An Evening of Chthulhu

This is but a sample of this story. The complete version is available in my print collection Man Against the Future. From there, you can order signed copies, or buy it for the Kindle or the Nook.

My name is Phillip Quillan and I used to be a police officer in my day and, as they say, every dog has one. Before we continue further, a few things should be noted. First, for the fact that you are reading this means that I have passed on for reasons that will most likely forever remain my own. I have requested that this be published posthumously. Secondly, no matter how ludicrous or completely untrue any of this sounds, take heart that it is the absolute truth. Finally, whenever possible, I’ve corroborated the facts and incidents with the diaries and the enumerating parties involved in this eerie situation.

We begin on August 1st, 1949 in the diary of Elizabeth Shumway:

I saw “it” today. I don’t know what “it” was, but it was absolutely horrid. I’m not sure how my sanity was kept after this, this thing, came after me. It stood about two and a half meters tall and had deep red eyes. He was drooling, I think, and that translucent goo covering…dripping from his teeth was all that was visible. But in the dark of the alley it was in, I could hardly even make that out. Dear God, I beg of you, rid the world of this beast or I will die trying to do it myself. Why anyone would create such a horrid thing, I don’t know I have to know why. Even thinking of it makes me nauseous.

This is but a sample of this story. The complete version is available in my print collection Man Against the Future. From there, you can order signed copies, or buy it for the Kindle or the Nook.

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50+ Rules and Tips About Writing I've Collected Over the Years

I have twenty or thirty notebooks and journals filled up with snippets about writing, my plans for stories, bits of dialogue, interesting ideas, plotlines, scraps of short stories, and a dozen other things. I carry one with me at all times and it takes me a couple of months to fill one up.

One of the things I've kept in one of my notebooks was a collection of writing tips and rules that I've collected over the years in my travels. From teachers, from books, from wherever. Most of my career has been spent screenwriting, so a lot of these are most applicable to that, but I wanted to present them so they might be of use to you as well.

I've never stopped collecting these over the years and I never will.

To start the list are Kurt Vonnegut's eight rules of writing. They are the first in my notebook and, I think, the most useful. I'll add a star to those I think are applicable most to screenwriting. Some of these aren't applicable to everyone in every situation, but…

Anatomy of a Scene - City Lights

We're going to break down another scene this week, and it's one of my favorites in cinema history. It comes from the ending of City Lights by Charlie Chaplin, which I think is the greatest romantic comedy ever made.
It's a touching film from 1931 and I would make it mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to learn to tell a story.
The scene we're going to be breaking down comes from the very end of the film, so if you haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil it for you. Go watch the film. You can rent it for $3.99 in HD on Amazon or for free on Hulu with a free trial or plus subscription. You should just buy the Blu-ray, though. You're going to want to revisit it.
For those of you familiar with the movie, or for those of you who are going to ignore my pleas to watch it and go ahead with this post anyway, I'm going to set this clip up a bit before you watch it.
City Lights tells the story of Chaplin's Tramp and how he falls in love with a blind flower …

The End of an Era and a New Beginning

It's been a long time coming, but I think an upgrade to my web presence was long overdue. I began this blog in 2005 and it's served me well over the last 13 years. My goal in those early days was to write a short story every month. Back then, that was the only writing I was doing.

This website, then called "Bryan's Short Story Corner," got me into a regular writing habit. One that I still maintain today. I hoped it would help me get eyeballs on my words and, looking back at some of those early short stories, I shouldn't have wanted any of those eyeballs looking. Today, my Patreon fills that void. There is a dedicated group of supporters there that help subsidize my ability to write short stories on the regular.

After I started publishing books, this blog morphed into a place to talk about my projects and writing and it worked well enough for that for a long time. But now I have Twitter and Medium for those functions and they have much cleaner and easier inte…

The stories of Bryan Young

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