side since these late-comers didn't quite match with the stated conditions.

Note:

i) The people voting on this included MANY writers, so we should expect better judgement from them on writing matters than we would expect from the general readership or general public.

ii) Publishing the star ratings on "quality" of the pieces live may have polarised results. I.e people seeing a piece was getting lots of 1* ratings might then have let that sway their opinion and said the piece was AI-written (and even rated it lower because of that).

Main observations:

i)  After a minimum of 100 votes per poll the voters were only able to come to a statistically significant opinion on 4 of original 8 posts. This has since moved to 7 of the 8 (with a minumum of 370 votes per poll) but this shows how "on a knife's edge" many of these decisions were.

ii) In 5 of the 7 cases in which there was a statistically significant opinion it was the correct opinion. But the number of votes requires show that for a great many voters the exercise was mostly a coin toss.

iii) The two cases where the readers (as a whole) were wrong - were deciding that an AI-written piece was human-written, and deciding that a human-written piece was AI-written.

iv) after a mimimum 100 votes 5 of the 8 cases were undecided or incorrectly decided. After a minimum 370 votes 3 of the 8 cases were undecided or incorrecly decided.

v) The 2nd highest rated piece was AI-written (incorrectly believed to be human-written)

vi) The 2nd and 3rd highest rated pieces were AI-written.

I list the pieces below, indicating AI or human - I've given the authors the option of remaining anonymous and some of them haven't got back to me on that at the time of writing, so I'll fill them in as they answer.

1 - Kian N. Ardalan

2 - AI written

3 - AI written

4 - Amy Hopkins

5 - Human written - wants to be anonymous

6 - Mazarkis Williams

7 - AI written 

8 - AI written (I asked for 19th century language, clearly unpopular choice!)

-------------

9 - T. Frohock

10 - T.S Davies

Conclusion:

Given that these pieces were written by authors with thousands of sales (two self-published, two with traditional publishing deals as well), and that many of the people voting are also writers... the inability to decide on the majority of these examples is worrying.

Moreover two of the top three rated pieces are AI written (a very small margin on the 3rd, likely not significantly ahead (or behind) human-written pieces 1 & 10).

AI art has come from laughable to contest-winning in about 2 years.

Where AI writing is in that process I don't know, and I also don't know how much better either the art or the writing will get, or how fast it will happen.

But I would say that there is definite cause to worry that in a few short years AI could be writing entire books that people might like as much or better than human-written ones. And it won't take a year per book to write them. These pieces of flash fiction appeared in seconds.

On the flip side, whilst there's cause to worry, it is also not a guarantee. Writing a book is a lot harder than writing flash fiction. AI may run out of steam on the way towards that goal.

What seems highly likely is that some authors (I won't be one of them) will generate description, fight scenes, dialogue etc using AI, then edit it into their work either to save time or to compensate weaknesses in their writing.

We are living in "interesting times". Take care.

3 examples of AI art to the prompt "Prince of Thorns" generated one year apart in 2021, 2022, and 2023

Join my Patreon.

Join my 3-emails-a-year mailing list.

.

So ... is AI writing any good?

This blog post is a genuine attempt to investigate where things stand with AI writing.

It is not beating the drum for AI or advocating its use.

I have published interim results - you should not look at these before or during reading/voting.

It is simply asking whether there is currently any format of fiction where readers are unable to tell whether the text they are reading is written by a machine or by a person. 

There's clearly a lot of suspicion, fear, and annecdote about this subject and whilst I feel that I can tell if a piece is AI written or person written ... I don't know it for a statistical fact. 

Obviously the scope of this investigation is limited and the results rely on the good faith of those taking part. It's not a proper scientific study, which would ideally take place in a far more controlled setting with larger numbers of both text piece and testers.

But - reading takes time and I'm asking you to invest several minutes here, so I don't want to exceed your willingness to engage with the process.

I have focused on short fiction (flash fiction in fact) since it's clear that AI is not currently in the position where it can write a book that's in any way convincing without it being a hybrid effort involving considerable human input.

Below are (initially) 8 pieces of flash fiction, all of them ~350 words. All of them were written to the prompt: "write a piece of fiction based on 'meeting a dragon" - for the AI there were additional very brief suggestions concerning tone &/or setting to generate variety, an example might be "make it romatic and set on a cliff top".

some of these pieces were written by writers with significant experience whose books have many readers. They were written fairly quickly and don't represent the writers' finest work, but they were taken seriously and not written off-hand or carelessly.

some of the pieces were written by ChatGPT 4, which is the paid for version and currently about as good as is publically available.

since I asked for more than I needed the total number of pieces may exceed 8 and I will randomly sprinkle AI-written pieces in with new human-written pieces.

Each piece comes with 2 polls - one poll is for you to rank how much you enjoyed it, the other is for you to guess whether it was written by a person or not. The results of the enjoyment polls will be visible from the start. The AI/human poll results will be revealed after the experiment concludes.

I would ask people not to speculate publically about which were or weren't AI/human written as this will tend to clump opinion and will lessen the usefulness of the results.

Remember to assess these on their merits. If there is some tell-tale AI clue hidden in the punctation or whatever ... you really shouldn't be basing your guess on that. Guess based on the perceived skill of the writing - the imagination, passion, humour etc behind it.

And don't use AI detection tools -- that also would undermine the usefulness of this exercise.

You can read (and then vote on) as many or as few of these as you like, in any order.

Meeting a Dragon #1 

There is a nursery rhyme to recall upon meeting the scaled beast known as a dragon. 

“If it is black, beware its attack. If it is white, then say night-night. If it is blue, it will chew.” 

Even if I struggled to recall the rest of the colours, I knew that in some shape or form, I was about to die. Death was all that awaited a dragon encounter.

So, imagine my surprise when I had not turned into gristle between the beast’s stalactite teeth.

“What do you want?” the dragon growled through gritted teeth. Hot air made me stumble back with the promise of flame. The gold dragon reared its head towards me from its bed of treasures.

“I… I’m a thief.” Damned my traitorous tongue.

The gold dragon chuckled, causing coins to flee down the decline of its mound. “Honesty from a thief? How admirable.” Whatever amounted to a smile took form on its snout. “I assume you are here to take from me?”

My head nodded. Fear shackled me to the truth.

Another chuckle. “Very well, little one. I give you permission to take a single object from my vast treasury, and then never to return.”

My mind nearly broke from the golden shadow of death. It let me live! More than that, it let me take a single item. A gold and bejewelled goblet caught my eye. I was off and away.

The cave mouth led me back into the open. Wild and feral winds atop the mountain prodded at me and leached warmth. But I lived! My teeth still clattered, partially due to the close encounter with death but also due to the winds.

I took a step on the narrow edge to my right, preparing myself for a hard descent.

The rock broke. Gravity took hold and the wind gladly pushed me in the direction of open nothingness.

Ah. I recalled one of the lines from that old nursery rhyme.

“Should thou take treasure from a dragon of gold, then be assured to pay the price tenfold.”

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Meeting a Dragon #2 

In the heart of the bustling city, atop the tallest skyscraper, where the old tales had been buried under the weight of modernity, I met a dragon. 

It was not the creature of my childhood stories. No broad wings, no scales, no fire-breathing terror. Instead, it was an elegant, sinuous being, shimmering like liquid silver, almost transparent, with eyes that held the stories of epochs gone by. 

“I thought dragons were myth,” I whispered, my voice catching in the wind. 

The dragon tilted its head, considering me with a gaze that seemed to pierce through time. “Myths are but forgotten truths,” it responded, its voice musical yet melancholic. “Just as this city has buried its forests, humans have buried their beliefs. I am the last of my kind here.” 

“Why are you here?” I asked, captivated. 

“To remind,” it sighed. “The world balances on the harmony of magic and reality. And now, the scales are tipping.” 

I looked down at the sprawling metropolis. From up here, I couldn't hear the honking of cars or the murmurs of crowded streets. Just the lonely echo of forgotten tales. 

“Can the balance be restored?” My voice was barely audible against the vast backdrop of stars. 

The dragon circled me, its form trailing stardust. “Perhaps, with belief. With stories. With voices like yours.” 

And as dawn began to break, the dragon unfurled wings I hadn’t seen before, stretching out in a blaze of colors and light. It soared, not into the distant past, but towards the looming horizon of tomorrow. 

I was left standing there, my feet grounded in the now, my mind alight with tales of magic and reality, ready to be shared, to be believed.

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Meeting a Dragon #3 

The city’s underbelly buzzed with menace. I stumbled upon the dragon, not amidst towering mountains, but hidden in the shadowed recess of a crumbling rooftop. Its grotesque form – scales festering, wings tattered like old rags, and one vacant eye socket – contrasted sharply with the one remaining eye, which glinted with rage.

“You...” it hissed, thick chains rattling as they held it tight. Each link was etched with symbols that danced like malevolent spirits. “Help ... me.”

A cold wind whipped around us, carrying with it the stench of decay. The dragon strained against its bonds, smoke curling from its nostrils. “They took my sky, bound me in chains forged from the screams of the betrayed.”

A flash of movement caught my attention. Down a winding alley, a figure draped in ornate robes disappeared into a stone fortress. The overlord. Rumors had it he'd captured something powerful, using its essence to strengthen his tyranny over the city.

“The heart,” the dragon rasped, snapping my attention back. “His heart... it holds my freedom.”

Inside the fortress, shadows played tricks on my eyes, whispering of unseen horrors. Guards with soulless eyes prowled the maze-like corridors. Using the element of surprise, I dispatched them one by one, their falls muffled by the oppressive silence.

Finally, I reached the chamber of the overlord. His cold laughter echoed as our blades clashed, sparks flying. The room spun with every parry and thrust, until with a final desperate swing, my blade found its mark.

With the overlord's still-warm heart in hand, I raced back to the rooftop. The dragon devoured it, chains disintegrating in a burst of ethereal light. But instead of the gratitude I expected, its full power restored, the dragon roared, unleashing a fiery onslaught on the very city it once swore to protect.

I watched in horror, realizing too late the price of meddling with powers beyond comprehension. The city’s smoldering ruins whispered of a freedom that came at a terrible cost.

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Meeting a Dragon #4 

In a distant land, atop a mountain, Sir Roderick Dragonsbane lurked outside a cave. His name, though impressive, didn’t quite compensate for the fact that he was both young, and terrified.

Sir Roderick (the Twenty-Seventh, to be precise) approached the cave, crouching low and gripping his longsword in sweaty hands. He flinched at a scuffling and almost fled when it was followed by a rough snort.

Almost. But not quite. “Ahem.” Roderick waited, then tried again. “Ahem!”

“Who goes there?” a rasping voice boomed.

“It is I, Sir Roderick!”

“Which one?” The voice was joined by a pair of whirling eyes that glowed like embers in the darkness. “I seem to have lost count, though I recall the Twelfth being rather chewy. The Twenty-First was marinated in a very nice whisky.”

“I am Sir Roderick the Twenty-Seventh.” Roderick stood straighter as he spoke. After all, it was a noble name.

“Ah, humans. So eager to fill the world with your numbers. I suppose, given such short life spans, it is understandable. Well, Roderick the Twenty-Seventh, how may I help you?”

“Dragon, I am here to kill you!”

“Kill me?” The dragon chuckled, a laugh that filled the cave, bounced off the walls, and spilled down the mountainside. “Young knight, how do you expect to accomplish this when all your predecessors failed?”

“Failed?” Roderick’s bravery was rapidly trickling away along with the last echoes of the dragon’s humor. “I am descended from dragonslayers!”

“And, pray tell, how many dragons live in this kingdom?”

Roderick furrowed his brow. “One? You. You’re the last.”

“And how many years have I been the last?” the dragon enquired.

Roderick swallowed. “Erm. Quite a lot, I believe.”

“So, how many dragons do you think those ancestors of yours actually slayed.”

“Not… very many.” Roderick’s words dropped to a whimper. 

The eyes drifted closer. “I do hope you’ve found time to procreate,” the dragon murmured. There was a snap, a crunch, a swallow. “I quite enjoy my visitors every few decades.”

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Meeting a Dragon #5 

Cinereal Grey followed her father along the twilight path between worlds. On her left, rainbow dragons frolicked among the bright colours of day. On her right, quiet ruled the monochromatic land of night.

“We are creatures of shadow,” said Father Grey. “Not for us the bright lights of day.”

Bowing her head, she walked the path he set before her. For he was wise in the ways and knew well the quiet life of shades. But the bright sounds of glee drew her attention and she listened to the shimmering dragons play.

“They are desperate for your attention,” said Father Grey. “Turn your head and look away. Do not feed their pathetic need, because you are more than they’ll ever be.”

And she plugged her ears and walked the twilight path. On her right, smoke dragons, lost in worlds of their own imagination. On the left, iridescent drakes chased each other in an endless game.

“We are neither here nor there,” said Father Grey. “No dragon can hear a word that you say.”

This time, she focussed on her father before her, noting the hunched shoulders, the way he looked neither left nor right.

She understood.

“It is you,” she said, “who is a creature of shadow. You shy from the bright lights of day.

Father Grey stopped walking.

“It is you,” she said, “who are desperate for attention but hide away.”

Father Grey turned to face his daughter.

“It is you,” she said, “who decides you are neither here nor there. Is it that they won’t listen, or that you have nothing to say?”

Father Grey looked away. “There are two worlds. In which will you stay?”

Cinereal looked left and right. “Both,” she answered. “When I need peace and respite, I will dream my stories in the land of the night. When I need adventure and play, I shall seek out friends in the land of day.”

Father Grey watched his daughter step to the left and for the first time saw her true colours.

He studied the twilight path ahead then turned to follow where she now led.

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Meeting a Dragon #6 

Sunlight gleamed over the flats. The storm had passed, but the crossing remained treacherous, full of mud holes and sharp rock. I chose a stick from the ground as Cassie fidgeted. “I want to catch a skipper.”

“They’ll be out. Just follow me, all right?” I watched the ground. Movement along a tidepool showed as a dark flutter in the morning light. “Let’s go.”

Our feet made sucking sounds as we moved. I used my stick to gauge the bottom.

“There!” Cassie’s shout carried across the morning. “A red one!”

“Sush. Be quiet if you want to eat.” But my head turned, searching. Red ones were rare, for selling and not eating. We could use the money.

Then I saw it, the red; a shimmering, liquid red, vibrant enough to show from a distance though only a speck poked above the mud. I had never seen a color like that in the flats, or anywhere.

“I don’t think that’s a skipper.” I took a hesitant step, forgot to gauge it, and sank halfway to my knees. I held out my arm to keep Cassie following. “That way.” I pointed to my right where the ground looked firmer.

She was ahead of me then. As I struggled out of the sink she nearly ran toward her find, careless of mud or other dangers. 

And then it moved. The earth slid away from the crimson flesh, showing a wide leg with clawed feet. Its skin split the sunlight into rays of pink and turquoise and I stumbled, disoriented. Whatever this creature might be, the leg alone towered over me, and each of the claws were longer than my forearms. 

“Cassie!” But I could not see her.

The great leg found purchase, and then another pulled itself from the silt. The ground vibrated beneath my feet as the creature’s back emerged, huge and muscular, a riot of threatening color. Then a tail, and finally, a head, long and flat and shaped like a diamond, and glowing like one too. 

And then I saw her, Cassie, reaching out toward the creature’s mouth.

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Meeting a Dragon #7 

In the tucked-away town of Bumblebrook, life was predictably pleasant. The streets hummed with gentle activity, and the aroma of Mrs. Penelope’s freshly baked pies wafted through the air. But one sunny day, amidst rosebuds and daisies, a dragon decided to drop in.

Now, this wasn't your typical fire-breathing sort. No, this dragon had scales that shimmered like morning dew and wings that could've been plucked from a butterfly’s back. Instead of growls, it hiccupped, releasing silvery bubbles into the air.

“Blimey!” young Timmy exclaimed, nearly dropping his jam sandwich. His freckles seemed to dance with surprise. Venturing closer, curiosity overpowering his initial shock, he offered his sandwich to the creature, asking, "Fancy a bite?"

Much to Timmy's delight, the dragon accepted with a graceful nod, munching happily and producing even more bubbles, which sent Whiskers, Timmy's mischievous cat, floating and twirling above the rose bushes.

Miss Gladys, with her silver hair and stories of yesteryears, chuckled heartily from her porch. "Reminds me of a dragon I once knew," she murmured more to herself than anyone else, tapping her foot to a rhythm only she could hear.

The day slid into an impromptu festival. Kids chased bubbles, adults danced to tunes played on old gramophones, and the dragon? Well, it seemed to be the star, basking in attention, dancing, and sharing more bubble-blowing hiccups.

As stars painted the sky and Bumblebrook’s lights began to dim, the dragon, belly round from treats and heart warmed by newfound friends, took to the sky, leaving a sprinkling of glittering stardust behind.

And in Bumblebrook, tucked in their beds, both young and old dreamt of the day magic chose to visit, reminding them of life’s unexpected, whimsical twists.

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Meeting a Dragon #8

Beneath the tumultuous waves of the tempestuous sea, where the world above was but a memory shrouded in liquid obscurity, a woman found herself in an uncanny communion with a dragon of unfathomable proportions. This extraordinary encounter occurred as she plunged into the aquatic abyss, her thoughts echoing with the ephemeral songs of sirens.

In the subaqueous realm, the ethereal light filtered through the churning waters, casting an eerie, cerulean pallor upon the undersea terrain. Amidst this aquatic reverie, the woman beheld the dragon—an entity seemingly conjured from the depths of the collective subconscious.

This sea serpent, colossal and resplendent, was adorned in scales of iridescent azure and sapphire, each gleaming like the facets of precious gems. Its serpentine form wove through the aquatic expanse, sinuous and poised, every movement akin to a balletic performance beneath the waves. The dragon’s eyes, pools of ancient wisdom, regarded her with an inscrutable wisdom, as if peering into the very recesses of her soul.

The woman, bereft of the terrestrial constraints that bound her, met the creature with a sense of wonderment that transcended the mere corporeal. In this aqueous netherworld, she found herself capable of unspoken communion, where words were superfluous, and the language of the soul took precedence.

The dragon’s voice, a resonant melody that reverberated through the liquid medium, cascaded like sonorous notes of an otherworldly symphony. It spoke not in words, but in the vibrations of existence itself, revealing the mysteries of the submerged cosmos, secrets known only to the denizens of the deep.

As they communed, the woman perceived the dragon's realm—the hidden realms beneath the sea, the forgotten epics etched in the annals of oceanic time. She glimpsed the profound connection between land and sea, the interplay of tides and celestial forces, the genesis of storms, and the veiled narratives of shipwrecks and mariners lost to the abyss.

In this subaqueous reverie, time lost its dominion, and the boundaries between the terrestrial and the aquatic dissolved. The woman, an emissary of the surface world, shared in the dragon’s ancient wisdom, becoming one with the depths—a luminous fragment of the enduring mysteries of the boundless sea.

Their communion persisted until the woman returned to the surface, her heart and mind forever transformed by the spectral encounter beneath the waves—a communion that transcended the boundaries of time and reality, leaving her with a profound sense of awe and wonderment for the mysteries of the deep.

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Meeting a Dragon #9

She came to Mrs. Craig’s store in August when the summer hung sticky and sweet. Nobody’d never seen her before. She walked in looking like she’d stepped off the screen in a picture show, all long and cool on that hazy summer’s day.

Jerry Mack was the first to move. Most folks said he was bad news around people's daughters, but his daddy was a judge and kept him out of trouble.

He ponied right up to that girl and bought her a cola. We all watched while she drank it. Her slim throat bobbed gently with each swallow. A drop of ice water fell to her chest, and every male in the store, from seven-year-old Bobby Price to eighty-year-old Sam Tredway, watched that bead’s trajectory as it dipped between the swell of her breasts.

Said her name was Aurea. Said her car broke down and she was looking to get a ride to Winston. Jerry Mack offered to take her.

Mrs. Craig stood behind the counter and watched it all with a gleam in her eye.

Jerry Mack and Aurea slipped through the screen door and stood on the porch. He gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. While they talked in low voices, she bent her hip and tossed back her hair. Maybe it was the light or her pose or even the smoke from the cigarette but for just an instant, her shadow flashed against the screen and looked just like the silhouette of a dragon.

Fast as it came, the image was gone and so were Jerry Mack and Aurea. We heard his car start and the crunch of gravel but we didn't see which way they went.

Two days later, word came they'd found Jerry Mack dead inside his burnt-up car at the bottom of a ravine near Chinquapin Hill.

Mrs. Craig took the news well. She went to the phone and made a call. Told Miss Magdalene she didn't have to worry about Jerry Mack threatening her daughter no more.

They said Mrs. Craig was a conjure woman. Said she went down to Chatham County and walked with the devil in his circle. Said for the right price, she'd solve your problems. Most everyone thought it weren't true, because she was always right there on the front row of Antioch Baptist Church every Sunday. 

I suspected different. Because after she hung up the phone with Miss Magdalene, Mrs. Craig went out on the front porch to smoke a cigarette. Maybe it was the light or her pose or even the smoke from the cigarette but for just an instant, her shadow flashed against the screen and looked just like the silhouette of a dragon.

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Meeting a Dragon #10

“I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

He looked up at the red and gold-scaled dragon perched on a rock outcropping. Pebbles and dirt showered down in front of him as she leaned forward to see him, her claws digging into the ledge.

“So soon? It’s been nearly fifty years.”

“Fifty? Ah, yes, well you do look older, I suppose. Your home is far from here, why have you sought me out again?”

“Because you lied to me,” he said softly.

The dragon snorted and grey smoke puffed out of her flared nostrils. “I do not lie.”

“You told me that I would live a long and happy life.”

“And you didn’t? You’re old for a human, certainly if what you say is true about the time that has passed. At least seventy-five years of age.”

“Eighty-two,” he said, feeling it in his bones as he said it.

“And did you not have a loving wife, strong, clever children and grandchildren to dote on? A successful barrel shop and a full table?  This is what I used a wish for. Were you not happy with it?”

He sighed, looking down at his weathered hands. “Oh, I was mostly happy with my life, but how could any of it compare to my time spent here, with you?”

He could feel her breath on the top of his head and looked up to see her face close to his, her liquid blue eyes staring into his soul. ‘I was selfish to use a wish for myself. But I was alone, for so long after my mate fell. It was a good time, but it was illusion—magic. It was a fleeting time.”

“It was the best three years of my life. I too have lost my mate and all my little ones are grown. How I wish I could fly with you again. But forever this time.”

“I have only one wish left, and forever is a long time.”

“Please?”

“Yes. It’s a good way to use my last wish. Come, let’s soar together.  Forever.”

How good was it?        VOTE HERE

Was it AI?                     VOTE HERE

Join my Patreon.

Join my 3-emails-a-year mailing list.