Rami Ungar The Writer

This doesn’t happen in the short story, but it gets the idea across.

Today–and especially this evening–was like a writing whirlwind. I sat in front of my computer, at times struggling to finish this short story. But as I kept working and as the story got further along, I started writing faster and faster, not caring about word counts or anything around me. I had classical and opera music in my ears and I was putting words onto the page like there was no tomorrow. And about fifteen minutes ago, at around 11:35 PM, I stopped and looked at the manuscript I’d written.

I’d finished Buried Alive, a short story about a teenage girl who is buried alive in the backyard with her mother and sister by her abusive stepfather. I stood back and I felt a sense of satisfaction.

At 5,550 words, this is definitely one of the toughest short stories I’ve ever written. For one thing, it was in the first person, which is definitely not one of my best tenses to use (even writing in second person for Addict was easier). And it’s not easy to imagine oneself in a coffin, let alone in a coffin with two other people. People are good about not thinking about unpleasant things, even horror writers, so it was tough to get into the mind of a girl in that situation.

But eventually I managed to figure it out and I just started writing. And as the story went on and things got more desperate for the character, I made things creepier and stranger. I think I ventured into a sort of zombie fiction near the end, but I really don’t think you could call this a zombie story. It certainly got interesting, and I’m very proud of this story. I actually think it’s one of my best short stories, and I’m not going to let a high word count get in the way of me finding a home for it.

So tomorrow I’ll see if a certain friend of mine who has read plenty of my short stories wouldn’t mind taking a look at this one. I think he’ll like it, especially since I don’t really explain some of the weirder and scarier aspects of the story. But then again, one thing I learned from The Amityville Horror, you don’t always need to explain the source of the creepiness to make it super-creepy.

If this short story goes anywhere, I’ll let you guys know. Wish me luck.