Short Stories by Aileen
Surrounded by books and writing implements. Where the magic happens.
Aileen has published several fictional stories for children and young adults.
Published
Short Stories
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Published in Vol. 1, Issue 1 - True Love Never Dies - February 2022 of The Quiet Ones, available online at www.wearethequietones.com
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Published in Vol. 1 (Winter 2022-23) of Temperance Alley Garden Zine
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A Peek at Aileen’s Process...
“When I am creating characters I ask a lot of questions and try to have lots of conversations (writing out dialogues) between the character and myself, or between the main character and a secondary character.
In my favorite exercise from Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style, I retell a critical scene or scenes from my work-in-progress from a range of points-of-view and styles. Doing that has often led to deep insights and discoveries about my character’s desire.
Finally, I learned from author Kekla Magoon to observe how my characters react with the environment I place them in–paying attention to what they notice and why, and how they feel about it. Of course nothing is static. Character desires change. And they are often contradictory.
Bottom line–I try to land at what’s true.
I try to get at the hidden reason driving character behavior, what is really at stake. And when my gut says “yes,” I’m there.”
