The Emancipation of Shadows

In my last post, I shared a short story I was particularly happy with, called “Shadows.”

I also explained in a previous post that this story had originally been very different. The first time I considered the concept of people losing their shadows, my imagination had taken me in a very different direction.

That original story, that I discarded because I wasn’t happy with it at the time, is available at the link below.

I thought it might be interesting to see how the same initial concept and basic building blocks can be taken in a completely different direction. The story, although it clearly exists in the same world as its twin, is nothing like it.

Rather than explain how, I’ll let you read the story, and comment below on which you prefer, and why, and what the stories mean to you.

The Making of “Shadows” – From Story Prompt to Finished Product

Back at the beginning of lockdown – that’s over a year ago now – I went to the countryside for a few months with my family, accompanied by a writing prompt I’d come up with.

This prompt had been kicking around in my head for a while now. I had an idea of how to tackle it.

The Emancipation of Shadows

Story prompt

One afternoon, I isolated myself in a room and ploughed through the first couple of thousand words of what I thought was a pretty good idea.

Then I struggled with it for 24 hours.

Then I threw it away and started again.

What went wrong?

This is the story of a story, that took far too long , and took far too much effort to write, but which turned out fairly well in the end. I guess that’s what they’re all like in the rear-view.

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