Hey all! I thought I would showcase the short stories I’ve published so far on Medium. Most of them are behind the paywall, so consider getting that Medium Membership. It’s just five bucks, and you get a ton of content. So I think it’s a pretty good return for your money.
These are short stories that I’ve had out for awhile. Please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter. If you would like to talk about them. I enjoy getting constructive feedback that will help me create better stories.
I’m going to group them by series.
The Lisa Goodwin Shorts
The Lisa Goodwin series has been something that has been evolving over the last several years. When I first started to put Lisa Goodwin’s story together. It was just going to be a grounded story about her getting the revenge for the murder of her sister. I had been feeling that something was missing. It didn’t feel complete. Then I was driving to a Home Care client’s house, and it hit me. Vampires, that’s what was missing. So I have been developing that part of it. The first book in the series Sound Of White Noise will be coming out soon.
This is a short story I wrote for an anthology. This is fairly close to what I submitted. However, I made some changes after I had been published. I hadn’t started to include the vampire aspect yet. This was still a developing world. I enjoy this because it really highlights Lisa’s view of the world. It shows how her flaws are affecting other things in her life.
Here’s a short story that I did to showcase a small event that could help me understand my main character a bit better. A lot of writers will use short stories to explore some aspect of a character. For me I wanted to explore how her sisters death was affecting Lisa. How was Lisa’s alcoholism affecting her skills? This is a story where Lisa is just going out to get a pizza and ends up in the middle of an armed robbery.
This story takes place after the events in the first book. However, you don’t have to have read it to be able to follow this story. Clearly Lisa Goodwin has an issue with the holidays and Vampires are on her naughty list. A vamp has gone on a fresh killing spree.
The Newsted Files
The Newsted files is a series that is both a crime story and a little sci-fi. Detective Jacqueline “Jack” Newsted is a detective with a chip on her shoulder. She has little use for things that keep her from getting the bad guys. The first book Master Of Puppets starts out at the beginning of her career. It covers about two years. While I was writing it. I did several short stories. You may notice a theme with this series. Music is a major influence for me. Heavy Metal, Jazz, and Classical music help shape this series.
This is one of the first short stories I wrote set in the world. I really wanted to explore the antagonist in the series. Because understanding him better would help me get a grip on the violence he does in the book. This story is done in 3rd person because I’m not focused on Jack in this story. It’s focused on Richard and his victim, and it’s set just before the first book.
I wanted to explore Jack’s childhood a little bit. She is a bit of a prodigy when it comes to crime solving. Her childhood is rather tragic. Her mother was murdered and her father is in prison for a cyber crime. So I wanted to explore that a bit and this short story let me do it. Also I have been playing with the idea of having her adopted father be someone important to her life. So I play around with that idea in this short story. Eventually I decided something else. But it’s an interesting idea.
This is another prequel story. I really wanted to explore Richard’s first kill. How did it happen? Why did it happen? Was this the kill that put him on the path to being a serial killer? These are all the questions I wanted to answer in this short story. I think it came out pretty well.
My Other Short Stories
This was a writing exercise for me. I wanted to get a better grasp on first person point of view stories. So I thought it would be fun to do a western type of story. I’d grown up with John Wayne, and Gunsmoke and other westerns. So I thought it would be a fun story.
I Play In The Key Of Fission Part 1 and Part 2
This was a writing challenge. To take the picture and write a story around it. I thought it would be interesting take on the mad scientist trope if he became a orchestra conductor, and had hatch a crazy plan to blow up Washington D.C. I hadn’t expected to become a two part short story. That’s just how it worked out.
I wrote this one because I had gotten an idea about what it would be like to be a NASCAR driver but then have to figure out a new path when driving wasn’t an option anymore. It was intended to be a series of shorts, but I just haven’t gotten back around to it yet.
This was a short story that I did as a writing exercise to get a better handle on writing in first person. I think it came out pretty well. I hope you enjoy it.
I really like this one. It’s my first attempt at a Sci-Fi type of story. I’m really interested in A.I. and I really like the movie War Games.
The Stoneman Part 1 and Part 2
This is my first attempt at trying to do a series of short stories. I plan to come back to it at some point. I think it’s an interesting story.
Blood Crimes Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
I started this series because I wanted to get a better grip on the vampire tropes. I think this came out pretty well and I would like to come back to it and finish out this story.
I wrote this story after having worked graveyard at a convenience store. I thought it came out pretty well.
This was a writing challenge. I was deep into writing Master Of Puppets so my mind was on serial killers at the time. However, I thought it was an interesting story that really pulls out the anxiety of modern life.
This is a story that I did because I wanted to get a better handle on writing action scenes. I thought it could also help me to learn how to work in other peoples sandboxes. I think it came out pretty well.
My Demons Are Trying To Kill Me
I thought it would be interesting to write a story that was dark and firmly in the urban fantasy realm. I have been playing with the idea of turning it into full novel. I’m not sure yet. Let me know what you think of it.
This was a story that I thought would be a good exercise for me. I tend to do short stories that will help me build my skills. This is another one of those stories. I think it came out pretty well. I was working on action stuff, and character interactions. I hope you enjoy the story.
Ok so there are all the short stories I have published so far. I’m currently working on a new short story that will be exclusively for this newsletter. It will be for subscribers only. So if you really enjoyed any of the shorts I shared here. Consider signing up for a paid subscription.