"The Bridge of Lok-Altor" in SQ Magazine
One last short story publication to round out 2013. "The Bridge of Lok-Altor" is quite an older story, one I initially wrote almost a decade ago. In fact, I believe it was around the same time that I wrote "Scolyard's 'The Constructs Foresee Their Doom,'" which was published this past summer and has an entirely different aesthetic.
When I was an undergrad, a local publisher came to a writing class I was taking, and one of the things she said stuck with me. She said that every story begins with a stranger--either the stranger is our main character or the stranger comes to disrupt things where our character is. That stranger need not be human--it could just as well be an idea or a technology or whatever, but it's always the stranger that begins things.
So I remember that being at the front of my mind when I started writing this (several years later). Where would a stranger be the last thing you'd expect? This island that has deliberately removed itself from the world was what came of that question, and the story came from that, very traditional fantasy feel in some ways with glimmers and hints of deeper oddness.
When I was an undergrad, a local publisher came to a writing class I was taking, and one of the things she said stuck with me. She said that every story begins with a stranger--either the stranger is our main character or the stranger comes to disrupt things where our character is. That stranger need not be human--it could just as well be an idea or a technology or whatever, but it's always the stranger that begins things.
So I remember that being at the front of my mind when I started writing this (several years later). Where would a stranger be the last thing you'd expect? This island that has deliberately removed itself from the world was what came of that question, and the story came from that, very traditional fantasy feel in some ways with glimmers and hints of deeper oddness.
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