TatTle – #10
The (very) occasional newsletter from Tall and Tiny Tales
G’day!
When I started Tall and Tiny Tales waaay back in February 2022, I thought I might send out one of these newsletters each month.
As Substack has evolved, become busier and more social-media-y, there has seemed less and less reason to do this. Also I get the impression that my readers would prefer just to receive the weekly stories. I can relate to that.
The frequency of TatTle (Tall and tiny Tales letter) has thus decreased from monthly to occasional to less frequent than a partial solar eclipse. The last was back in June 2023. Many of you will never have received one.
As we’re nearly at the end of Tuesday’s Tale The Plot and about two-thirds of the way through Black Spur, the current Friday Novella, this seemed an auspicious occasion for such a rare event. Welcome to TatTle #10.
The Plot
I wanted to write a cosy mystery / whodunnit with an ensemble cast and multiple perspectives (all ostensibly third person, but limited to one character’s point of view at a time, two per episode), set in a Melbourne community garden – and The Plot is the result.
It was good mental exercise, juggling all the characters, subplots, clues and critical points in the timeline. Like most of my stories on Tall and Tiny Tales, what you see here is a first draft. I’m telling myself the story as I’m telling it to you. Generally, as in this case, I know the destination but have no idea how I’m going to get there – often until I sit down to write the week’s episode.
I’ve particularly enjoyed doing the artwork for this story. It’s an aspect of online publishing which print fiction rarely offers, particularly to the amateur artist. Another is the podcast: forcing my rather mumbly, indistinct voice to enunciate clearly is a fun challenge, if at times frustrating. I have a lot of false starts and cursing to edit out.
Blind Spot
I’m a migraine sufferer, and saw its often debilitating effect on both my paternal grandmother and my father. I wanted to weave that experience of sudden helplessness into a creepy story, along with the fabulously melancholy and windswept open country of Victoria’s Lakes and Craters region. What if there’s something – a malign intelligence – lurking in that area of non-vision, that patch you just can’t see?
The result is Blind Spot, the new Tuesday Tale to replace The Plot. I hope you’ll enjoy it. I also hope I’m not going to scare myself silly.
Black Spur
This story is set to run to 50k+ words, which takes it over the line from novella into short novel territory. It’s my first work of historical fiction, the story of two immigrants in the wild times of the Victorian Gold Rush.
Ferdi is a gentle Bavarian luthier, a magnet for rogues and scoundrels. Daniella is a gold prospector, fierce daughter of a Cree mother and an Irish father, on the run from her vengeful husband, whom she left pinned to the marital bed with his own knife.
Researching the story has been hugely enjoyable, not least because the protagonists are based loosely on two of my own ancestors. The beautiful locations across the Victorian Alps are another bonus. I’m trying to visit as many of them as I can: an authentic sense of place is important to my writing.
A subscription to the Friday Novella gives you immediate access to four complete novellas (Cast Ashore, Stingaree Bay, Jacky Winter and Seed) as well as weekly instalments of Black Spur. All for five US dollars a month.
Heartfelt thanks to my paying subscribers, several of whom have been on board since the launch of the Friday Novella in July 2022.
Stories in other formats
Head over to my website coriobay.blog for more free reads and listens:
📚 e-Books
Free downloadable e-books for several of my Tall and Tiny Tales in pdf and epub formats.
🎧 Podcasts
My website has a podcast page. You’ll find a bonus recording of the short story Lethe there and links to my Spotify podcast – readings of my stories by my wife Susan and me.
That’s all, folks!
Steve Fendt (stevefendt@substack.com)
Tall and Tiny Tales: stevefendt.substack.com
Author website: coriobay.blog