Have you ever wondered how a story dies? There are three ways this could happen, to my thinking. First, a story’s author could set it aside, never to pick it up again, like a body tossed into an unmarked grave, moldering away until no scrap of bone remains.
Second, a story could get canonized like a saint, submitted to a publisher, accepted for print, and so it stops breathing and growing, becomes set in stone like an epitaph etched on a tomb.
Third—and this is the fate that meets all stories, in the end, even those we believe immortal—it gets forgotten. People stop reading it, stop telling it, stop thinking about it. Perhaps some dusty trace remains in a library archive or on a website containing a publisher’s list of past issues, but for all intents and purposes, the name has worn from the marble of a broken headstone in a shadowed corner of the graveyard, passed beyond hope of reclamation.
But if those fates are death, then what’s resurrection?
I have a tale for you. A tale about tales. A story of three stories.
The first one you might be familiar with. A few of you might even have read it. “How to Steal the Plot Armor” was my thirteenth submission to the Writers of the Future contest. I wrote it in a panic, with a quarterly deadline looming over me, barely revised it, didn’t put it through any beta reads before I sent it off, then turned my attention to a different story that I thought was more promising (that story, as it happens, has never been published, though pieces of it have appeared in several of my likewise unpublished novels).
“Plot Armor” is my most successful work to date, winning second place in the contest and receiving strongly positive reviews. It flowed naturally. Sometimes I feel as though I barely put any effort into it, though I really ought to know better. That stands in stark contrast to my many other submissions, most of which were agonies of effort, including “Seanna O’Gab and Brer Rabbit”, my second ever attempt.
I wrote “O’Gab” back in 2017, during my senior year of college, and love it dearly. It’s the tale of a contest between two tricksters, inspired by a book of Irish folktales I picked up while I was living in York, England. Literally dozens of people have given me feedback on it, though it didn’t earn so much as an honorable mention from WotF. I set it aside for several years, then brushed it off again in summer 2023, thinking short stories might be more manageable than novels now that I had a wee lad of my loins to look after. As it turned out, I’d finally gained the narrative know-how to fix what was wrong. A new round of far-flung submissions ensued—including, several months ago, to the esteemed PodCastle.
At the same time, I realized the rights to “Plot Armor” had returned to me, and decided to submit it to PodCastle as well.
Both did better than I expected, advancing to the final round. In the end, “Plot Armor” was accepted for republication. “Seanna O’Gab” was regretfully declined.
This broke my heart a little bit. I’m proud of the narrative voices in both stories, and would love to hear them adapted by a skillful narrator—audio fiction has always held a special place in my life, ever since I was a kid—but if I’d had to pick one, it would’ve been “Seanna O’Gab.” I already know “Plot Armor” is a good piece. I’m excited to hear it adapted as a fan, but not necessarily as an author; at least, I wasn’t at first. I think this shows just how much of a zero-sum game it is, looking for fulfillment in something external like writing accolades. Confidence-wise, I also felt like I was back to the drawing board, with only one story published after years of effort, albeit in two very prestigious venues.
Then came “Yellow Flowers.”
This is the third story I mentioned. I wrote it specifically for a steampunk-pirate anthology from Three Ravens Publishing, based purely on the strength of a super cool anthology title: Cogs & Cutlasses. I simultaneously submitted it to multiple venues, but it ended up being accepted by the anthology itself.
I’m excited for all the usual reasons, and for some less usual ones. “Yellow Flowers” wasn’t the easiest story I’ve ever written. The narrative didn’t always want to behave and seemed to be going off the rails in the middle—but, because of that, I’m extremely proud of the results. Prouder than I am of either of those first two stories, actually. At this point in my writing journey, I feel I’ve developed the skills and discipline to tinker with stories, molding them into the shapes I envision, overhauling them from a core idea and fixing what’s wrong, rather than simply relying on fickle inspiration as I did with “Plot Armor.”
I’ve experienced this same phenomenon with several of my other recent works. It gives me hope that I’ve upped my game, gaining more reliable control over my own creative process. Reliability, to me, is the main thing that separates professional artists from aspiring ones. I’ve striven for it for years and was frustrated when it seemed like I’d reached a plateau. It’s good to feel like I’m advancing once more.
It’s not lost on me that all three of these stories have followed drastically different paths. Only “Plot Armor” can claim a sort of resurrection (which would bug the story’s irascible narrator to no end, I don’t doubt). But “Seanna O’Gab” nearly managed to claw herself back from the abyss. “Yellow Flowers” had several near-death experiences with other publications, and will face its first true brush with mortality when it goes to print next year and is completely out of my hands until the rights revert to me. Perhaps it will find an afterlife in its turn. It’s also part of a broader world I’ve been developing, which, it strikes me, is another form of second-life, albeit more akin to reincarnation than resurrection.
I’ve always heard that really successful authors build their careers on resales, whether that’s foreign language rights, or reprints, or what have you, but this is my first time doing anything so businessy and professional-seeming myself, and I’m getting more and more excited to see both “Plot Armor” and “Yellow Flowers” out in the world again. I’m especially excited to see what narrator the folks at PodCastle pick for “How to Steal the Plot Armor,” and I’ve put my sulking over “Seanna O’Gab and Brer Rabbit” behind me.
Still, “O’Gab” is one of my favorite pieces, and it’s on submission to several different venues right now. Who knows? Maybe she, too, will claw her way from the graveyard dirt, black under the fingernails, grinning with a mouthful of broken teeth, returned to haunt the halls of narrative once more . . .
(This is my personal reflection post, but I’ll certainly be sharing announcement posts for both “Yellow Flowers” and “How to Steal the Plot Armor” closer to their release dates. “Plot Armor” will be available for free both on the PodCastle site and other fine podcast apps, so watch this space if you, like me, can’t wait to hear a narrator have a coronary embolism whilst trying to pronounce names like “Garsteaodeafix” and “Iggistifigix”, not to mention choking to death on their own good taste as they fake-sing the world’s worst poetry. To say nothing of the accents.)
Luke Wildman 