Hal Kromwel
Blinking at the bright light, I got up to go get some toast and eggs from KITCHEN. My apartment is located in the Tri-Cities metropolis, in what used to be called "downtown Kennewick." It's in one of the first skyhighs to be built in the region. The surrounding residents initially protested its construction. The marker was barely dry when Google gave each a check to pay their property taxes for the rest of their lives - and then added a zero. This was all back before everybody found out that Google had been using predictive software to monitor migration within the country. So journalists and talk show hosts everywhere questioned their decision to build the skyhigh in central Washington.
The city council was ecstatic about the new office-residential-casino-skyscraper, or at least their wallets were. Even the elderly loved this place; they felt it revitalized the Main Street, so it provided a place for people to gather...and spend their retirement money.
It was very contemporary, at least this apartment was - that's what I chose. I had a variety of options, from movie-themed living spaces to a medieval setup. The building customizes it down to the sound the toilet makes when it flushes - I know because the neighbor has a kid, and they programmed theirs to clap when she flushes.
After taking my breakfast from KITCHEN, I went and sat down at my computer station. Before I was fully settled, my headgear already set itself in place. Every week I would detail clean my headgear with a disposable microfiber cloth. Every month i had tech support replace the processor and run diagnostics. My headgear was the most expensive object I owned, even more than my apartment.
I have some writing in this part that I wrote to take up space so I could continue writing, I don't really like it but basically this headgear thing is to give this character an excuse to have a lot of free time.
For most people, this piece of equipment is financially out of reach. Google thinks that being able to use the brain as a computer processor should cost a pretty penny - and it is worth every last one. Bring able to process things as quickly as a computer, and adding reason to the mix. That is what the headgear does. I am able to do my jobs, all 8 of them, in a fraction of the time it takes a group of people to do one of them.
After about an hour, I was done for the day. After showering, I started walking around town. All around there were billboards advertising everything from cars, to baby wipes. There were also warnings of the criminal activity in the area, I set that in my user preferences. Apparently the latest was a murder the night before. The Metropolis had POLICE everywhere. These cameras didn't miss anything; a bird runs into a window and POLICE have it on camera. Not being able to find a murderer was out of the ordinary.
The routine for my walk I had established was to walk the main street, then select the groceries I wanted that day and the next morning.
"You can do this from home you know," the perturbed worker said condescendingly.
"I like the human interaction," I replied with a smile, "it helps me to get out of my apartment."
After hitting all the usual buttons, I went back to the apartment. I laid down on my pillow-top, adjustable bed and fell asleep moments later.
7:00 pm
My alarm went off at the same time it always did. I got up and headed out the door. I headed to a different homeless shelter from the day before. The shelters always fill up at around eight, so when I showed up at twenty after seven, people were still lined up, waiting for the volunteers to tell them there isn't any room. I had been going to homeless shelters for a while; the majority of these people knew they weren't going to get in, but they waited there in case someone in front got arrested for some criminal record the police felt like drudging up.
My question for this piece is, how do I write a short story? Right off the bat, my own answer is to read more short stories. I ask the question because whenever I start to write a narrative, I feel like I have to write a book, and that is really intimidating.
The city council was ecstatic about the new office-residential-casino-skyscraper, or at least their wallets were. Even the elderly loved this place; they felt it revitalized the Main Street, so it provided a place for people to gather...and spend their retirement money.
It was very contemporary, at least this apartment was - that's what I chose. I had a variety of options, from movie-themed living spaces to a medieval setup. The building customizes it down to the sound the toilet makes when it flushes - I know because the neighbor has a kid, and they programmed theirs to clap when she flushes.
After taking my breakfast from KITCHEN, I went and sat down at my computer station. Before I was fully settled, my headgear already set itself in place. Every week I would detail clean my headgear with a disposable microfiber cloth. Every month i had tech support replace the processor and run diagnostics. My headgear was the most expensive object I owned, even more than my apartment.
I have some writing in this part that I wrote to take up space so I could continue writing, I don't really like it but basically this headgear thing is to give this character an excuse to have a lot of free time.
For most people, this piece of equipment is financially out of reach. Google thinks that being able to use the brain as a computer processor should cost a pretty penny - and it is worth every last one. Bring able to process things as quickly as a computer, and adding reason to the mix. That is what the headgear does. I am able to do my jobs, all 8 of them, in a fraction of the time it takes a group of people to do one of them.
After about an hour, I was done for the day. After showering, I started walking around town. All around there were billboards advertising everything from cars, to baby wipes. There were also warnings of the criminal activity in the area, I set that in my user preferences. Apparently the latest was a murder the night before. The Metropolis had POLICE everywhere. These cameras didn't miss anything; a bird runs into a window and POLICE have it on camera. Not being able to find a murderer was out of the ordinary.
The routine for my walk I had established was to walk the main street, then select the groceries I wanted that day and the next morning.
"You can do this from home you know," the perturbed worker said condescendingly.
"I like the human interaction," I replied with a smile, "it helps me to get out of my apartment."
After hitting all the usual buttons, I went back to the apartment. I laid down on my pillow-top, adjustable bed and fell asleep moments later.
7:00 pm
My alarm went off at the same time it always did. I got up and headed out the door. I headed to a different homeless shelter from the day before. The shelters always fill up at around eight, so when I showed up at twenty after seven, people were still lined up, waiting for the volunteers to tell them there isn't any room. I had been going to homeless shelters for a while; the majority of these people knew they weren't going to get in, but they waited there in case someone in front got arrested for some criminal record the police felt like drudging up.
My question for this piece is, how do I write a short story? Right off the bat, my own answer is to read more short stories. I ask the question because whenever I start to write a narrative, I feel like I have to write a book, and that is really intimidating.
I think looking into this website and their suggestions might help: https://io9.gizmodo.com/18-perfect-short-stories-that-pack-more-of-a-punch-than-1692442650
ReplyDeleteSelecting 5 stories and analyzing their patters, word usage, and structure will definitely help. I took a creative writing course with a published author and each class we first read then wrote.