The Stories Behind The Stories
Happy Friday, Campers!
Some updates:
“Kafka and the Castle” was accepted for publication in Issue #6 of All Worlds Wayfarer Literary Magazine! Not only that, but this my very first story sale: I signed a contract and everything, which means I’m now a professional author! I can’t wait for you all to read it.
“Dottie” won Eerie River Publishing’s “Tech Horror” themed short story contest! The story will be published on Eerie River’s Patreon account and then will be published in their end-of-year anthology. Just signed the contract this morning and I’m so excited about joining the Eerie River family.
As of today, I’ve had 5 stories accepted for publication!
I’m still waiting on responses for “The Hound of Oakenhall,” “Down Along the Yocona,” and “Slimjack.”
Sadly, “Goodly Creatures” was not accepted by Uncanny Magazine. However, in their rejection email, they mentioned they looked forward to reading more submissions from me in the future. This is HUGE, actually. When editors say that, they actually mean it; it really does mean “send us more stuff.”
I’ve put the finishing touches on “The Luchador” and will start sending that out soon.
All right, let’s dive in.
I’m currently reading John Langan’s newest story collection, Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies, and it’s EXCELLENT. I’m loving it. One of my favorite things about it is that John Langan has included Story Notes in the back of the book, providing insight into how each story came about; essentially, providing the stories behind the stories. As a writer, I’m an absolute fiend for this type of stuff. It’s one of my favorite things in the world when I discover the short story collection I’m reading includes story notes: I love getting to see how my favorite writers come up with stuff, what inspires them, what their process is. It’s also a great way to learn the craft from the writers I admire.
Reading through the story notes in Children of the Fang got me thinking about how I can’t wait for the day when I can include story notes in my own story collection. Then I started reminiscing about the creation and writing process of several of my own stories, and decided it couldn’t hurt to write them down for later. Then I thought, why not share the stories behind the stories I’ve had accepted for publication so far? Maybe it’d be helpful or inspiring for other writers out there?
So, here are the stories behind the stories I’ve had accepted for publication, in order of acceptance:
Magus. “Magus” actually began as a story called “The Magician” that I wrote for the first workshop class I took for my MFA. It was inspired by an interview I’d read years ago about Alan Moore, the eccentric comic book writer famous for creating the chain-smoking, fast-talking, working-class con man/mage named John Constantine. In the interview, Alan Moore claimed to have run into Constantine in real life a couple of times. I also knew that Moore dabbled in the occult, and considered himself a magician. My imagination ran wild with a simple question: What if the character you created came to life and killed you? I had this image of a John Constantine-esque character walking up to a table of famous authors in a London tea room, snapping his fingers and lighting his creator on fire. The problem was, I wasn’t sure how to tell the story. It wasn’t until I read a short story for my workshop class called “In A Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa that the first version of the story came together. “In A Grove” tells the story of a crime from the perspective of several characters, all in the form of individual statements to the authorities. I decided to tell “The Magician” in a similar fashion: I had several characters reveal the story of what happened via police interview transcriptions. Once I had the structure, the story wrote itself and I finished a draft in three hours, longhand. The feedback I received on “The Magician” from the workshop, and especially from professor David Hollingsworth and later on my friend Andrew Mrotek, helped shape “The Magician” into the supernatural detective story that was eventually published as “Magus.”
The Trees. This story was actually written in response to an exercise I was assigned in one of my MFA classes, The Art of the Sentence. After reading a chapter in our textbook—How to Write Stunning Sentences by Nina Schuyler (which I highly recommend!)—on how bestselling author Haruki Murakami “distorts reality” at the sentence level in his highly surreal stories, I was tasked with writing my own surreal sentence. This was during the winter, and as I commuted to work daily, I passed skeletal-looking trees that at certain angles looked like hands reaching for the sky. I was also thinking a lot about climate change, and about what the future held for my young daughter. It didn’t take much for my imagination to put these ideas together and visualize what it would be like if these thirsty trees reached out and attacked humans as recompense for what we’ve done to our planet.
From the Final Journal of Dr. Prospero Faustgrim. I never meant to or even planned on writing this story; it came about completely by accident. I was actually submitting another story to Blind Corner Literary Magazine when I saw an announcement for their first annual microfiction contest based around the theme of “the new human.” I wasn’t going to enter, but the idea of “the new human” intrigued me and wouldn’t leave me be. I ended up writing the story a couple hours later, revising and revising until I had a 100-word story I was happy with. The journal format of the story was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft while the eponymous mad scientist was inspired by characters from The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Tempest, Faust, and to some extent, Gormenghast. I envisioned the new human created by Dr. Faustgrim as being part plant, part amphibian, and part mammal in order for it to survive an earth made unlivable through our unchecked pollution and waste.
Dottie. “Dottie” was the first story I wrote after I found out I’d been accepted into the online MFA program at Lindenwood University. Inspired by interviews I’d read with Neil Gaiman and Stephen King, I wrote the story out in longhand in a journal with a fountain pen. “Dottie” is one of those stories that came about by asking, “What if?” In this case, my wife Sarah and I were still getting used to being parents of a newborn, and that was weighing heavily on my mind. We also had a cat, Daisy, that loved our baby girl, which was a huge relief since I’d heard horror stories of pets getting violently territorial when newborns were brought home. Around this time, I’d also seen a lot of advertisements to upgrade houses into “Smart” houses. All of those disparate strands of thought collided together for me one day and I found myself wondering, “What if a Smart house got jealous when a couple brought home their newborn baby?” I wrote “Dottie” to find out the answer. In a way, writing this story was very cathartic, as I was able to pour my parenting fears out onto the page.
Kafka and the Castle. Down a winding road out in the countryside of Northern Virginia, you’ll find an actual, honest-to-God castle. Really, I’m serious. The image of this castle just off the side of the road was so incongruous to me that it burned itself into my mind. I’d been reading both of Ben Loory’s excellent story collections, and was inspired to write my own weird, fable-esque story. I was also getting more into Franz Kafka’s work, and one day the idea of Kafka stopping by the side of the road in the middle of a terrible storm to knock on a castle’s door just popped in my head, and I wrote the whole thing down in one sitting. When I’d finished, I was worried the idea of using Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges was a bit gimmicky, so I changed Kafka to an original character named “Kaufman” and Borges to an unnamed, dark-haired woman. I retitled it “The Infinite Castle” until I eventually settled on just “The Castle,” which also worked as an homage to one of Kafka’s novels. But something wasn’t right with the story; it read too much like me trying to write like Ben Loory, and not enough like me trying to write like me. I ended up having the story workshopped in one of my MFA classes, and got some great feedback from my classmates and my professor, Kendra Hayden. During a video conference with Kendra where she gave me her notes regarding “The Castle,” I shared my original idea for “Kafka and the Castle” and my worries that it was too gimmicky; Kendra absolutely loved the idea and urged me to return to it, and at her suggestion, I decided the man who would let Kafka in the castle would be none other than Nikolai Gogol. After a few more revisions and some great feedback from my writer friend Holley Cornetto, “Kafka and the Castle” was finished, and, more importantly, it felt like something Austin Shirey had written.
All right folks, I need some lunch. Thanks for reading these posts, and thanks for reading my stories. I’ll try and do some more of these “stories behind the stories” posts when more of my stories are published.
Until next time, stay safe, stay sane, and keep writing.
