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The Last Eight Short Stories

Posted: February 11, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Novel, short story, Writing
Tags: college life, editing, entertainment, horror, ideas, Laura Horn, living and life, novel, progress report, proper decisions, publishing, scary stuff, short story, social media, writing

After finishing “A Haunted Man” two nights ago, I’ve decided that, although I’ve got so many short stories I’d like to work on, I need to narrow it down to a few choices so I can return to my WIP Laura Horn. Yeah, I know I can just get through all the short stories I want to get through before I get back to the WIP, but I don’t like to leave a novel unfinished like that, and I would prefer having several short stories unwritten than have a novel languishing unfinished on my flash drive.

Besides, as I recall most of the chapters of LH were pretty easy to get through, so I don’t see it taking too much time to finish up. Then during the summer after I get back from my study-abroad trip, I can spend the whole summer editing my other novels and working on short stories. Besides, I’ll most likely be working on a novel for my senior thesis in the fall, so it’ll work out in the end. At least, I think it will.

So I’ve narrowed the number of short stories I’m going to work on to about eight, and I’m going to try to get through as many of them as possible before mid-March, when I plan to start working on LH again. I picked the short stories based on a couple of factors, namely that I thought the ideas behind them were exciting, that I knew where I wanted to go with the story in terms of plot, and that I think they could be published in magazines, especially ones that pay for their published work (I know that sounds crazy, but it helps pay the rent, so I’m trying to get into more magazines that pay for their work). Oh, and one of the short stories will be submitted as a homework assignment to one of my classes, so I could get a very good grade on it.

So that’s my plan for the next four weeks or so. I hope to at least get two to five of these short stories written. Among the eighty-odd ideas for short stories I have written down, these are among some of the best, so I think I’ll enjoy writing them. When each of them is done, I’ll write a post and let people know how they’re doing.

I’m also going to try to come up with an idea for an article. A friend of mine runs a magazine, and I want to write an article for it. Just the question of the subject that’s getting to me. We’ll see what I can come up with.

Oh, and one last thing: I’m thinking of posting a few stories on WattPad all at once. Would you be interested in reading anything of mine if I published it on WattPad, even if it wasn’t strictly horror?

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to prepare myself mentally for writing later this evening. Wish me luck.

A Haunted Man: Finished

Posted: February 9, 2014 in ideas, Progress Report, short story, Writing
Tags: editing, entertainment, horror, ideas, Laura Horn, living and life, novel, publishing, scary stuff, short story, writing

I just finished a short story. This one, called “A Haunted Man”, is about a family that moves into a haunted house. Sound familiar? Well, I tried to put a twist on it by focusing on the father of the family, who’s one of those characters who thinks because he’s a man’s man that he knows it all and that the ghostly going-ons around the house are the result of his wife being a silly woman and his kids having overactive imaginations. Those characters appear in a lot of scary stories, and they always get themselves into trouble. Especially when they finally realize that there’s a ghost in the house and they try to handle it themselves because that’s what men do, instead of doing the smart thing and getting someone with experience with ghosts to come by and get rid of the ghosts.

I basically took that character, that I’m-a-man-who-does-what-men-do character and decided to make him the subject of a short story about a haunted house. It was a difficult story to write, though. I had to go back at one point and rewrite the whole story because the way I was writing it didn’t make sense to me (for more on that, read my post I Shouldn’t Use Present Tense). And even after I started the rewrite, it was difficult going. I think that means I’m going to have to do a lot of editing on this short story. Or that I should instead adapt it into a low-budget horror film because it would work very well in that format. Hmm…if I did that, I wonder how I would get it done? And who would help me?

Well, that’s beside the point for the moment. I’m glad to have gotten the short story done and I think I did an okay job portraying the main character as I wanted him to be portrayed. I’ll see what I can do with it and maybe decide from there if I should try to publish it, or maybe adapt it into a horror film or some other third option.

For now though, I’m going to start thinking about what’s next on my agenda. I told a friend I’d write an article for a magazine that he runs, so I’m going to get that done. After that I think I’ll write down which short stories I’m going to work on next. I want to work on so many more, but I really have to get back to my WIP Laura Horn, so I’m going to limit the number to somewhere around five or six short stories and cap it off there. Maybe when LH is done, I’ll write the rest of the short stories I wanted to get done. We’ll see.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to take a break and relax after an afternoon full of writing. See you in the morning, Followers of Fear.

The Quiet Game: Six Month Anniversary

Posted: January 29, 2014 in Living and Life, Review, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
Tags: authors, entertainment, horror, living and life, progress report, publishing, Reborn City, review, scary stuff, short story, The Quiet Game, writing

I kind of let this pass by without really realizing it, but now that it’s on my mind, I’d like to commemorate that six months (and twelve days) ago my first book, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, was first released for paperback and e-reader.

Since that July day, a lot has happened, but especially with this book. A small collection of original short stories I’d written over Winter Break 2012 and Spring Semester 2013, the book has sold about a little over fifty copies (which for the first book of a self-published author is not that bad). It’s also received eight reviews from readers, which has brought the book’s average to a 4.4 out of 5 (which for the first book of a self-published author is pretty mind-blowing for me). Here are what some of the reviewers have been saying:

“5 wonderfully crafted tales! I purchased this as an eBook originally and put off reading it for quite a while, I really wish I hadn’t waited. Sometimes when one purchases a collection of short stories you expect some of them to be less entertaining or of lower quality than the others, but none of these disappoint. Well worth the money, especially considering after you read each story the author gives you creative insight into what inspired him to write each tale, which is really wonderful.”

Jeff D.

“I happened across The author Rami Unger about a year ago when he was researching the paranormal online.

He nailed the Dybbuk story. Write more… soon!”

Jason Haxton, author of The Dybbuk Box

“I liked that each story was unusual. I think that the book was appropriately named. I prefer chilled bones rather than scared out of my whits since I am a bit of a chicken”

Enji

I’d just like to say that it’s been wonderful hearing from people what they think of The Quiet Game and finding out that they enjoyed the book and want to read more. It’s the readers themselves that have made all of this possible for me, so I really owe everyone reading my work a great debt that can never be repaid. So thank you very much and I hope we’ll be able to have great times together in the future.

If you are interested in reading The Quiet Game, you can find it on Amazon and on Smashwords. The print version is available for a little over five dollars, while the e-book version is available for about a dollar-thirty. And if you do decide to read The Quiet Game, please let me know what you think of it. Good or bad, I’m always happy for reviews and feedback.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to have more good news at the one-year anniversary. And speaking of anniversaries, Saturday will make three months since Reborn City came out. I’ll have to do a post about that as well. Look forward to it!

I Shouldn’t Use Present Tense

Posted: January 26, 2014 in short story, Writing
Tags: editing, entertainment, horror, living and life, scary stuff, science fiction, short story, The Quiet Game, writing

I started a short story the other night about a family that moves into a haunted house (yes, that’s been done before a hundred times, but I’m trying to do something new with it. Hopefully I’ll succeed). For some reason I started writing it in present tense, something I rarely ever do. Most stories, especially the ones I’ve read and the ones I usually write, are in past tense. I think I was trying to make the story unique by writing it in present tense, or maybe it sounded good at first to write it in the present tense.

But as this short story’s been coming along, I’m finding it harder to continue going, and I think the tense of the story is a major contributor to that problem. The only story I’ve ever written that’s been in present tense and that I’ve barely had any trouble with is Addict, one of the short stories I included in The Quiet Game, but that was also in second-person, and that kind of made it easier to write. Heck, it was practically begging to be written in present tense as well in second person (“You walk out of the bathroom and you rejoin your buddy. He asks you a question and for a moment you’re not sure what he said”. See what I mean?). But this is third-person, and I think unless you’ve had a lot of training in writing in present tense or you prefer that tense, then it’s just not the sort of tense you write in.

Okay, the TARDIS doesn’t have much to do with tenses, but it does with past, present and future.

Well, I’ve certainly learned my lesson. I can’t write this story in present tense and I’m definitely not going to attempt to attempt future tense (never seen an entire story of any length written that way). So tomorrow (or the next day, depending on the amount of homework I have), I’m going to through the short story and switch it to past tense. Then I’ll go through it again, adding, editing, and deleting where I see appropriate. Luckily I’m only about seven pages into this short story, so I can probably get both tasks done fairly quickly.

For now though, I’m going to go to bed. I’ll let my mind swirl this short story in my head overnight and see if I can come up with any other ideas to improve this short story. I think it could be great, but since I’m trying to do something new with a familiar trope, I really have to work hard to make the story believable and enjoyable to the audience. Hopefully I can do that.

That’s all for now. I’ll post again when I’m done with the short story, or when I have something else to post about (whichever comes first). Goodnight, Followers of Fear.

Ohm: Finished

Posted: January 20, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Progress Report, short story, Writing
Tags: college life, editing, entertainment, ideas, living and life, Ohio State University, progress report, science fiction, short story, writing

In Judaism, that hand is called a Hamsa. It’s designed to keep the evil eye away. I have no idea what it’s doing on this poster though.

Last week or so I posted about an interesting discussion I had in my meditation class about hypnosis vs. meditation (see post here). At one point during that conversation, I said that although hypnosis could be abused, meditation could just as easily be abused by someone of unscrupulous character. I then gave an example to my group, which was immediately followed by this realization: “Hey, that could make a great short story.” I told that to my meditation group, which caused them to laugh while also looking at each other in fear. It was a “What have we done?” moment right there.

Well, I started the short story Saturday evening before SNL started, and I’ve worked on it every evening since. And this evening I finished it. Then I went back and added a few more details to earlier parts of the story in order to make it flow more smoothly. Then I clicked Save and decided to write this blog post.

As you can see from the title of this post, the short story is called “Ohm.” I wanted a title that would go very well with a story of someone using meditation for bad purposes, and I went with “Ohm”, because it was simple, the word itself was relevant to the story, and it gave people an immediate sense of what this story might be about. It’s on the short end of short stories, a little under 2100 words, and it’s more literary than horror, if you look at it closely. Still, I think it’s an interesting story, even if there are no demons or serial killers, and I even managed to use a new technique in order to tell it:

Last semester, I read a short story for my science-fiction literature class called “Gene hackers”. The story was about a man who was quite famous in the near-distant future for his role in the industry of genetic engineering and manipulation, and chronicled various events throughout his life in short little vignettes, starting from when he was young and all the way up until he was a very old man. I was really impressed by the style used to tell the story, and I wanted to try that for myself with “Ohm”. I think it turned out pretty well, personally.

I’m going to ask my meditation group if any of them want to read the rough draft. After they get back to me, I’m going to try to submit this story to a creative writing contest here on campus, see if I can impress any judges. Hopefully my meditation group and the people running the contest will like “Ohm”. At any rate, I think they might find it at least a bit interesting.

Well, that’s all for now, Followers of Fear. I’ve got classes tomorrow, so I’ll sign off and see you in the morning. Goodnight and pleasant nightmares. I’ll let you know if anything comes of “Ohm”.

Oh, and before I forget, I bought my plane tickets for my study abroad trip today. They cost me an arm and a leg, but it was well worth it. I’m so looking forward to this trip. It’s going to be so much fun!

Buried Alive: Published on WattPad

Posted: January 15, 2014 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
Tags: authors, blogging, college life, editing, entertainment, horror, living and life, Ohio State University, progress report, publishing, scary stuff, self-pub authors, short story, social media, writing

A while back I wrote a short story I titled Buried Alive, about a girl and her mother and younger sister who are buried in a coffin in the backyard by the girl’s abusive stepdad and what happens to them while inside the coffin. It was a very dark and surreal story and I enjoyed writing it.

Since I wanted to publish something original and previously unpublished on WattPad before I write an article on the website for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors and leave the subject of the website alone for a while, I thought I’d give Buried Alive the publishing treatment. I even gave a creepy little cover when I published it. Look below.

Creepy, right?

If you’d be interested in reading Buried Alive, please follow the link. And if you like it, hate it, whatever, please let me know in a comment, either here on this blog or on WattPad. I’m always happy for freedback from the people who read my work. Even if they think something I wrote totally sucks and they never want to read anything by me ever again.

Oh, and some updates for everyone: besides that article I mentioned above, I also plan to write a short story, hopefully over this weekend, and I plan to submit it to a writing contest through Ohio State’s English Department. Hopefully it’ll get selected. Also, I’ve sent The Loneliest Roads for critiquing to a friend. Actually, I sent the original version and a second version with an alternate ending, but who’s keeping track? Anyway, my friend will hopefully tell me which version she prefers and give me some advice before I send it out to see if I can get it published. We’ll see what happens.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m off to get ready for bed. Goodnight, Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares!

My First Short Story of 2014

Posted: January 13, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
Tags: authors, blogging, college life, editing, entertainment, horror, ideas, progress report, publishing, self-pub authors, short story, social media, Video Rage, writing

A model of the limo I used in the story, except it had cow horns mounted on the front and flames painted on the side.

I just finished my first short story of the new year. And for plenty of reasons, it reminds me of a Stephen King story. I’m hoping that an editor will think the same thing if they read it.

The short story is called The Loneliest Roads and it’s about a hitchhiking young woman who gets picked up by a stretch limo (hence the photo). Once she gets inside, she finds herself in for a whole new world of terror. And it’s a different short story than anything I’ve ever written before. Firstly, it’s after I finished the first draft of Video Rage, which I’ve mentioned in previous posts as being a time where I really grew as a writer. I also utilized new techniques I picked up during the past semester. One was to try to ramp up the terror gradually rather than have my protagonist be immediately confronted with pure evil. I started by trying to make things seem only a little unreal at the beginning, and then making that feeling of unreality grow slightly as the story went on, until it was time to make the terror more than just subtle.

I also tried to delve into the psychological factor of my protagonist, whose name is Miracle Jones (yes, I seriously named my character Miracle Jones). I wanted to make her more than just a flat character, and I did that by delving into her past, focusing on her psychology. I thought the way I revealed her character was actually kind of creepy. Then again, I tend to think everything I write is creepy. Whether it is or not depends on your opinion.

Anyway, I’ve a pretty good idea of what I’m going to do with this short story. I’d like to get around to editing it in a few weeks or so, and maybe sending it off to a friend for a critique. I have a second ending for the story that takes a less positive turn than the one I wrote out tonight, so if I or my friend feels that the ending could be different, I’ll go with my second ending. And after all the editing has been done, I hope to submit The Loneliest Roads to a few magazines, see if any pick it up. I would be very happy if they did. And if they don’t…who knows? It could go into a future collection of short stories or on Wattpad, or both. Future’s open.

For now though, I think I’ll try to catch some sleep. Tomorrow if I can I’ll start on an article for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, and after that I’ll start on another short story. It’s going to be very exciting this semester for me. Goodnight, Followers of Fear.

100 Ideas!!!

Posted: January 6, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Reflections, short story, Writing
Tags: college life, editing, entertainment, films, horror, ideas, Laura Horn, living and life, novel, online magazine, progress report, proper decisions, publishing, Reborn City, reflections, scary stuff, science fiction, short story, social media, writing

I’ve mentioned this before on my blog, but I keep a list of ideas for novels/comic books/films/TV shows/etc. on my flash drive. And over the past semester, that list grew pretty damn lengthy. In fact, I had more ideas than I did in any other semester. And tonight, I got my one-hundredth idea for the list! And having just typed that, I wonder how I will ever find the time to write all of those stories. I probably won’t, but it’ll be fun to try.

Anyway, the idea for number one-hundred came to me quite by accident (apparently that’s how all the best ideas come). I’ve previously announced that before I get back to working on Laura Horn, I wanted to do some short stories. And before I decided to do those short stories, I decided to take one last look at one short story, maybe see if I could spruce it up a little and possibly publish it on WattPad (I’ve published one or two things on there since I got an account on that website. More on that to follow in a future post). The story in question, Resurrection, is about a man who is brought back to life through advances in science, but something goes terribly wrong and his resurrection isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. That story has gone through several different drafts and incarnations, and I thought I’d give the latest incarnation a look over to see if I could make it better. When I looked over it though, something occurred to me midway through the short story. There’s this one scene when my main character encounters a religious leader who is more than a little upset about this resurrection. I was going to have my protagonist call him an old fart, but with the years he’s been dead, the protagonist is over ninety years old. He should be calling the preacher a stupid kid.

And that’s when it hit me. A short story was too short to tell this story. It had to be expanded, to go into a novella or even a full novel! Resurrection had to be resurrected in a new form.

God, that was a bad play on words.

But that’s beside the point. Here is the point: the last time I trotted out Resurrection and sent it to a friend, he told me that it was an interesting concept and that it could be expanded into a novel or into a film. Oh, that sounded nice. The thing is, I couldn’t figure out how to expand it into a novel, and I didn’t have the time to write a screenplay. And even if I did have the time, I wouldn’t know how to go about getting a screenplay sold (though I might try in the future, when I have the time). But at that single thought on how the main character should think about the preacher, I had an idea on how to expand the story into a novel. I stopped looking through the short story, went to my Ideas list, and recorded Idea #100.

My idea is alive! ALIVE!

I don’t know when I’ll be able to write the novel version of Resurrection, mostly because I have a few other projects that take priorities that take place before it. However, I’m sure it won’t be too long before I get around to it. I like the idea, and I don’t want to be working on this story on and off for several years. I don’t want to do that at all. I really want to write this story eventually and do it sooner rather than later. For now though working on it just won’t be possible, so instead I’ll just leave a few hints as to what we can expect from this future novel:

–some of the themes will include aging, adjusting to a changed and changing world, and death and dying.

–the technology aspect will make Reborn City jealous (then again, the point of RC was never the technology, but whatever).

–the resurrection, though scientific in nature, won’t be plagued by problems of the scientific realm.

–and finally, I may release each finished chapter of this novel, once the book has been heavily edited, on WattPad or on my blog. One of them.

I also hope someday to get to many of the ideas I’ve written on that list. A lot of them I feel are really great ideas, and I would love to write and share them with the world. So the hope is that I can get a good number of them written over the coming years, and that as each novel (or in the future, if God is willing, each film or manga or TV series) is released, there will be someone willing to check it out and read it, maybe even a lot of someones. I think that’s why I keep writing, even if I haven’t exactly been super-successful yet. It’s because I know that each story could potentially make someone happy, and I’m still writing fot hose people. Hopefully we’ll find each other someday and they’ll enjoy what I’ve written for them.

That’s all for now. I’m going to take a break and then get started on an original short story. I’ve got close to seventy ideas for short stories as well, so I need to get some of them out of the way. Good night, Followers of Fear.

Daisy: Amazon Reviews

Posted: December 29, 2013 in Review, short story, Writing
Tags: authors, editing, entertainment, horror, living and life, publishing, Reborn City, review, scary stuff, short story, The Quiet Game, writing

Some of you know about my short story available for ebook, entitled Daisy. I published it well before I ever published The Quiet Game or Reborn City as an experiment to see what would happen if I published something on Amazon and on Smashwords. Even I admit, I didn’t think it was one of my best works. I wrote it back high school after having a very vivid and disturbing dream, and was determined to see it published one way or another. Why would I do that if I know it’s not one of my best? Maybe because that dream was pure gold for coming up with a creepy story, maybe because I wanted the dream to be a prophecy of things to come. Who knows? All I know is I published it and sold about 219 copies, most of them through Smashwords because it’s free-of-charge there.

Well, since it’s publication it’s got a couple of reviews, most of them through Amazon, and to my surprise most of them are good. I’ve posted already about the one review that I got through Smashwords, so I’d like to dedicate this post to the ones through Amazon. The oldest review, entitled daisy-short story, is three stars and written by Richard Warren, who is my grandfather and is not afraid to criticize my work if he feels it’s inadequate. Here’s what he had to say:

Interesting, but could be better. Holds the reader, I would like the story to be longer & a bit more in depth

I think when I wrote this, it was in the days where I was afraid to write short stories over five-thousand words because I was afraid that they’d be rejected for length regardless of the quality of the story. That might explain why it’s not very lengthy or in-depth, Grandpa. Still, I appreciate the feedback. The next review comes from Lorna Dounaeva, another independent author and blogger here on WordPress. Giving Daisy a whopping five stars and entitling her review Scary short story with some great touches of realism, here’s what she had to say:

When a young girl, Marie is abducted by a stranger, she knows she has to figure out a way to escape. She manages to get out of the room where she is being held, but the man, who calls her ‘Daisy’, thinking she is his lost love, has boarded up all exits. Marie is left with a terrible dilemma – should she make a run for it, or hide in the building and wait it out? How long will she have to wait before the man lets his guard down and she gets her chance to escape, and how will she survive in the mean time?

Sounds like the blurb for a movie, Lorna. Thank you for your review. And most recently, we have my cousin A. Frankel, who just gave Daisy a five star review (which makes me wonder if she’s just being nice or if she really feels the way she feels about it). Entitling her review Very creepy, this is what she had to say:

This book is scary! Don’t read it late at night or you’ll be up all night! It was a good book–very well written

I like the idea of being able to keep someone up all night just by my scary writing. And I’m glad you think it’s well-written. I really appreciate it, A. Frankel.

But like I was saying earlier, I didn’t think much of this short story even though I decided to publish it. So when people actually take the time to read it and post a positive review, I not only feel grateful, but I also feel slightly bemused that people think so highly of it. I guess it’s true what they say: every author is the worst judge of their own work. But really, thanks to all the people who’ve post reviews of Daisy on Amazon. It means a lot to me and I always appreciate your feedback.

If you would like to read Daisy, it’s available from Amazon for ninety-nine cents and from Smashwords for no charge. If you like it or hate it, please make sure to post a review on either website and let me know. I always appreciate feedback, as this post has shown. Have a lovely day, everybody.

The Quiet Game: Review No. 8

Posted: December 22, 2013 in Review, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
Tags: entertainment, horror, Ohio State University, publishing, Reborn City, review, scary stuff, short story, The Quiet Game, writing

Another review has come in at Amazon for my collection of short stories, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. This one comes from Jeff D., who is a fellow Ohio State student, a coworker, and a friend of mine. He finally got around to reading The Quiet Game, and he wrote a review on Amazon tonight, which he gave five stars (Thank you Jeff D., if you’re reading this!). The review, which he titled 5/5, read as such:

5 wonderfully crafted tales! I purchased this as an eBook originally and put off reading it for quite a while, I really wish I hadn’t waited. Sometimes when one purchases a collection of short stories you expect some of them to be less entertaining or of lower quality than the others, but none of these disappoint. Well worth the money, especially considering after you read each story the author gives you creative insight into what inspired him to write each tale, which is really wonderful.

Jeff D., this is probably one of the best reviews I’ve ever received! I’m glad you think they’re all extraordinary stories. And best yet, Jeff D. says he’s going to buy a print copy of Reborn City when his next paycheck comes in. Oh, I can’t wait to sign that copy!

If you’re interested in checking out The Quiet Game, it’s available on Amazon and on Smashwords in both print paperback and e-book formats. And whatever you think, please let me know by leaving a review. Good reviews, bad reviews, I don’t care. I love getting feedback from readers. And if you like The Quiet Game, check out Reborn City, also available from Amazon and Smashwords.

Rami Ungar The Writer

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