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Ten Terribly Terrific Tall Tales Trying to Trip the Triune is a collection of ten short stories that were intended to amuse, bemuse, and confuse. They include everything from the serious to the absurd, from events which are entirely possible to ideas that are barely comprehensible. All of them were written in 2003, and they were my first attempts at polished works of fiction. Each story was the product of my creative writing classes, so I’ve included an explanation of the assignments that led to each one. They have little in common except that my brain pooped them out, so you’re bound to find something to keep you entertained.

The assignment for this piece was to read T. Coraghessan Boyle’s “The Hit Man” and rewrite it using any other profession. It was intended to be a humorous piece about the life of a drug dealer. Special thanks to Boyle for not suing me (yet) for borrowing the idea. Try not to take this piece too seriously. There are a lot of half-jokes and wordplay here that is supposed to mimic the original. It actually got a few good laughs when they read it in class. Hopefully, you will laugh, too.

Years before I wrote this piece I started writing a story where the author torments the main character by putting him in various weird situations. I compiled several scenes and moments, but couldn’t quite come up with a plot to tie it all together. So, I set it aside for a long time until I was told to write a meta-fiction story. I pulled out the sections that did not fit my new story and wrote the rest months later.

This was more enjoyable than usual because it allowed me to do something with a story that I’d had a hard time finishing. There are so many things you can do with this idea that I just left it alone because it was so open-ended. This, however, was a satisfying way to compress a book (a lengthy one at that) into a short story.

It should also be noted that the movie “Stranger Than Fiction” came out two years after I wrote this and published it to the internet. I’m not saying they stole the idea from me. I just want people to know I didn’t steal the idea from them. In fact, I was excited to see what it would be like to have a story like mine brought to life, but I was honestly a little disappointed in how it turned out.

For this assignment, we were supposed to write from the perspective of someone who is wearing two different shoes and suddenly realizes it. They were also supposed to think that everyone noticed, and that immediately made me think the character would kind of freak out about it. My only fears with this story are that someone might completely miss the irony or in some way think it’s biographical. But like, I swear I’m not, like, represented in that story. Like, no way dude.

When I turned in this assignment I messed it up because it was supposed to have three perspectives, and that threw my creative writing class for a loop. Many of them were confused about who was speaking. Because of this, I had the text color-coded for a while, but that took away from the point of the exercise. After all, we can’t expect people to print stories in color.

Anyway, I decided to keep the two speakers in two different fonts (instead of colors) because I wanted it to be immediately obvious that there were two different narrators without having to spell it out for them every time I made a transition.

I was never in the military, so I am sure that anyone who was in the military (or combat) will find flaws in the way I portray them. I’m sure I got a few technical or procedural things wrong, but I feel like I know humans well enough to portray them appropriately.

I loved this assignment because I was told to “write the worst, horriblest story you can.” I’m sure it could’ve been worse, but I wanted to make sure someone could enjoy it if they tried to read it. Though I’m sure I missed a few rules, I tried to break every one I could think of, including (but not limited to) grammar, spelling, spoilers, coherency, consistency, honesty, blasphemy, and decency. How many can you find?

This assignment was to write a dialogue between two people without using identifying markers like, “he said,” and “said Kari.” Other than that, I don’t think there were any content requirements. My professors were good about that.

The assignment was to write about a serial killer doing something mundane, like shopping. I just can’t help but think of things in the future, so the sci-fi aspect it is supposed to be incidental. The main concern my class had was how I wrote out the dialects phonetically. I didn’t see the problem because I always try to write out accents, but this was at the height of the Iraq war and the accent was middle eastern. I promise I meant no disrespect. It’s just rhetorical flavor. If you find it genuinely offensive please tell me why because I would rather re-write it than leave it unfinished because it’s classless or inappropriate.

The purpose of this assignment was to help us construct the smallest story without having to write an introduction and to concentrate on developing the story and characters in what was implied rather than said. This piece of flash fiction is generally everyone’s favorite, and I hope it’s not because it’s the shortest. I would also like to mention that the two characters are from my other much larger work, States of Matter.

For this assignment, we were supposed to have a three-person dialogue about video games without using quotes or identifying markers. For anyone who’s curious, the game they are playing came out shortly before I wrote this piece, and I spent a lot of time happily killing Nazi soldiers. So, when this assignment came up it was a no-brainer.

I don’t remember what the assignment was here, but I know I wrote it for a class. It could’ve been a really vague assignment like “write a 1500 word story with first-person dialogue.” I really don’t know. All I do know is that it was inspired by events going on at the time. 9/11 occurred just a few years before this was written, and we’d only been in Iraq for a year or two. One of my classmates that reviewed the story felt it was a completely unrealistic story, and I’m sure they are right. But cautionary tales aren’t supposed to be warm, fuzzy, and realistic. They’re supposed to be terrifying. It should also be noted that I wrote this two years before World War Z was published, so the “human ramp” idea was my own. Not to say that Max Brooks took the idea from me, but I just want to be clear that I didn’t steal it from him.

This was the first short story I ever wrote, long before I'd ever considered the idea of writing as a hobby or career. It's a true story, which I realize means it shouldn't be in the fiction section. But I wanted to include it here because it was my first real attempt at composing a story. This is something that happened to me in high school while I was with a couple of my best friends. I obviously had some growing up to do. When people are young they tend to be, well...generally stupid. At the very least, smart people will do stupid things at least a few times in their lives. Hopefully, we learn from these experiences and use them for future reference. We do things or get ourselves involved in things that, in hindsight, may not have been a good idea. I am no exception.

This is the first fictional short story I ever wrote, which was back in 2001. It’s a very short story, mostly just a few moments strung together, about a young couple maintaining a campfire while talking about their lives. Also, I probably took the leitmotif a little too literally.

This was my first published short story. It originally appeared in the inaugural issue of The Next One literary journal published by the Texas Tech University Honors College back in 2003. This version has been heavily revised since then, but it retains a majority of the original story. The universe in which this story takes place is open-ended. I have outlined the major events of this world because the main character does not experience these things directly, and I have written a couple other character's stories that I will eventually release.

This is a text conversation about subtext.