Tag: creative-writing

That Feathered Bastard (Short Story)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

Plank walls stained deep brown, low ceiling beamed with simple timbers, two stubby roost bars mounted like a ladder on the left wall. Centered at the back sits a narrow shelf unit divided into three nesting cubbies. The floor’s covered in flattened straw and wood shavings, uneven underfoot, with two shallow bowls set directly on it. Morning light struggles through the wire-mesh opening. Corners stay shadowed; wood grain shows deep and dark. Burnt clay coats my throat with every breath.

We’re all inside now—Bertram, Aldous, “Threadscar” Melissa, Rill, and me, crowded into this glorified chicken prison. Five birds occupy the gloom: a black pullet with a crooked neck making tiny ceramic clicks from her beak, dust clinging to her pinfeathers like kiln sweepings. A copper-backed rooster with an impressive tail immediately positions himself between us and the other chickens, broad chest out like he’s got a chance. A buff hen with a startlingly pale face pecks the same exact spot in the litter, obsessive and drooping. A tiny slate-blue bantam circles the back corner.

And at the center: the speckled hen. Large, holding unnaturally still, staring straight ahead despite five humans invading her space.

The coop door scrapes shut, but the latch doesn’t catch. A finger-width gap of light. Bertram glances back at it, then scans the interior, jaw tight.

“This chicken coop of yours is way gloomier than it has any right to be,” he says.

Aldous moves closer, containment vessel cradled like glass.

“The gloom’s not aesthetic, Bertram. It’s symptomatic. The burnt-clay smell, the dim light, the way the roosting bars look wrong even though nothing’s physically changed—that’s all bleed-through from what’s anchored in the flock. Vespera, we’re starting with the speckled hen. I need you to position her exactly one handspan from the vessel’s opening when I give the word.”

The black pullet recenters its crooked neck with a sharp twitch. Click, click, click from the beak.

Melissa shifts beside me, moving into position without crowding my space. Support stance—sparring distance. Close enough to intervene.

The buff hen moves slowly across the litter, drooping like she’s sick, letting out soft clucks with a dry rasp underneath.

I move toward the speckled hen, keeping my movements fluid and deliberate. That clean focus I get before violence kicks in—except this time it’s aggressive chicken handling for occult pottery.

“I’ll hold her steady when you’re ready, Aldous,” I say, closing the distance smoothly. “Just tell me when to position her.”

The speckled hen holds that unnatural stillness, staring ahead while a milky film slides across her eyes—a second lid, slow and wrong.

Then, she jerks sideways, whole body yanked like an invisible wire pulled her. Her head swivels with mechanical precision, scanning. Seeking a target.

The hen’s eyes lock onto Melissa, and I catch the detail I missed before: concentric rings in the iris, like growth rings in cut wood. The gaze holds. Something passes between the hen and the veteran. Pressure drop before a storm.

Melissa doesn’t flinch. Her jaw sets, eyes narrowing, and whatever spiritual rot the hen’s pushing at her hits resistance. The veteran stands her ground.

The copper-backed rooster explodes into motion. Plants himself beside the speckled hen. His beak opens. Burnt clay rolls out on his breath—I taste it.

Then he lunges at Rill. The rooster jumps, surprisingly high for something that size, and drives his beak straight into Rill’s torso. Right over her heart. The impact lands wet and precise.

Rill staggers back. Her face registers the pain in a tight grimace, but her eyes stay locked on the rooster. Combat-ready despite the blood starting to seep through her linen tunic.

The black pullet’s making excited clicks now, rapid-fire ceramic taps that echo off the coop walls.

The slate-blue bantam explodes from the back corner, tiny legs churning through litter. She launches herself at Melissa, but the veteran sidesteps clean. The bantam’s beak snaps shut on empty air.

The buff hen, who’s been pecking obsessively at the same spot this whole time, suddenly lifts her head. Looks around like she’s just waking up. Then something clicks behind those pale eyes and she snaps alert.

She charges Bertram. The buff hen lunges with more speed than her drooping posture suggested possible, beak aimed at his face. Bertram throws his hands up, stumbling back—the hen overshoots, loses her balance completely, and hits the ground in a tumble of dusty feathers.

Bertram’s got his pipe out now, pulled from under his apron, gripped like a club.

“This was an ambush!” He edges closer to the fallen bird, keeping the pipe raised. “I guess the saying is true—no plan survives contact with the enemy!”

He drops down, gets his hands on the buff hen before she can right herself, and pins her. She thrashes but he’s got weight and leverage.

Aldous moves immediately. Not rushed—methodical. He crosses to Bertram and the restrained hen with the containment vessel still cradled carefully, his eyes already assessing angles and positioning.

“Bertram, keep holding her. I’m going to help her upright, and then we’re doing the extraction immediately while you’ve got her restrained. This is the best chance we’ll get.”

He sets the vessel down carefully, then gets his hands under the buff hen’s body. They wrestle the buff hen upright, Bertram maintaining his grip while Aldous adjusts her position with almost ritualistic precision.

Melissa lunges forward, going for the copper-backed rooster—the biggest active threat now that Bertram has the buff restrained. But the coop erupts into chaos of wings and movement. The speckled hen jerks sideways exactly as Melissa commits, the rooster pivots, and suddenly they’ve traded positions in that split-second scramble.

Melissa’s hands close around the speckled hen. She pins the wings tight against the bird’s body with both hands, adjusting her grip with practiced efficiency.

“Got her instead.” Melissa’s voice cuts through the noise, steady. “Aldous, proceed with your extraction. I’ll hold this one.”

The speckled hen thrashes, and that wrongness radiating from her intensifies. I can feel it like heat off sun-baked stone.

The rooster’s loose. He’s already drawn blood. Melissa’s got the primary anchor, Bertram’s locked down the buff—I need to handle this copper-backed bastard.

I move toward him, smooth and deliberate. I go in like I would in a clinch—hands sure, wings pinned, no room for him to spin. Mrow, let’s see if restraining a possessed chicken gives me the same edge as actual combat.

The rooster sees me coming. His head snaps toward me, tailfeathers flaring, and he sidesteps with surprising speed. I adjust my angle, reach for him, but he evades. Clean pivot, low to the ground, and he’s out of range before my hands close on feathers.

Rill, blood seeping through her tunic where the rooster pierced her, lunges forward. She’s going for him with both hands extended, trying to pin his wings the way Melissa demonstrated with the speckled hen.

The copper-backed rooster twists away from her too, wings beating hard. Rill’s hands grasp at empty air, and the rooster plants himself three feet back, chest out, guarding the space between us and Melissa’s captive.

The speckled hen’s thrashing intensifies. Melissa’s got solid grip, wings pinned tight, but the hen twists with unnatural strength, and the veteran’s hands slip just enough. The hen wrenches free, tumbling to the litter in an explosion of dust and burnt-clay stench.

The copper-backed rooster sees it. His head snaps toward the escaped hen, and then he’s airborne, launching himself straight at Melissa with focused rage. He drives his beak into her torso, right over the ribs. The impact makes a dull thud against her leather cuirass. Melissa doesn’t even flinch.

Movement from the shadows. The slate-blue bantam rushes out, tiny and fast, making a beeline for Bertram. She launches herself at him, beak aimed for exposed skin, but Bertram shifts his weight without losing his grip on the buff hen. The bantam’s strike goes wide, her beak snapping shut on empty air.

The buff hen thrashes harder, clucking with that raspy edge, losing feathers as she strains against Bertram’s hold. He pins her tighter. She can’t break free.

The tanner keeps his eyes narrowed, head angled to the side like he’s expecting another strike.

“Aldous,” he says, steady despite the bantam circling for another pass, “I would appreciate if you extracted whatever you need to extract out of this one, my friend.”

Aldous positions the vessel one handspan from the buff hen’s head. Hands steady despite the burnt-clay choke.

“Bertram, she’s going to thrash when the extraction engages. Don’t let go, don’t adjust your grip. The gradient forms along geometric lines and any movement breaks the pattern.” His eyes sweep the coop without moving his head. “Eyes away from the opening. I’m starting now.”

He shifts the vessel’s opening closer to the hen’s face. The buff hen starts shuddering immediately—not normal thrashing but something deeper, tremors running through her entire body. A prolonged screech escapes her throat, high and wrong.

The struggle lasts seconds but feels stretched. The hen convulses, Bertram holds firm, Aldous keeps the vessel positioned with mathematical precision—and then it’s done. The buff hen goes limp in Bertram’s grip, the wrongness bleeding out of her. Whatever corruption was anchored in that bird, it’s in the vessel now.

Melissa crosses the distance to the speckled hen in three strides. She gets her hands around the bird before she can scramble away—pins the wings against the body with both hands.

The hen thrashes, making garbled sounds that don’t belong in any chicken’s throat, but the Melissa’s grip holds.

The copper-backed rooster is still the biggest threat. I’m free to handle him.

I lunge forward, hands extended to grab him before he can attack anyone else. The rooster pivots. I reach for him, but my boot catches something in the litter, uneven wood shavings or straw, and my ankle rolls. I’m going down fast, hands grasping at empty air as the ground rushes up.

I hit the floor hard. Dust and burnt clay smell explode around me. The impact knocks the breath halfway out of my lungs.

The rooster, three feet away, broad chest puffed and tailfeathers flared, clucks territorial. His head swivels, sizing up opponents.

To my right, Rill lunges forward, going for the rooster with both hands extended. She’s trying to pin his wings against his body the way Melissa showed us. The rooster twists away from her. He’s out of range before her hands close on feathers. Rill doesn’t hesitate. She goes after him again.

The rooster launches himself at her. He flies straight for her chest—same heart region where her tunic’s already bloodstained. His beak drives into her flesh with unnatural accuracy, piercing through the linen again. I hear the wet impact even from the ground.

Rill staggers but doesn’t go down. Her jaw sets tight against the pain.

The kink-necked black pullet is suddenly right there, five feet from my face. Her crooked neck cants hard to the left, and she locks eyes with me.

Click, click, click. Sharp ceramic sounds from her beak, rapid-fire and wrong.

Pressure blooms behind my eyes—cold, invasive. I brace, and it slides off like rain on stone. The pullet backs away, clicks slowing.

From the back corner—the slate-blue bantam rushes out. She launches herself at Aldous, beak aimed for exposed skin. Aldous sidesteps without looking at her directly. The bantam lands in the dust.

The buff hen shakes her head in Bertram’s grip, confused, trying weakly to free herself. The extraction pulled the wrongness out, left her just a regular chicken trying to escape a human’s hold. Bertram struggles to scramble to his feet.

“Everyone still alive?” He glances around the coop. “What feathered demon are we handling next?”

He spots me on the ground, and his eyebrows go up. He rushes over, reaches down, grabs me by the front of my shirt even though that hand is still holding his pipe. The buff hen squawks indignantly under his arm.

“Floor ain’t made of catnip as far as I know, miss. Get up.”

He hauls me to my feet with more force than finesse. I find my balance, dust and wood shavings clinging to my clothes.

Aldous crosses to Melissa and the speckled hen, vessel cradled carefully, eyes already calculating angles.

He positions the containment vessel exactly one handspan from the hen’s head, where those growth-ring eyes show whatever corruption runs deepest. His hands stay steady despite the chaos still churning around us.

“Melissa, hold her firm—this is the primary vector.” His voice cuts through the burnt-clay stench without rising in volume. “The extraction will fight harder than the buff hen’s did. Don’t adjust your grip no matter how she thrashes. Eyes away. I’m extracting now.”

The speckled hen’s body goes rigid in Melissa’s grip. Then she screeches—garbled, wrong, a sound that would require vocal cords no chicken should possess. The screech scrapes against the inside of my skull like metal on glass.

Her body spasms. Not the panicked thrashing of a restrained bird—something stronger than her frame should allow. Wings strain with unnatural force. The veteran’s grip holds, tension cording through her scarred forearms.

The struggle stretches. The hen convulses, that screech rising and falling in waves that make my teeth ache. Aldous keeps the vessel positioned steady as a fixture.

Then it’s done. The wrongness bleeds out of the hen like heat dissipating into cold air. She goes limp in Melissa’s grip. Just a bird now. The burnt-clay smell doesn’t fade but the pressure it carried, that invasive spiritual rot, collapses. Melissa releases her; the hen settles onto the straw-covered floor, docile.

Melissa straightens, turns toward the copper-backed rooster who’s still loose and aggressive, chest puffed and tailfeathers flared.

I lunge for him again, movements sharp and controlled, aiming to pin his wings before he can strike. But the rooster jumps, and I’m grasping at empty air as he lands three feet away. My hands close on nothing.

The speckled hen, clean now, picks her way through the scattered bodies and debris. She avoids Rill, sidesteps Aldous’ boots, and heads straight for the coop’s entrance.

The copper-backed rooster’s head swivels, tracking movement across the coop. His eyes settle on me. That barrel chest puffs wider, hackles flaring rust-red in the dim light, and I can see the exact moment he chooses his target.

He charges. Talons churning through litter, wings half-spread for balance. I sidestep. He adjusts mid-charge, but I pivot. His beak snaps on empty air. Momentum carries him past me in a flurry of copper feathers and burnt-clay stench.

The kink-necked black pullet locks eyes with Melissa. Click, click, click. That spiritual pressure builds again. Melissa’s jaw sets, eyes narrowing. The pressure shatters. The pullet backs away.

The slate-blue bantam explodes from the shadows. Tiny legs pump through the litter as she launches herself at Bertram with surprising height. Her beak drives straight into his head—I hear the impact piercing skin.

Bertram’s hands fly to his skull, still gripping that pipe. He swings it up reflexively and cracks himself in the temple with his own weapon.

“Agh! You feathered cunt!” He releases the buff hen—she drops from under his arm, flapping indignantly to the floor—and presses both hands to his bleeding scalp. “I felt the vibration right through my gray matter!”

The buff hen shakes herself, confused and free, then waddles away.

Aldous moves. That same methodical precision he showed during the extractions, but faster now—crossing the distance to the copper-backed rooster. Not waiting for someone else to handle it.

“Hold still,” he says, reaching for the rooster with both hands angled to pin wings tight against body. “I’m not giving anyone an excuse to kill you when extraction is still possible!”

The rooster twists, wings snapping, and Aldous’ hands close on empty air. The bird plants himself three feet back, chest out, eyeing Aldous with focused aggression.

“Third time’s the charm, you feathered bastard,” I say, closing the distance fast. “Hold still so Aldous can fix you!”

I lunge at the rooster. He sidesteps—my boot catches the litter and I’m down again, dust and burnt clay exploding around me.

Rill’s shifting her attention away from the rooster. Her eyes lock onto the kink-necked black pullet instead, the one who tried to corrupt both me and Melissa with that ceramic-click gaze. She’s done chasing the copper-backed demon.

She lunges at the black pullet with both hands angled to pin its wings tight against its twisted body. The pullet’s neck cants hard to the left, beak opening for another click—but Rill’s already got her. Hands close around the bird, wings pressed flush to her sides before she can cast that corrupting gaze again.

Near the coop entrance, the large speckled hen settles into a corner. She watches the chaos with what looks like concern, head tilting like she can’t figure out why everyone’s so worked up.

The copper-backed rooster jumps, hits the wall with both talons, rebounds off the planks with surprising force, then swoops down on Aldous. Wings spread wide for the dive, beak aimed straight for his chest. The rooster pecks hard—I hear the impact against Aldous’ quilted jerkin, the dull thud of beak hitting padded fabric. The jerkin holds.

The black pullet in Rill’s grip thrashes harder, neck twitching violently, beak clicking against Rill’s hands. She’s trying to free herself with unnatural strength for something that size.

The pullet wrenches free from Rill’s hold, tumbling to the litter in an explosion of dust and that burnt-clay stench. Her crooked neck recenters with a sharp twitch—click, click—and she backs away fast, putting distance between herself and Rill’s hands.

The slate-blue bantam rushes out again from the shadows, tiny legs churning. She launches herself at Aldous, who’s still recovering from the rooster’s chest strike. The bantam’s beak drives into his exposed left arm with surgical precision. I hear the wet sound of piercing flesh.

Aldous grimaces but doesn’t cry out. Blood wells up where the bantam’s beak punctured skin.

The white-faced buff hen spots the coop door. It’s cracked open, light from the yard spilling through the gap. She clucks indignantly, ruffles her pale feathers, then waddles straight for freedom. Pushes through the opening and disappears into Aldous’ yard, leaving the coop behind.

Bertram’s got one hand pressed to his bleeding head where the bantam struck earlier. His eyes sweep the coop floor, searching. Then he spots the slate-blue bantam circling near Aldous’ feet, and his expression tightens.

He lifts his pipe-hand, the carved wood gripped tight despite the blood running down his temple.

“You accursed bunch of misbehaving poultry!”

He throws the pipe hard. It hits the slate-blue bantam square in her torso, enough force to send her tumbling through the litter. She rolls once, then scrambles upright, shaking herself with a chirp.

Aldous is approaching me, quick but controlled despite the blood sliding down his arm. He extends a hand down.

“Up—now. Rooster’s still active. I need your hands functional, not eating straw.”

I grab his hand and he hauls me to my feet. Pulled up again. Mortifying.

Melissa’s already moving, eyes locked on the kink-necked black pullet who’s been circling and clicking since she broke free from Rill’s grip. The veteran’s hands are angled low to pin the pullet’s glossy-black wings tight against her twisted body before she can cast another corrupting gaze.

She’s got her; the pullet thrashes, clicks muffled. But Melissa holds firm.

We’re bleeding for every inch, and I’m still dead weight. Rill’s chest wound seeps through her tunic. Bertram’s holding his head. Aldous’ arm drips.

The rooster’s still loose, barrel chest puffed and guarding his position like he owns this coop. And maybe he does.

The slate-blue bantam is tiny, wounded from Bertram’s thrown pipe. Better odds than the rooster. Smaller target, less dangerous, already hurting. I need to actually succeed at something.

The burnt clay smell coating my nostrils, the straw compressed under my boots, the chaos of wings and bodies and blood. This is what I’m good at. Violence with purpose. The bantam. Pin her tiny wings.

Mrow, fourth time’s the charm.

I move toward the slate-blue bantam, hands angled to grab her before she can dart back into the shadows or attack someone else.

The bantam sees me coming. She jumps—tiny legs pump hard—and twists mid-air. My hands close on empty air where she was a split-second ago. She lands three feet away, shakes her wounded body, and circles toward the shadows.

Movement beside me—Rill lunges at the bantam with both hands extended, going for the same target I just whiffed on. Her chest wound’s still bleeding but her eyes are locked on that tiny slate-blue body with focused determination.

The bantam jumps again. Rill’s hands grasp at feathers. She’s got contact, fingers closing around one wing, but the bantam thrashes hard and Rill’s footing shifts wrong in the litter. She’s going down, hands losing grip as her knees hit the straw-covered floor. The bantam wrenches free and darts away in a blur of slate-blue feathers.

Near the coop entrance, the large speckled hen takes a final look at the chaos. Then she turns and waddles straight through the cracked door, following the white-faced buff hen out into the yard. Two regular chickens escaping the violence.

I’m tracking the bantam’s movement as she circles back toward the shadows, when something massive and copper-backed fills my peripheral vision.

The rooster lunges at me. Lower. He drives his beak straight into my right ass cheek.

Pain explodes sharp and piercing. I feel the beak punch through fabric, through skin, driving deep enough to make everything clench involuntarily.

“Fuck!”

The rooster pulls back, beak dripping, and plants himself three feet away. Chest puffed.

My ass is on fire.

THE END

Check out this video I generated about this short. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a good while.

Post-mortem for The Municipal Aid Registry

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial, ProgramaciónLeave a comment

Don’t be an idiot: read first the short story this post-mortem is about: The Municipal Aid Registry.

This new short isn’t a one-off. Over the years, as I thought back on what writing of mine brought me the most genuine joy during its production, the answer was troubling: likely the most fun I’ve ever had writing fiction was during that wild time I wrote my two-novels-long fanfiction of Re:Zero, the Japanese series of light novels slash anime. Even though I was mostly constrained by the existing characters and general plot of the original narrative, I felt creatively freer than ever before or since.

When I tried to understand why, I think it had to do with the same reason I’ve mostly only been engaged by manga in these last ten years of my life. The combination of colorful, larger-than-life characters engaged in creative endeavors, characters don’t behave with each other in the constantly cynical, conflicting manner than most Western fiction does it, was intoxicating for me. I wanted that feeling of returning to a story, whether to read or write it, merely to hang out with that ensemble of characters again. To see how they interact with each other in peculiar ways. I experience that again whenever I reread the chapters of that fanfiction (for example, part 52 and part 55).

Somehow, writing those stories always allowed me to be as funny, silly and ridiculous as I felt like it, and the story would accommodate it. There were some genuinely poignant moments too, like a sequence when the protagonist fucks up when trying to kill himself to trigger his “return by death” ability, only to end up with the lower half of his body missing, and all the people in his life either disappointed in him or despairing by his constant attempts to keep killing himself. Recently, someone from Serbia read through most of the latter half of my fanfiction, so thanks for that. Knowing that someone out there, someone whose stupid face I will never have to see, deliberately sought my writing, that warms my black, rotting heart.

Anyway, at this point of my life, so burdened by everything mentally that often I don’t know how I can keep going, I don’t feel like I can commit to any creative project long-term, but I want to do this: a cycle of short stories that each push the boundary of the same fantasy world further. It will involve possibly repeating characters that are peculiar, larger than life, and play off well against each other. Sometimes, a short story may lead into another, either immediately after the previous one or some time down the line. Maybe I will want to develop another aspect of that world. Maybe some short story will see me gathering main characters from previous stories for a collaborative endeavor. My goal is to write something joyful and silly in the way I prefer it, that will make me want to write more of it or reread the existing parts if only to hang out with those characters again. So I’m doing the whole Re:Zero thing again, but with original characters and in a likely plotless manner, at least when it comes to grand, overarching plots, which never were quite my cup of tea anyway, whether some dead witch poured her saliva in it or not.

To produce this short I’m doing the post-mortem about, I relied on the Living Narrative Engine, my mature Javascript app that allows me to play through fictional scenarios. Every time I come up with a scenario, I’m partly prompted by the desire to add a new system to the app. Over time, I’ve developed systems to move from place to place, to interact with other characters, to pick up objects, to read readable objects, to consume the contents of consumable objects, etc. Although I don’t want to commit to much, I must say that the next short story is going to follow Vespera Nightwhisper’s efforts against demonic poultry, which will involve me finally implementing proper weapon-wielding (in a way that requires grabbing with one or more hands, and prevents illogical actions when your appendages are occupied), weapon attacks depending on the type of weapon, and possibly also skill-based successes (so that the characters don’t insta-hit poultry, or get insta-hit by them). I don’t know how the story is going to play out, but that’s part of the fun.

In recent posts, I wrote that I was developing a complex GOAP system (Goal-Oriented Action Planning) to involve autonomous, non-LLM intelligences in my scenarios. I’m on my way there, but I realized that I need a much wider array of actions to be implemented in order for GOAP to fully make sense, so I’m parking that for now. Also, I’m mostly focusing on what the scenarios actually require; when I saw myself introducing hunger mechanics even though no scenario would use them for now, that was the point I realized that I had to step back and focus on what actually brought me joy. And I need a lot of it.

This morning, the moment I finished editing this new short story titled “The Municipal Aid Registry,” my brain was already buzzing with ideas for the next one. That’s the proper state of affairs.

Anyway, as usual, I hope you enjoyed this new short story about a bunch of weird fantasy people. If not, go fuck yourself.

On Writing: General structure – Progression

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, the Acts structure (generally three, but could be strengthened by turning it into five) is a proven method to organize those plot points in a way that makes the story more cohesive, and usually building up in tension.

The following list of questions is meant to ensure that the story progresses appropriately.

  • Lay out all the plot points you have and order them in a way that the obstacles and setbacks escalate in difficulty.
  • Do the anxiety and conflict levels progress in the story? If not, consider that something is wrong it its structure.
  • How do the complications endanger your protagonist’s cause progressively, providing an escalating sense of dramatic tension?
  • If you have determined the act climaxes, how do you make sure each one is stronger than the one before it?
  • Does the story have amazing set pieces? For every event that you consider a set piece in your story, ask the following: Is the scene concept big enough? Are the scene’s stakes high enough? Is the location interesting and unusual? Is there a deadline and/or escalation of conflict?
  • Regarding the impact of the progressing events, think of ways you can show how the plot points hurt the protagonist, and possibly other important main characters.
  • Once the story delves into its traditional second act (second, third, and fourth acts in a five-act structure), consider what happens in it as concrete attacks from one side to defeat the other.
  • How does the second act keep throwing the protagonist into an alien world, at least in a metaphorical sense? Ideally, every event corresponding to the traditional second act should represent the protagonist confronting something alien to his life before the events of this story.

On Writing: General structure – Revision

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, the Acts structure (generally three, but could be strengthened by turning it into five) is a proven method to organize those plot points in a way that makes the story more cohesive, and usually building up in tension.

Once you’ve settled on an ordered list of scenes, the following questions should allow you to revise it carefully, to ensure that all the scenes have earned their stay.

  • Does the story start at the last possible moment?
  • Imagine your first couple of scenes being the first ten minutes of a movie. Do you think you’d sit there bored and wondering who these people are and when the hell the story is going to kick in? How would those first couple of scenes suck the reader in?
  • Look at the juxtaposition between individual scenes and consider reordering.
  • Can you cut any scene? If you can remove it without risking the collapse of the whole story, throw it out.
  • Does everything in your story’s cause-and-effect trajectory revolve around the protagonist’s quest (the story question)? If not, try to get rid of those scenes.
  • Try to combine scenes so each one is packed, but make sure each scene accomplishes essentially one action.
  • Go through every plot point other than the first, and ensure that each of them escalates from at least one previous plot point.
  • Go through every plot point and ensure that they have real consequences, that they make at least one other scene that follows inevitable.
  • Go through every plot point and ensure that they respect the context of the act they belong to. If the plot point belongs to the traditional second act (second, third, and fourth in a five-act structure), how does the plot point belong to a series of actions in which the character confronts and resists some type of death (physical, psychological, social), against some opposing force?
  • Go through every significant disaster or plot point, and consider how you’ve set things up so that something else could have happened.
  • If three crises hit close together, try to merge them into a single scene of supreme crisis. That would multiply the danger those characters face.
  • Is there at least one “Holy crap!” scene?
  • Put a check by every one of your scenes you consider to be “good.” Don’t lie either. Be honest with yourself. Don’t consider your structure done until at least half of those scenes are top notch.
  • Pinpoint all the moments that challenged your protagonist and caused him to take action.
  • Can every scene challenge the protagonist’s flaw? The action should somehow serve to pose them that fundamental dramatic question, ‘who am I?’ Are they going to be the old, flawed version of themselves, or are they going to become someone new?
  • How does the plot constantly force your increasingly-reluctant protagonist to change?
  • Do your scenes provide enough surprises to keep things unpredictable?
  • How do you make the likelihood of a negative outcome for the story believable?
  • Do the crises build from meaningful but not irreversible to life changing and irreversible?
  • Consider whether the ending is premature. Does the hero have his big insight early, ending his development then, and making everything else anticlimatic?
  • Does the hero achieve his desire too quickly?

On Writing: General structure – Goals & Conflict

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, the Acts structure (generally three, but could be strengthened by turning it into five) is a proven method to organize those plot points in a way that makes the story more cohesive, and usually building up in tension.

The following questions should allow you to develop the goals in your story, as well as the conflict that will make it harder for the characters to achieve their goals.

  • What is the overall goal by the main character in the story?
  • The goal should be the product of their sacred flaw. What they decide they want has to come from the flawed core of their character.
  • How is the protagonist’s goal a need, an emotional must for the character?
  • What is the concrete goal each important character in your story has, and how do they conflict?
  • Describe when and how your hero becomes obsessed with winning. Put another way, is there a moment when your hero decides to do almost anything to win?
  • Can you start using a “wrong solution” approach? It gives heroes a reason to get moving so that they can learn and grow on the job. While it may seem cooler to have heroes know what to do right away, or at least withhold judgement until they have all the facts, you will often find the audience actually likes them better if you first send them charging off in the wrong direction.
  • Micro-Goal to Macro-Goal. This is a simpler form of false goal. Frodo sets out to merely return the ring to Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. In Star Wars, Luke goes from wanting to fix his runaway droid to wanting to blow up the Death Star. John McClane in Die Hard spends the first half of the movie just trying to call the cops before he realizes he’ll have to take on a terrorist cell single-handledly. These false goals make character motivations far more believable.
  • What is the plan, the set of guidelines, or strategies, the hero will use to overcome the opponent and reach the goal? How is it specificially focused toward defeating the opponent and reaching the goal?
  • What opposition do you throw at your main character and how do you keep telling them no?
  • How, by competing for the same goal, are the protagonist and antagonist forced to come into direct conflict throughout the story?
  • How does the protagonist face the villain along the way? Specify.
  • Brainstorm all the possible obstacles you could throw in, to make the story as interesting as possible.
  • What is the conflict between each of your main characters?
  • If you have multiple protagonists, can you make them antagonists of each other?
  • How do you place the protagonist’s values in conflict?
  • In what way is your central conflict embodying your theme? How does the conflict force your protagonist to make thematic choices in the novel, with the hardest choice at the climax?
  • How are you pushing your characters to the edge?
  • Has everything that can go wrong indeed gone wrong? Don’t be nice, even a little bit. Throw social conventions out of the window. Does your plot continually force your protagonist to rise to the occasion?
  • Make sure things are constantly going wrong in your story to keep it exciting.
  • How can you complicate things so much that it seemingly becomes impossible for your protagonist to reach his goal?
  • Audiences get bored if the hero doesn’t have to improvise. Try to go through the plot points figuring out plenty of ways it could fail.
  • Can you make it feel like the protagonist is trying to juggle several balls at once and he is just barely keeping them from dropping every time? This is a great time to push the protagonist almost to the point of breaking before bringing them back in for a final and much awaited victory.
  • Your antagonist shouldn’t go with everything going their way either. Let both of them face challenges, twists and turns along the way. The more they are affected by curveballs and unexpected experiences, the more realistic the story will be. Make the protagonist slip up and result in an almost-victory instead of a true victory, and let the antagonist fail at the most inconvenient of times for them. This keeps your readers on their toes and unsure about what is going to happen, when.
  • How does the conflict force the protagonist to take action, whether it’s to rationalize it away or actually change?
  • What is excellent about this challenge? What’s cool, awesome, and exciting about being in this situation? How can your protagonist be creative? How can your protagonist exceed her own expectations, and even your own?
  • Are there catalytic moments of transformation?

On Writing: General structure – Symbol web

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, the Acts structure (generally three, but could be strengthened by turning it into five) is a proven method to organize those plot points in a way that makes the story more cohesive, and usually building up in tension.

The following questions are all about consciously incorporating symbols into your story.

  • Is there a single symbol that expresses the premise, key story twists, central theme, or overall structure of your story?
  • When connecting a symbol to a character, choose a symbol that represents a defining principle of that character or its reverse. By connecting a specific, discrete symbol with an essential quality of the character, the audience gets an immediate understanding of one aspect of the character in a single blow.
  • How do I choose the right symbol to apply to a character? He is defined in relation to other characters. In considering a symbol for one character, consider symbols for many, beginning with the hero and the main opponent. How would they stand in opposition of each other?
  • Can you create a symbol opposition within the character?
  • Come up with a single aspect of the character or a single emotion you want the character to evoke in the audience.
  • Could use a shorthand technique for connecting symbol to character: use certain categories of character, especially gods, animals and machines. Think about how that would give that character a basic trait and level that the audience immediately recognizes.
  • Can you choose a symbol you want the character to become when he undergoes his change? Attach the symbol to the character when you are creating the character’s weaknesses or need. Bring the symbol back at the moment of character change, but with some variation from when you introduce it.
  • How could you encapsulate entire moral arguments in symbol? Come up with an image or object that expresses a series of actions that hurt others in some way. Even more powerful is an image or object that expresses two series of actions (two moral sequences) that are in conflict with each other.
  • Look for a symbol that can encapsulate the main theme of your story. For a symbol to express the theme, it must stand for a series of actions with moral effects. A more advanced thematic symbol is one that stands for two series of moral actions that are in conflict.
  • How could a symbol encapsulate the entire world of the story, or set of forces, in a single, understandable image?
  • Determine what symbols you wish to attach to the various elements of the story world, including the natural settings, man-made spaces, technology and time.
  • See if you could make an action symbolic, making it especially important, and it expresses the theme or character of the story in miniature.
  • When creating a web of symbolic objects, begin by going back to the designing principle of the story, and see how it turns the collection of individual objects into a cluster. See how each object not only refers to another object but also refers to and connects with the other symbolic objects in the story.
  • Think for a moment about your theme, what your story is really about. What images come to mind that might represent your story?
  • When creating an image system, one thing that might help is to envision a movie poster for your story. What key moment in your entire story would be best be shown on your poster? What colors and objects would be shown? What would the characters be wearing, holding, doing? By imagining this movie poster, you might get some ideas for strong symbols.
  • Think about your protagonist. Image one object she owns that is special to her. Maybe it’s a gift someone gave her that has great significance. Maybe it’s a shell she found on the beach on an important day in her life. You can find a place to introduce this motif-object early on in the book, then show it again a few times at important moments in your story, and then bring it into the final scene in some symbolic way.
  • If you can have an object connected to a very important moment in a character’s past (whether something painful or joyful), you can then springboard from there to infuse this object with deep meaning.
  • Write down an emotion or thematic component from your novel, such as grief or forgiveness. Freewrite all the worst images that come to your mind without censoring what you write. Picture in your head your character grieving. Where is she? What does she see? What does she touch or hold? What comforts her–a song, a picture, a place?
  • Think of the main emotion or trait your protagonist experiences (grief, forgiveness, etc.) Can you find a symbol/object for this to use in your novel?
  • Consider the title of your novel. Can you find a way to bring a motif into the title? Tie in with your themes?
  • What objects or images are central and organic to this story?
  • Pick the three most important scenes in your story for your protagonist. Can you insert the same motif into those three scenes somehow?
  • Often a secondary character who serves as an ally to the protagonist will be the one to impart words of wisdom and advice, and this is a good opportunity to come up with a special phrase (and if possible, one associated with some object) that can then be an important motivator for the protagonist.
  • Think about a secondary ally character that can give advice or insight in a way that will introduce or reinforce a motif in your story. Maybe even come up with a clever phrase for that character to use as a word whisker that serves as a motif.
  • How would you refer to and repeat each symbol throughout the story? Start with a feeling and create a symbol that will cause that feeling in the audience. How does that symbol change slightly during repetitions?
  • Describe for each symbol how it helps define the others.

Life update (02/03/2025)

On By Jon UreñaIn Escritura, Slice of lifeLeave a comment

Previously I mentioned that now that I’m immersed in writing a new novel, the worst part is having to waste half of the day at work. It’s worse than that, though: everything that doesn’t involve either developing the novel or actually writing it feels like it’s stealing from what I’m supposed to do. Even time itself is a threat. But yes, the biggest offender is by far my job. I’m tasked with programming the performances of local resources like consultation and operation rooms, but the mental resources that would be required to hold all those concepts at once are dedicated to the novel. My basement girl refuses to focus on anything else. I feel her complaining every time I need to drag her away from her current obsession. The struggle keeps me in an oniric daze, having to remind myself what I’m supposed to be doing instead of losing myself in my new novel, and certainly not caring a bit.

In truth, anyone with the ability to create new things should only be burdened with bringing those things to life, not keeping a day job. But you know how life goes. The whole system is set up so that two members of every household are supposed to pay for stuff. Still, most of the time they find themselves with water up to the neck, as designed. Gotta keep people tired and broke lest they start pointing fingers.

This weekend I visited one of the spots of my hometown where an upcoming scene will take place, and I felt the familiar ache that has resurged regularly these past ten years or so: I wish I could quit everything, fill a backpack with food, notebooks and pens, and start walking in some interesting direction. Once I ran out of either notebooks or pens, I’d hop on the nearest bus or train and return home. I’m reading McCarthy’s Suttree; there’s this whole godlike section in which McCarthy clearly trekked through the mountains like a hobo and almost lost his mind. That’s what a writer is supposed to do. If you die during any of your “research” trips, then that’s that, but if you survive, you are granted the ability to produce something real. Virtually none of what you live through in your average life as a worker is meaningful (I’d say it even harms your ability to recognize what’s meaningful), and that’s most of our lives going down the drain. I’m complaining in vain, but it bothers me, so I complain at least.

I’ve mentioned before how writing builds up a personal mythology made out of thoughts, moments, places, etc. That’s part of why now I consider very important to place your stories in locations you’ve actually visited. If those locations don’t hold personal meaning for you, even better. Regarding my current novel The Scrap Colossus, the bench of the riverside promenade where my narrator met Elena, the obsessive writer, will forever be meaningful to me. And the way my brain works, I can lean back against that railing, look down at that bench and feel like she’s there. There are many places in my surroundings that have become a source of fond memories, nostalgia, grief, etc. For example, some months ago I visited the neighboring town of Hondarribia, and found myself at the same spot of a slanted street, close to a church, where “I” stood in my 2021 novel My Own Desert Places and stared at Alazne’s swaying hair as she walked down toward a writing course. It made my heart ache. It aches now as I remember it. But Alazne never existed, and the painful events recorded in that novel never happened. Yet they can moisten my eyes every time I think about them. I’ve grieved far more for my own creations than for real-life “friends” who died. My brain works that way.

Well, I suppose that’s enough procrastinating before I return to my tasks. If any of you is reading my new novel, The Scrap Colossus, I hope you’re getting something out of it. I write to satisfy my basement girl, but I would be lying if I pretended that other people clicking like on my stuff doesn’t make me feel better.

Trash in a Ditch, Pt. 12 (Fiction)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

The machine parts slid from one worker to another. I caught a sidelong glimpse of how Héctor cast a look in my direction. What was he scheming? Although post lunch break, that man often threatened to nod off out of boredom, today he had donned a pair of earmuffs like those worn by laborers wielding pneumatic hammers, and he bobbed his head to the rhythm of a drum kit’s machine-gun fire. Seated to my right, Christopher, almost as if tending to an epileptic, sent glances my way that I carefully avoided.

I focused on fitting the parts together and connecting the wires, yet Caroline’s voice ricocheted from ear to ear, conveying a coded message that I needed to decipher. As one machine part drifted away on the conveyor belt, I found myself twisting on my stool, scanning the mass of workers for that woman’s unkempt mane. I’d never bothered to find out which line she worked on, or whether the workshop had adopted her as a mascot instead. Perhaps now Caroline was gripping the supervisor by the wrist and guiding her, much like a loyal dog leading its master, toward the black hole of my trunk.

I fixed my gaze on the pieces that stalled before my hands, but in the foggy wasteland of my mind, Caroline’s presence shone like a lighthouse. The secret I should have guarded, private as my own conscience, had been split apart. That woman knew I’d killed a child, and where I hid the evidence. She had become the most important person, even though I would never understand her. She could ruin my life at her whim. And why would she save me—the strange, repulsive man who stashed a child’s corpse in his trunk?

It was only a matter of time before someone else found out. Caroline would eventually expose the secret, or I would overlook some crucial detail, and the police would be called. That domino piece stood upright with dozens more waiting in line to fall. And there I was, still in this workshop, this sweat factory, assembling piece after piece. Some droplets gathered on my face, while others slid down my back, my sides, and my chest, as a hot, stale vapor seeped through the gaps in my shirt. My skin was melting.

How had I ever believed I had the right to show up in this workshop? I’d crashed a meeting of high society. These broken people around me enjoyed their lives, even though they bore injuries and deformities that would have convinced me to shoot myself. They wanted to improve society through the hours of labor they sacrificed. They cherished meeting other broken souls, but I longed to lose them from sight. What else could one expect from a murderer parading his trophy?

While I drove screws into casings and wrestled with wires, while I blinked and squinted to define every contour, I anticipated that the parts between my fingertips would vanish. Their molecules would admit that all effort to maintain a shape was wasted, for sooner or later they’d end up in some dump.

As if wandering through the gallery of a cave in a dream, I found myself trailing my crew out to the patio. Break time had arrived. Guided by Christopher’s back, I ended up in the shade beneath a building’s eave. With numb fingers, I fumbled for the button of my lab coat pocket to extract my pack of cigarettes. I lit one up. By the third drag I confirmed that, whether by ritual or nicotine, smoking still soothed my nerves.

John—or Joseph—was eyeing Christopher’s socks as if scrutinizing a strip of toilet paper dangling from someone’s trousers. Christopher lifted his foot and wiggled it.

“What?”

“Pull them down. No one wears them like that.”

Christopher crouched and bunched his socks up against his shoes. As he straightened his long frame, he laughed cordially.

Héctor’s hands were expertly rolling strands of tobacco into paper—a dexterity he sorely lacked on the line. Gusts of hot air pushed against the gate, eliciting metallic creaks. My aching cheek—throbbing irritably like eczema—along with my dead eye, stifled any conversation the crew might have attempted to conjure in that silence.

A buzzing skimmed along the edge of my left ear as if trying to slip inside to my eardrum. I flinched and shook my free hand near that ear. The insect’s tiny black dot flitted in bursts like an intermittent radar signal, until it vanished from my sight. I crushed the cigarette butt against the dry ground, only for the mosquito’s buzz to return.

My breathing grew heavy. These bugs had survived for millions of years even though their sole purpose was to annoy everyone else. I tensed like a drawn rubber band and tracked the dancing black dot. On instinct, I slapped at my neck, and when I pulled my palms apart, I found the mosquito’s thorax and abdomen shattered, its legs broken as if pressed between two sheets of glass. I flicked it away with a sharp smack. After shaking my head, I rummaged through my pack for another cigarette.

“Your mask’s cracked,” Héctor said.

His cigarette smoldered between the stubby index and middle fingers. He faced me with the intensity of someone who believed his horse would surge ahead and win the race.

“The fuck are you talking about?” I retorted.

“Your killer face.”

I clenched my teeth—worsening the pain in my cheek—held the cigarette’s filter between my lips, and drew the lighter’s flame close.

“You see what you want to see.”

“Every time you look at us, you must start imagining hajjis. One day you’ll show up in the workshop with a semi-automatic.”

I inhaled deeply to fill my lungs with smoke, to dissuade myself from launching a counterattack. My mind was like an acne-infested face, every thought scraping against inflamed skin. Controlling myself felt like tugging on the leash of a pitbull with a chronic ear infection, all while a legion of idiots insisted I let it have its head petted.

“What have you gotten yourself into,” Héctor demanded, “that you come back for the afternoon shift with a black eye? Are you trafficking? Are you going to say some stranger beat you up just because?”

I flicked the ash from my cigarette as my toes contracted, the tips bulging. Everyone could see I was boiling with rage. Did this bastard want to die? Was he egging me on so I’d throw a couple of punches, thus giving him a pretext for self-defense? But I would need to stop my fingers and teeth from tearing his face apart like an enraged chimpanzee.

Adrenaline surged through me. I bowed my head and ordered myself to calm down. In the past I could have kept quiet and conceded the point just to be left alone; back then, I’d locked away my reactions like in a windowless house. Now, however, my anxiety and irritation lay bare. Héctor would see in those symptoms a red circle on the chest of some video game boss: a target to shoot until the boss dropped dead.

I dropped the lit cigarette at my feet, crushed it with my heel, and scrubbed it against the ground. When my gaze met Héctor’s, his eyebrows tensed.

“If I displease you,” I said, raising my voice now that I cared for every word to be heard, “then look the other way. Don’t bother me with nonsense.”

Before he could answer, I rounded the corner and slipped back into the workshop. I sat on my stool at the line and lowered my head. As I rolled the corrugated handle of my screwdriver along the conveyor belt, I strained my ear like a cat, waiting for the approaching footsteps.

From behind, Christopher’s heavy steps neared, soon joined by another’s. The stool about ten feet to my right creaked. I waited for someone to activate the line, for the conveyor belt to start moving beneath my hands, when suddenly the megaphone burst to life with a screech of static.

“Alan Kivi, please report to the supervisor’s office.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. As I stumbled off my stool, I had to rein myself in from running away. I tiptoed over to peer at the equipment, then shifted aside to reveal the faces of the workers that had remained hidden by the purple backs of those seated in front. Along one of the lines near the changing rooms, I recognized Caroline. Even from the far end of the workshop, I could discern that in her unkempt mane, some strands seemed to arch as if electrified, and her wide, vacant eyes watched her hands as they connected cables.

“Héctor must have gotten lost along the way,” Christopher remarked.

I turned around. The stool opposite mine was empty.

I headed down the corridor while dabbing the cold sweat from my face. A flash of heat blurred my vision. I climbed the stepped metal platform leading to the supervisor’s office, opened the door, and stood beneath the lintel.

Héctor had seated himself with his back to the door, in front of the woman’s desk. Judging by how his hair gleamed under the lamp, he must have soaked it in olive oil to style it.

The supervisor lifted herself from the armchair and leaned against the desk with both hands. After inspecting the ruin of my eye and the battered state of my cheek, she turned to Héctor while pointing at me.

“I do not forgive you for what you did.”

Héctor shifted in his chair and let out an interjection before freezing, torn between disputing the accusation and swearing his innocence.

I closed the door behind me. The air conditioner and a rotating fan chilled the office, making it resemble a refrigerator. I longed to collapse into the empty chair and let the film of sweat on my skin dry.

“Someone else hit me,” I murmured.

The supervisor sank back into her chair. I sat down as, at the edge of my vision, Héctor seethed like a boiling pot of rage.

“Who did that to you?” she asked.

I drew a deep breath and rubbed my face with my hand, careful not to disturb the wound on my cheek.

“It happened outside the workshop. It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean ‘it doesn’t matter’? Have you called the police?”

“I suppose you asked me to come up here for something else.”

The supervisor sighed and sized us up with a look that threatened to pin us against the wall.

“Héctor has complained about you. I want your side of the story. He says you spoke to him disrespectfully.”

Héctor concentrated on his right hand, squeezing the armrest as if he were aboard a spaceship about to take off.

The stench, both from Héctor and me, was overwhelming: rancid sweat steeped in anger and resentment, mixed with a sewer-like fetidity woven into the very stitches of my clothes. The reek of a cesspool filled the atmosphere of incense and women’s perfume, as if one of us had stepped in dog shit.

That sewer odor would be the smell of a rotting corpse. I shuddered. Did the others smell it, too? It had clung to me when I opened the trunk and Caroline tore away the transparent plastic. Would I now have to suspect that everyone recognized that corpse stench, a mark on me as indelible as the odor of my armpits?

“Alan,” the supervisor said.

I parted my lips, but before I could speak, Héctor grunted and shoved me verbally.

“Disrespecting me today has been the last straw. I have the right to feel good here, to work in peace, and this individual is preventing that.” He raised his gruff voice as he pointed at me with his thumb. “He refuses to behave like a human being. He avoids others; when you speak to him, he just stays silent. Move him to another workstation, or fire him.”

I stretched along the backrest and pressed my fingertips against my knees. I fixed my gaze on the supervisor’s eyes to prevent the anger Héctor’s look stirred in me from showing on my face.

The woman tapped the desk with a pen.

“Do you think you’re helping create a pleasant work environment by attacking Alan?”

Héctor flared his nostrils like a bull, and shifted restlessly.

“He started it.”

“Y’all are just too different. Maybe you lack any common ground. But you come here to work, and whatever annoys you about the other, you must ignore it.”

Héctor pursed his lips. Among the tufts of his black beard, small red capillaries emerged. He had frozen as if the slightest movement might make his head pop off and from the gaping void shoot out a column of effervescent rage, as if from a shaken bottle of Coca‑Cola.

The supervisor smiled at me, inviting me to speak.

“What do you think?”

When I tilted my head, my eyes fell on the back of a photograph’s frame on the desk. It probably displayed one of those orders that people like her would hang on a wall: “Smile. Give thanks. Be positive.” Or perhaps a close-up of herself, flashing her white smile like the model in some advertisement.

One misstep, and I would have let slip the words I desperately wanted to say. Even if this woman might excuse a serial killer, she’d still consider me a lost cause, and tomorrow I’d have no income to cover the rent.

“I’m good at ignoring things. I plan to come to the workshop, process my parts, and then go home. If I’m left in peace, I won’t cause any trouble.”

The supervisor rested an elbow on her folder and scratched an eyebrow.

“You know where you work. A stable job is a rare opportunity for people with your peculiarities. The outside world makes your life difficult enough without you fighting amongst yourselves. Focus on common behaviors and shared opinions, or simply ignore each other. I’m sure you can manage that.”

Héctor hurried out of the office first. As if we were competing in a race to the finish line, he bolted down the stairs as fast as his legs, neglected by exercise since high school, would allow.

I maneuvered between the tables with a weary gait. My arms and legs felt heavy, and my stomach churned with the discomfort I’d woken up with that morning. I climbed onto my stool at the work line. Christopher, his tone hinting at a question, addressed me, but all I could hear was the thunder of blood in my ears.

I waited, head bowed, for someone to activate the conveyor belt. I clung to the hope that the repetitive act of assembling or repairing a part would numb my mind, freeing me from intrusive thoughts. But Héctor was looking for a way to attack me. He was the type who thrived on conflict, while I craved hours of uninterrupted solitude. Héctor had cast me as nothing more than a punching bag, a target he could beat without consequence. My isolation made me a target. Although I’d once swallowed his barbs and hostility because he otherwise ignored me, now he would push me until they expelled me from the workshop, just as any organism expels a foreign object lodged in its flesh. I had to push him first.

Less than a year ago, when I first discovered this workshop, I assumed I’d belong among the broken and rejected. But even in such a place, or any gathering of broken people, they would end up treating me as a creature utterly inferior. They would eventually learn that I was camouflaging my true self, that I passed as whole, even though I knew I was a volatile explosive, ready to obliterate this workshop and the surrounding buildings with the slightest jolt.

Author’s note: this novella was originally self-published in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.

On Writing: Scenes and Sequels

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Without getting into complex structuring of a story (the act-based frameworks), you could produce a compelling story relying on a couple of alternating units: Scenes and Sequels.

I first came across the notion of Scenes and Sequels in Dwight V. Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, which I read back when I was obsessed with writing technique. Jack M. Bickham expanded upon Swain’s notions in the book Scene and Structure, which I also recommend. The alternation of Scenes (action-driven) and Sequels (emotionally reflective), creates a rhythm of tension and resolution. Scenes drive plot; Sequels explore consequences.

A Scene is a unit of action where the protagonist pursues an immediate objective.

Goal: The character’s concrete, short-term aim (e.g., “Find the hidden map”).

  • Why it works: goals anchor the reader and create stakes.

Conflict: Obstacles blocking the goal (e.g., a rival steals the map).

  • Key detail: conflict should escalate through active opposition, not coincidence. It should be easy to determine if the conflict is meaningful: it should hinder the stated goal.

Disaster: A negative outcome forcing adaptation (e.g., the map is destroyed).

  • Purpose: avoids static victories; ensures ongoing tension. The disaster need not be catastrophic: it might be unintended consequences (e.g., gaining the map but betraying an ally).
  • It’s important to think of a disaster instead of plain resolutions, because a story should be composed of escalating tension. Setbacks help the story maintain momentum.
  • Ideally, a Scene’s disaster answers the dramatic question proposed by the goal (e.g., “Will the protagonist find the hidden map?”) with a resounding “No.” However, there are variations: “No, and in addition…” as in not only the goal fails, but something gets even worse. The disaster could be a “Yes, but…” However, you should avoid concluding a Scene with a plain “Yes,” unless it’s only a temporary “Yes” that doesn’t let the reader know what bad stuff the disaster has triggered in the future.
  • Each disaster should ideally worsen an overarching problem.

A Sequel processes the fallout of the previous scene’s disaster, focusing on inner turmoil.

Reaction: The character’s emotional response (e.g., despair, guilt).

  • Function: humanizes characters: show vulnerability before resilience. Offers opportunity for character development, emphasizing how that character reacts in an idiosyncratic way. Developing the emotional reactions prevents the characters from appearing robotic.

Dilemma: A problem with no good options (e.g., trust a traitor or go alone?).

  • Tip: dilemmas should test the values of the character or characters involved. Offers lots of opportunity for character development.
  • Dilemmas are often used to explore the story’s thematic questions (e.g., “Does ends justify means?”).

Decision: A new plan emerges (e.g., “Find the traitor and negotiate”).

  • Critical nuance: the decision must logically lead to the next Scene’s goal.

Alternating Scenes (fast-paced) and Sequels (slower, introspective) creates rhythm. Thrillers use shorter Sequels; literary fiction may elongate them for depth. Each Sequel’s decision becomes the next Scene’s goal, creating a chain reaction. This prevents episodic storytelling. Note: a Scene can be followed by another Scene, particularly when the context is clear, but a Sequel should always be followed by a Scene.

Keeping in mind the notion of Scenes and Sequels helps enormously when outlining a story: they force you to think in terms of goals, conflict, dilemmas, and setbacks, which are the fundamentals of a satisfying story.

In addition, knowing you’re writing a Scene helps you understand when to start its narrative: as close to the statement of the goal as possible. For example, if the character wants to convince another character to do something, you can start with the first character engaging the second, without much preamble. This is generally called starting in medias res with the goal already in motion.

Scene and Sequel ensure narratives remain driven by cause-effect logic and emotional authenticity, keeping readers perpetually engaged in the “what happens next?”

The Scrap Colossus, Pt. 3 (Fiction)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

I spotted Elena seated on a bench along the tree-lined waterfront promenade bordering the Bidasoa River, facing the grounds of Dumboa School. She wore a charcoal-gray zip-up hoodie with the hood tugged halfway up her head. Almond-blonde hair spilled over her shoulders. From the angle of her profile, I watched her right hand guide the pen in feverish strokes across the notebook resting on her thigh. She barely paused to flip the page, the motion seamless, as if her hand operated independently. Her pen kept scratching even as she reached for a one-liter carton of orange juice and tilted her head back for a hurried gulp. I pictured Elena as a child, sitting alone in a sandbox, eyes fixed on some invisible horizon beyond the gritty scatter of sand, her mind lost in a world of her own making.

I stepped onto the grass strip flanking her bench, and stood a few paces away. A voyeur trespassing in a museum of one. I wouldn’t startle her while she communed with the divine. Sparrows bickered in the gnarled plane tree overhead. Nearby, a pelota ball ricocheted off the court walls: whap, whap. Elena stopped writing. Her chin settled into her palm, the clicky end of her pen drumming against the notebook.

I crouched, plucked a pebble from the grass, then tossed it onto her notebook. Startled, her head jerked upwards. When she looked down, her gaze lingered on the pebble for a beat before she flipped to previous pages of her notebook. I threw another pebble, but this one hit her arm. Elena bolted upright and scanned the sky as if half-expecting a meteor to rip through the clouds.

With the caution you’d use to approach a stray cat, I edged into Elena’s line of sight. The afternoon light, straining through woolen clouds, gilded the alabaster oval of her face. She had sat with her back to three stories of balconies. Her hoodie was layered over a navy crewneck sweatshirt, and her black joggers bunched at the calves, revealing a slash of pale ivory skin. Her white sneakers, scuffed and worn, sported mismatched laces: one neon-green, one black.

“Nice seeing you again, Elena,” I said.

Her focus snapped to me. Near-translucent skin, bruised-pink lips like petals left too long in the sun. Her pupils dilated as if I had yanked her out of a trance. Her eyes—pale winter blue, adrift like ice floes in a sea of fatigue—held the somber, alienated gaze of someone who’d glimpsed the end of the world. She would haunt your story like the ghost of a tragic heroine, her face lingering long after the last page. She seemed less a person than an open wound: a thing of trembling nerve-endings and unstitched skin.

Her puzzled frown deepened as her stare sharpened, scalpel-like. She dropped her pen onto the notebook, then pulled out foam earplugs and pocketed them in her hoodie.

“Oh. You. That weird guy from the writing course.” Her voice emerged hoarse, as if she hadn’t spoken in days. “The one who didn’t join the lynch mob.”

“I wouldn’t call myself weird all of a sudden, but that’s generally correct.”

She reached down and picked up a pebble I’d tossed. Its dull grayness incongruous against the delicate curve of her fingertips, the fine-boned grace of her hand.

“Jon, was it? Did you throw these at me?”

“Yeah.”

“Throwing pebbles at disturbed writers… is that your thing?”

“I attempted a more interesting way to get your attention than just saying hello. Sadly it misfired.”

Elena studied the pebble before flicking it onto the grass. Her gaze darted between the river, the school grounds, and my face, as if trying to gauge how much trouble I was worth.

“An interesting way to get my attention? I don’t enjoy having things thrown at me.”

“I know you love a bit of dramatic flair.”

She cocked her head, her almond-blonde hair cascading across her cheek.

“You think I’m a drama queen, huh?”

“A connoisseur of the dramatic arts. A woman of refined tastes, who appreciates a little theater in her life.”

“Are you mocking me or trying to flatter me? I can’t tell.”

“Neither. Just saying that sometimes a girl enjoys a little pebble-tossing.”

Elena sighed, a weary exhalation that carried the weight of the day. She then rubbed at her forehead with a pale thumb.

“Sometimes a girl also enjoys being left alone,” she said, her tone dropping to an icy rasp. “But at least you didn’t try to psychoanalyze me or accuse me of lacking empathy. Seriously, what are you doing here, Jon? Are you stalking me, or is this just another cosmic joke at my expense?”

“I’ve been looking forward to bumping into you ever since the debacle at the writing course. And here you are, so I’m taking my chances.”

“What do you want, anyway? Do I owe you something?”

“Owing is not an accurate word for it. But if you feel that way, we can think of something.”

Her pale stare sliced into me. Irises like shards of glacier, sharp enough to draw blood.

“I’m tired of people. I’ve got no energy to spare.”

“I was captivated by your work, Elena. Powerful stuff, quite beautiful in an unsettling way. It has a visceral quality, a rawness that cuts through the bullshit. A shame what happened at the course. I feared that those differently-minded piling on your work would have discouraged you.”

Elena hunched forward and studied me as though I were an alien creature she couldn’t figure out. The sunlight caught her hair, turning strands of it to burnished gold.

“Powerful? Right. That’s exactly what everyone wants to read. Tales of mud, starvation, and eating salamanders. You’ll find that to survive in this world, you need to be sanitized. People want their little feel-good pieces about finding love in coffee shops or whatever the hell is considered marketable these days. They want to be told they’re good people and everything is going to be okay. But that’s not the truth. Truth is ugly. Truth is a woman eating a raw amphibian.”

“Who cares what people want? The whole thing is a hamster wheel.”

She leaned back, her hands gripping the edge of the bench.

“I don’t need your sympathy, Jon. It’s easier if people aren’t interested in me. I’m not like them. I don’t know how to act around them. I’m not good at pretending to be normal. I’m not good at pretending at all, I guess. But hey, since you brought it up… why did you defend me that day? Nobody asked you to play white knight for the class psycho.”

I could picture her as a princess in a castle of bones, her crown a circlet of thorns.

I leaned over the filigreed railing that bordered the promenade. Ferns sprouted from the cracks in the stone retaining wall, fanning outward. The opposite wall, moss-covered, darkened near its base like the stained bottom of an unwashed coffee cup. Below, the Bidasoa River, murky-teal and sluggish, carried twigs, bits of leaves, an orange peel. In the river’s dull sheen, wavy reflections caught the overcast white sky—a sheet of cotton wool pulled over a lamp. A trio of ducks glided over, their boatlike bodies corrugating the water in their wake. They stared expectantly like silent beggars. A silver grey mullet, open-mouthed and thriving even in the city’s sewage-laced currents, slipped into view, its gills pumping, then vanished into the murk. In the plane trees, sparrows chirped in a symphony of gossip over the whap, whap of a ball striking the pelota court walls.

I turned to face Elena, leaned back against the railing, and crossed my ankles.

“You read what you had needed to write, despite knowing it wouldn’t land well with that audience. I like bold people, those unafraid of getting their hands dirty. Who stand their ground. Too many bend their principles whenever society comes knocking. To be honest, I had wanted to quit the course for a while. Isabel is too much of a social butterfly for my taste. But I kept attending because I needed to know what you’d bring next. So after they lost you, I quit too. You can consider me your fellow deserter.”

Author’s note: the scene will continue in the next part.