Which Story Should I Write?
I’m writing these stories, but I only want to write one (along with The Faerie Queen), and I can’t decide which.
The first is called The Creatures in the Mansion (better title needed). It’s a detective story. The two detectives, Samantha (Sam) and James are called to investigate the 14-year-old murder case of two teenagers and a mother, that disappeared in a mansion one day. Only the mother’s body was ever found. The mystery just becomes more complicated, as James and Sam must try to decipher the secret of the Creatures in the Manion…
Here’s an extract:
Sam cast about, looking for something, anything substantial. How could she and James solve a murder if there was no body? The hallway was dark, and smelled damp and old. She looked up and saw a rope tied into a noose hanging from the ceiling. She shuddered. Her flashlight lit up a small area of the room. She cast about, and the light revealed a red patch staining the oak floorboards. Kneeling down, Sam realised it was blood. She jumped up, opening her mouth to tell James, who was also looking around. Instead of speaking though, she screamed.
With a cry, Sam suddenly tripped on the uneven floorboards.
“Sam!” cried James, reaching out, but not in time. She fell- through the wall. It just gave away, and she was left sitting dazed on the floor in a different room. Disoriented, she looked around, and spotted some broken pottery and scraps of fabric in a corner. There was more blood in this room; staining the floor, splashing the walls, spattering the ceiling.
“James! Come look at this!” she called, getting up and rubbing her head where she’d hit it. He walked in after her, and stared in awe. Evidence of a violent, brutal crime was everywhere. Meanwhile, Sam walked over to investigate the pottery and fabric. Her eyes widened.
It wasn’t just discarded, torn fabric.
They were clothes. Clothes that had been ripped, torn to pieces and stained with the same blood that decorated the room.
And that wasn’t pottery, either.
They were fragments of bone.
The second is called Sally (again, might need a better title). It’s about a 16-year-old maidservant living in Victorian times. As a baby, her mother handed her to a stranger in the middle of the night. Sally doesn’t even know who her parents were. But as Alistair, the man who took her from her mother, reveals more about her mother, Sally goes on a quest to find her with Frederick, Alistair’s son. But if Sally discovers her past, will she wish it just remained secret?
Here is an extract:
Alistair knocked on the door of the grubby, run-down house. The same woman that had been there last week answered. She looked worse; thinner, and paler. The circles under her eyes were bigger, and darker. But her dull brown eyes filled with a small kind of hope when she saw him.
“Thank God you came. A lot of people wouldn’t. One moment.” She thanked him, and disappeared inside the house. She came back carrying the blonde baby, and a leather bag. The child was sound asleep, and even the way her mother’s hands shook as she held her daughter didn’t wake the baby.
“Here.” Gasped the young woman, pressing the baby into Alistair’s arms. He could se her strength was failing. “Her name is Sally. Please take care of her. In the bag are some gifts, from her to me, and her birth certificate.” She explained, handing Alistair the bag. “Please, make sure my daughter doesn’t fall into an orphanage or workhouse. Take care of her, like she was your own. My Sally.” The girl pleaded. Her face split into a smile, and she gazed fondly at the sleeping child.
“You’re ill.” Stated Alistair. “Let me help you. You’ll die.” He offered. The girl shook her head.
“No. I just wanted Sally to be safe. I’d rather die than go back.” She explained, and with a last, loving look at Sally, she closed the door. Alistair looked at the child, troubled; he could only just support his own family, let alone Sally too. But he would care for her, for the sole reason that abandoning her would be disrespectful to the dead, as her mother would surely soon be.
So, which story should I write?
