Since my Facebook competition winner, Seyma, picked this story for her handwritten prize, I thought I’d share the inspiration behind ‘Game Over’ next. I do intend to do a ‘story behind’ post for each of my short stories over the coming weeks, as I said in the first of these posts which covered ‘Invoking Hell’, but I’ll blog about other things in between to mix it up a bit.
This was the first short story I’d written since school and, having become so used to working on novels by that point, once again I have to admit to being a bit daunted by the 2200 word limit. I was doubtful whether I could get a decent plot worthy enough to be entered into a competition in what seemed like so few words. Unfortunately this piece didn’t make the shortlist, but according to the website they had around 60 entries, most of which were high quality and required several re-readings by the judges to reach a decision. There was no theme to the competition but I did get the feeling the judges weren’t really into the sort of thing I write, so I wasn’t really expecting to make the top three for this one. But with a £500 cash prize for first place I had to give it a shot!
Some of my fans will know already that I have two cats, one of which is very timid. And just like Monster in the story, often she asks to be let out only to freeze at the open door, acting like there’s something out there in the darkness. I’d been thinking for a while there was a story there somewhere, and I thought maybe I could develop a short story around that idea for the competition.
This was one of the rare occasions when the plot built itself up around the initial idea before any of the narrative came to me. The hardest part was deciding exactly what could creep through the door while the main character held it wide open, without her detecting it. When I decided to make it a demon and had figured out the twist at the end, I then had to decide what the main character had inadvertently given up her soul for, and I wanted it to be something fairly trivial, something that most people would never dream of intentionally trading something so precious for.
Once I’d decided to make her a gamer, the opening came to me and I started to write. Due to the word count and the fact this piece was so plot driven it needed to be fast paced to get from A to B in the number of words I had. I realise the title is somewhat clichéd, but I find titles to be the hardest part of writing so as usual I couldn’t think of anything clever that didn’t give too much away. So as the deadline for submissions drew nearer, I just went with ‘Game Over’.
All in all I was pleased with the way this piece turned out, even if it didn’t win me that £500!
