Ember
Updated Dec 31, 2008
Cinderella was always my least favorite* fairy tale. Aside from all the usual feminist issues you'd expect me to have with a story about some pretty, passive chick cleaning house until a prince comes along and rewards her doormat-y-ness by marrying her, I never got why the prince was such a prize. Why did everyone want him? Why was it assumed that any woman he wanted to marry would say yes? That's how Ember started. Two pages of the narrator talking about this stupid prince. And then it sat on my hard drive for a while. I didn't think there was more than 9k-12k words in the story, and wanted to concentrate on a longer first-person fairy tale.

When I put up my web site, decided to write a free story to make up for the pathetic lack of content. About the same time, Dionne Galace asked if I had a free story I wanted to share on her fabulous site. Ember seemed to fit the bill for both projects, so I pulled it out, dusted it off and got to work. I had so much fun writing Ember that it got a little out of hand--instead of a 9-12,000 word short story, it ended up as a 30,000-word novella. It was the first story I wrote without worrying about what would sell, and it was, consequently, the most fun I've had writing.

Some writers say, "Write like your hair is on fire!" but what Ember taught me is that you should write like the story is free--no worries, no concerns, no stress. It's still free. Enjoy.

Experiments
Updated Dec 31, 2008
I took a creative writing class, and wrote a few short stories. I post them on my blog when I run out of content. I'll post them here when they've finished their run on Sharp Words.

Terra Obscura
Here be monsters
2800 words. First-person. Fantasy. c. Bettie Sharpe, 2/2008
Terra Obscura is another first-person fairy tale story. I wrote it to work out my issues with first-person present tense (FPPT). It's a style I'd always hated, but then I read Ann Aguirre's excellent Grimspace which employs first-person present to wonderful effect. That book made me kind of like FPPT. Worse yet, I started drifting into present tense in my other works in progress. So, I decided to write a story in FPPT to get it out of my system.

A warning about the "Terra Obscura", the ending is ...open-ended. Okay, so it's not really an ending at all. The only person who has ever thought the end constituted a real ending is me, because in my view, the decision is the ending. What happens after is a whole other story.

Contest Entries
Updated December 31, 2008
My first published story, the novella "Like a Thief in the Night" started as a 200 word contest entry for Dionne Galace's (a.k.a. Bam's) monthly writing contest. My current lack of web content has inspired me to post all of my entries.

Girl Saves Boy
The challenge was to write a scene where the woman saves the man in 400 words or less. Possibly due to the influence of Girl Genius, I was in a comic book / steam punk frame of mind. This 401 word scene is the result.

Marked
Ink can last a lifetime when set just beneath the skin. One look, sharp as a needle, and he was under hers. One look, and she was marked.

The challenge was to describe a dangerous hero in 300 words or less. This scene relates to my WIP Marked.

Bright
Love doesn't always bring out the best in people. Sometimes, it brings out the beast, instead.

The challenge was to portray an argument between lovers in 200 words. This entry became a scene in my WIP, Bright.

Heat
The challenge was to portray heat, both in setting and between two people. 200 words or less. This one actually won the contest, netting me a $50 Amazon gift certificate. Strangely, this is also the only one I haven't been inspired to turn into a longer story.

Drinking Game
Can an author create her own parody drinking game? And if yes, can she do so with a body of work as small as mine? Probably not, but rounding up my stories for this web site has made certain reoccurring themes glaringly apparent to me. So, if you need a reason to drink while reading, have a look out for the following:

• Fairytale Motifs
  This is an easy one, they're everywhere.
  • 1 drink
• Descriptions of Fabric
  I adore fabric. I collect fabric. And sometimes I even sew fabric(badly). Consequently, I keep writing fabric into my stories.
  
  • 1 drink for mention of specific types of fabric.
    
  • 2 drinks for mention of silk charmeusse or velvet.
• Red, Black, Gray & White
  They aren't just the color scheme of this web site
  • 1 drink for every mention.
• Color-as-name
  This seems to happen a lot. Don't know why.
  
  • 1 drink for any name that is also a color.
    
  • 2 drinks for color-names that are some variation of black, red, or gray.
• Anything I missed? Send it to me: bettie @ this domain name.

*Actually, It's a tie between Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty for my least favorite. Guess which fairy tale one of my current works in progress rips off... ;)