Hello all! I opened up a thread a little while ago to see if there would be any interest in posting short stories (prose fiction). I was recommended to start the thread here.

Here is what I recommend for the format. You post the story in the body of the message. The message subject can be listed as "STORY - (Insert Title)."
If it is too long then continue it in a second post with the message subject as "STORY cont. . .(Insert Title)."

All feedback can be posted after the story.
I'm sure that if there is enough interest we will have to continue the posting in a separate thread, but hopefully we will be able to keep track of it.

So, if you have a story post it here.

I like this idea.  I have something that is not intended to be a short story, but fits the mold.  My writing partner and I have a complete 1-hour original pilot for a series entitled Elsinore Tales (not yet posted on SimplyScripts.com).  We also have a book of concepts - both where the story is headed and where it began.  My partner's background is in prose, and he tends to wrap his mind around things more soundly when he can first write it as such.  So, in order to fit together all of the puzzle pieces of the Elsinore Tales backstory, he wrote it out in prose.  It's 20 pages in length and reads like a short story, only with an open ending (which happens to be the beginning of the screenplay).

I'd really like to post it, if for no other reason than to see whether or not it might generate some interest in the pilot.  But there is one problem as I can see it... it's 20 pages!  That seems like an awful lot to post in the body of each message.  Am I wrong?

That is pretty long, unfortunately most short stories fall around that twenty page mark too.
Why don't you post the first quarter of it and see how much room it takes up.
If it is not too much we can work from there, but at least you'll get some feedback for the first portion of it.

OK, I'll give it a shot.  I just wish I knew how many characters we are limited to in each post.  That would help a lot.  

Also, I feel it is necessary to mention, for my own protection, that the ideas and characters in this story are simply an extension of ideas and characters that already exist in the WGA-registered teleplay, The Lake Elsinore Tales - WGA #1038313.

Without further ado...

Elsinore Tales: The Carraway Backstory

Petunia the Prostitute’s Plan for Pregnancy
Petunia was born into prostitution, a circumstance of providence that she reluctantly accepted for the majority of her adolescence and trek into womanhood. As far as a prostitutional talent goes, she was, despite superb aesthetic beauty and prominent, ever present sexual prowess, a mediocre whore; her lack of passion and dexterity as it pertained to the therapeutic and corporeal arts prompted her to see out other opportunities. Petunia figured the easiest, quickest, and most reliable course of action that a young harlot could take to free herself from the bonds of a whorehouse was to become pregnant. Although this was not the ideal situation, taking care of the needs of a baby, according to Petunia, beat the shit out of taking care of the needs of a randy townie on payday.
     So Petunia began scrutinizing the regular patrons of Madame Madge’s Bath House, searching for an unsuspecting donor. At first she believed the selection of a mate would be an easy choice, for one generous penis is as good as another; but as Petunia began to contemplate each man, she also began to cling tighter to the conviction that the man should be one of stature, the type of man she could brag on to the child with some sense of honesty. This conviction began to waiver, however, after several months of cataloguing the pathetic and pitiful comers and goers of the Bath House. Petunia—unbeknownst to herself—had, after years of service, internalized a critical disdain for any man that extended the transaction of sex into a transaction of business, and this internalization made her search for an appropriate father impassable.

When a Good Penis is in Short Supply
     As a result of this period of doubt and hopelessness, Petunia slipped into despair, and she soon adopted the habit of taking sunset strolls along the east end of Lake Elsinore to curtail her pain. Here, her will endured a projection of indifference, the defining characteristic of the ankle-high lapping waves of Elsinore’s waters. By degrees the rhythm and flow, the ebb and tide of the verdant waters called to Petunia, pulled at her like a magnet, so much so that she resigned herself to the notion of becoming one with the lake.
     Donning a fur coat with large pockets packed with dull, gray stones, Petunia waded out into the water one step at a time. As the water reached breast-high, the mud and silt beneath her feet leveled out, and ten onward paces proved to be no more ominous than the breast-high water. The eleventh pace was even more peculiar as it was here that Petunia realized that the lake bottom actually began to ascend (at least it was what she assumed to be the lake bottom—in reality it was a giant lake creature that has been in a state of hibernation for some time). More curious now than manic or suicidal, Petunia trudged all the way to the middle of the lake, a healthy mile or so. Slam bang in the middle of Lake Elsinore, the water was merely upper-lip high - just shallow enough to render suicide by drowning entirely laughable. And thus Petunia began to laugh, a graceful giggle that caused her shoulders to shake, sending concentric ripples across the surface of the lake.

Petunia, Carraway, and the Voyeuristic Goose and Gander
     Petunia’s concentric ripples were soon met by Carraway, a square-jawed adventurer and collector of oddities sailing a handmade raft. Perched on the edge of the raft was a pair of geese—one a goose, the other a gander. The two waterfowl calmly enjoyed the raft ride as if cruising the water was a phenomenon not wholly irregular to them.
     Carraway and the geese glided past Petunia, seemingly without incident; however, the close observer would have recognized something about the eyes, Petunia’s and Carraway’s eyes, that is. Each pair clearly showed signs of recognition, understanding. Petunia understood that this man was the real reason that she had felt drawn to Elsinore’s depths, or rather shallows, for finally she had found a man worthy of the title of father.
Carraway’s understanding of this en passant was only slightly more concrete. He had in his possession an oil-painted portrait of a young beauty—masterfully drafted by an anonymous artist who had titled the painting “The Chimes.” In the painting, the woman wore a small necklace, a mother-of-pearl pendant, and not much else. Carraway secured the portrait in his youth from a Gitano gypsy, grudgingly trading away Stanley, his pet bullfrog. He was initially hesitant as he felt that he would be betraying some sort of moral code by trading an animal’s life. But there was something about the painting, something sublime and magnetic that tugged at Carraway’s insides. Whatever this sublime magnetism was, Carraway ultimately gave into its beckoning and swapped Stanley the bullfrog for the portrait. Fortunately, Carraway was either too naïve or too caught up in his own curiosity to detect that the malnourished gypsy was trading out of hunger as opposed to a desire for amphibious companionship. This was fortunate because, had Carraway not made the trade, he wouldn’t have fallen in love with the woman in the painting.
     And fall in love with her he did. He looked upon the painting often and fantasized about the woman wearing the mother-of-pearl. He became obsessed by the painting when amidst his travels he happened upon other artifacts emblazoned with the moniker of “The Chimes.” In fact, his sojourn to the middle of Lake Elsinore was for the purpose of locating another piece of this riddling collection. The sight of Petunia halted his pursuit of said artifact, though, as he recognized her as the mother-of-pearl wearing beauty from his painting.
     Yes, Carraway understood the situation and recognized Petunia. He directed his raft straight for her, and she emptied her fur coat of the stones and became as buoyant as ever, so much so that she rose out of the chin deep water and right onto the raft with a single step. Carraway offered his hand, and she took it. This action, this simple pleasantry, was confirmation enough for Petunia, for she had held the hands of many men, but not a one felt as curious and magnificent as this one. Petunia pulled that hand onto the small of her back, and there too it felt different. Feeling safe, she then directed his hand toward her hip and he obliged. Gingerly, tenderly, as if massaging a butterfly’s wings, Carraway caressed and explored the whole of Petunia’s flesh, taking as long as it took the setting sun to bow down to a navy sky. And when every star was glimmering, and when the raft had fortuitously glided into a private nook of pussy-willows, Carraway began to undress Petunia—the fur coat, the dress, the boots, and finally, the garters, stockings, and panties.
The smooth fluidity of the action was almost lost when Carraway momentarily fumbled a clasp on the garter, the result of a missing ring finger on his left hand, itself the result of a nasty sibling rivalry between Carraway and his younger brother, Cross. Cross and Nick Carraway took to blows one midsummer night, and Cross, stooping to fighting tactics some would declare dirty, opened wide, bit off Nick’s finger to the knuckle, and ingested it—a finger sandwich that was only one episode of many in a feud to rival Cain and Abel. Still, nine-and-one-half fingers proved to be plenty to disrobe Petunia who was apparently in such a state of ecstasy that she failed to notice the sexual faux pas. Having still not spoken a word to her, Carraway slipped out of his own clothes, and then he and Petunia slipped into each other.
Three minutes later—lying prone and breathless on the raft—Carraway explained to Petunia that he had been in love with her for several years, and he proved as much when he showed her the oil painting that he had rolled up amongst his belongings on the raft. He followed this revealing with a marriage proposal, and Petunia—without hesitation—accepted. This led to a celebratory bout of laughter, which in turn led to another bout of consummation
     Soon after, Carraway delivered Petunia to shore. He gave her two gifts: the first was a ring, not an engagement ring but a dowry that was to be given to Madame Madge in exchange for Petunia’s hand in marriage; the other was the oil painting, and Nick was quick to point out the mother-of-pearl pendant. He promised to claim her with the pendant when he returned to her at the bathhouse after he had made the necessary arrangements for the nuptials as well as arrangements to have his personal effects and collections brought to town.

Morning Sickness and a Mundane Marriage
Petunia did just as Nick instructed and gave the ring to Madam Madge who accepted the dowry.  This ring would actually be used to denote all future Madam Madges (the title of Madame Madge is one bestowed upon all madams of Madam Madge�s Bath House, much like the Dread Pirate Roberts). After the dowry was out of the way, Petunia waited. She managed to avoid her prostitutional duties as she couldn�t keep from vomiting for more than fifteen minutes at a time, an effect of the new tenant in her womb.
Soon Carraway did show, and as promised he claimed her with the pendant and they were married. Also as promised his trove of treasures arrived. Together they opened an antique shop called Juliette�s tomb (later to be renamed the Goose and Gander). Carraway proved to be a loyal husband and a devoted father to their son, Noah.
For all intents and purposes Petunia was content, but never did she feel as vibrant and as glowing as she did on the evening that she had met Carraway on the lake. Something was missing, something she couldn�t grasp. These thoughts crept up in her mind often, but she beat them back down easily, writing them off as the romantic fantasies indicative of a desperate whore. She was now an honest woman, and she believed that questioning the integrity of her husband�s love was not the proper manner of honest women.

The Petrified Man
Yet despite her beliefs, this internal struggle was a constant one that would not lay dormant�that is, not until several years later. Petunia, upon stopping in at Madam Madge�s Bath House for old time�s sake, struck up conversation with Ernesto Jalapeno and learned that Ernesto had stumbled upon a petrified man while hiking in the Sedco Hills. Intrigued, Petunia implored Ernesto to escort her and Noah to see this sight one day on their evening walk, because if there indeed was a petrified man, she thought it was something that she and her son should see. And so they went.
Sure enough, amidst a bundle of olive trees, and underneath a dead weeping willow was most definitely a man, and he was sitting on a rock, but it was no easy feat to disseminate where the rock ended and where the man began. As far as Petunia could tell, the man had died where he sat�perhaps heart attack, perhaps stroke, perhaps something natural, perhaps something sinister.
The likeness was virile, handsome, a man of honor, but still, because of the glossy petrification, it was difficult to discern for certain the identity of the man. The difficulty of this task decreased significantly, however, when Noah, just learning to count, took it upon himself to count the digits on the petrified man�s hands. Noah counted one thumb and four fingers on the right hand and one thumb and three fingers on the left hand for a grand total of nine fingers (Noah had not yet learned fractions and so ignored the half finger entirely). Uneasiness overtook Petunia, and this uneasiness was corroborated when she heard Noah address the petrified man as �poppa.� Could it be? Was this indeed the Carraway that she had fallen for, the enigmatic raft pilot who breezed across the lake but like most visitors to Lake Elsinore proved unable to cash in on the return ticket? If so, then who was her husband? And what to do? Dear god, what to do?

The Baby Guilty of Murder�in the Second Degree
Cross Carraway�s desire to scrub and to purge the earth of Nick Carraway, his very own twin brother, was a desire that had been imminent even during their shared tenure in the womb. Having become tired of sharing limited in uterine living quarters, Cross made a conscious decision to abort his sibling by using the umbilical cord as a hangman�s noose. Cross soon learned, however, that he was simply bad with knots and ropes, a malady not uncommon to arthritics, people with one arm, and young scouts that have not kept up to date on their dues, and he found that he had tangled himself. The physical exertion of this premeditated act of attempted murder put undue stress on Juliet (the none-the-wiser mother of this sibling rivalry), thereby thrusting her into a premature labor.
     Nick Carraway was the first to make the exodus through the birth canal. He came out easy enough, only minor complications ensuing from what seemed to be nothing more than a clumsy dismount. Cross, though, didn�t come so easily; it would be he who would make Hilda, the midwife, earn her money on that day. Cross�s fumbling manipulations of the umbilical cord had caused a pretty serious problem�a blunder that would prove to be fatal.
But not for him.
     Despite Hilda�s honest and fastidious attempts to ease Cross from the womb, it simply couldn�t be done. With ease, that is. Hilda�at the insistence of the laboring Juliet�resorted to violent force in order to ensure a successful delivery. And as it turned out, Hilda did succeed in delivering baby Cross. He came out of the womb like all babies, crying and mad as all hell, the only type of fury that seems to bring happiness and delight to the masses. Though it must be noted that this delight was at the cost of one too many of Juliet Carraway�s pints of blood. And this is how Cross Carraway came to be guilty of murder in the second degree.  

The Favoritism of Kuebert Carraway
Even though no man or woman could reasonably accuse a newborn babe of murder, Cross nonetheless endured nightmarish feelings of guilt, vicious pangs that governed his every subsequent action and emotion. This burden of blame and guilt was reinforced by the relationship between the Carraway twins and their widowed father, Kuebert.
Kuebert, despite being an ultimately benevolent man, could not help but to favor Nick over Cross and this in spite of what most would consider a solid devotion to a deterministic philosophy. This favoritism often led to hypothetical questions, little demon seeds of grief that crept up in Kuebert�s mind: What if a single baby had been conceived instead of twins? Would Juliet have lived through the labor then? Or what if Cross had died instead of Juliet? Would the pain somehow be less?
Try as he might to rid his imagination of such morbid curiosities, Kuebert remained in a perpetual state of wonder. And whether intentional or not, this contempt for Cross, however subtle, was palpable.  
The most evident form of this contempt was apparent in day-to-day father and son activities. Very simply, Kuebert took an interest with Nick that he did not take with Cross. This interest was in collection. Kuebert and Nick were collectors but not necessarily of any one particular thing. They collected anything and everything from the mundane to the perverse. The things they collected fed their fantasies and nourished their dreams. They speculated about the supernatural powers of whale bones, wondered how much blood had been spilled by an onyx arrowhead, and even guessed wildly at the political motivations of artwork for which there was clearly no political lean.
As there was no specific criteria for the things that Kuebert and Nick collected, one might assume that the only reason Cross would feel left out was because of a lack of interest. But this was not the case. Cross did indeed harbor a sense of awe for the trivial odds and ends of the world. In many respects, his awe was more intense because it was motivated by a desire to achieve his father�s approval. Cross laid a good many treasures at his father�s feet, but no matter how magnificent, no matter how objectively fascinating the item, Kuebert would merely shrug at his son�s findings.
Kuebert�s negations of Cross were instant and relentless yet matter-of-fact. This calm onslaught of denial was possible because Kuebert himself was almost entirely unaware of the negative energy that he dumped on Cross. This contempt occurred on a subconscious level for Kuebert, pressurized and deposited deep, deep, deep down in his gut, and it only surfaced a drop at a time in those moments that Cross came looking for approval.

*** This marks the end of Page 12 of 20.  If you want to see more, please let me know ***

Hey IBEJohnson, I will print this out and read this over the weekend. I will come back with a critique and my opinion of the salability of the story. (I'm at work right now and under a deadline)
Thanks for the post!

Okay, so I couldn't wait to read it. . .heh heh.
Man, that was a smooth and easy read. It is obvious that you (or your writing partner) is very comfortable with prose.

The story moved along very nicely and it appears you are going to set this as a 'quest' type series. The subtlety in which twists are brought to the surface moves easily through the mind like a soothing wind.  

One of the things that brought me out of the story was no reference for time. If it is set in an alternate fantasy universe (as I assume it is) then that is fine. However, it did leave me wondering where I was in time and place.

I think references to other movies (The Princess Bride) should be left out of fantasy prose. This world is developed enough to stand on its own.
I thoroughly enjoyed the title to each block of prose. It brought a sense of anticipation to the story.

Okay, enough of the kudos, you want to hear what's wrong with it. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to break it down. I had just wanted to give you my first impression and I will give you a critique on Monday.

Great story to start out!

Glad to hear your comments so far.  Definitely feel free to give me any criticism you might have.  Just keep in mind that the intent of this is no more than to act as a backdrop for us to springboard more ideas.  Our notes became so many that this was a good way to compile them, if you will, and make it all a bit more succinct.  Had you never created this thread, it's possible nobody, except for maybe our wives, might have ever seen the backstory. Ultimately, when it is incorporated into the script, it will come out in bits and pieces (more than likely) and the reader will have a much better understanding of time.  And of course, we have no intentions of carrying over The Princess Bride reference to script.  

Also, I'm the first to admit that the comfort with prose is all my writing partner's (Norm Leonard).  The ideas were completely mutual, as is the script.  But in this format, forget it... I probably write like a 3rd grader!