Shadows, Spies, and Satire
These stories are presented as incomplete works, offering the setup and the conflict but withholding the resolution. They are like scenes cut from a film, rich in detail but isolated from the full timeline. This format challenges the reader to analyze the available information and construct a plausible ending based on the tone and character dynamics.
This project functions as an experimental program at the intersection of human creativity, interdisciplinary arts, and applied artificial intelligence research. It explores the potential of digital tools to act as a partner in the writing process. By experimenting with these technologies, we are finding new forms of storytelling and scriptwriting that also serve to enhance digital literacy skills.
Contrasting genres define this post, which moves from Romance and Dark Comedy to the grit of Hardboiled and Espionage fiction. The stories are authored by Eva Suluk and Jamie F. Bell. This mix creates a dynamic reading experience where humor and danger often occupy the same space.
Dive into these unfinished tales and accept the invitation to complete them in your mind. The final chapter is yours to write, allowing you to decide who survives, who falls in love, and who gets away with the crime.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
This entry combines the suspense of espionage and urban mystery with the emotional depth of romance and dark comedy. By focusing on hardboiled aesthetics and psychological thrillers, our project seeks to push the boundaries of creative technology in modern publishing. We present these short stories as case studies in AI-assisted narrative, fostering a deeper understanding of digital literacy while exploring coming-of-age journeys and complex psychological dramas.
The Umber Unfurling
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Psychological Thriller | Genre: Romance
The air, thick with the scent of damp earth and distant woodsmoke, hung heavy over the old community hall. Outside, autumn was dismantling the trees, leaving behind a rich carpet of amber and russet. Inside, the hushed murmur of the craft fair provided a strange counterpoint to the quiet intensity brewing between two strangers, a sense of something profound and slightly unnerving beginning to unfurl.
The Weight of the Tundra’s Breath
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Hardboiled | Genre: Hardboiled
A biting wind scoured the stunted birches, stripping them bare. The tundra, a canvas of burnt sienna and dull gold, stretched to a horizon where the sky hung heavy and bruised. Every breath was a frosty cloud, every step a reluctant push through the deepening mud and ancient, waterlogged moss.
The Orange Peel Cipher
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Slice of Life | Genre: Urban Mystery
My mind, an overeager detective, always searched for patterns where none existed. Today, the puzzle presented itself in the form of an orange peel. Not just any orange peel, but one peeled with a meticulous, almost surgical precision, forming a perfect spiral on the gritty concrete beside the bench. It was out of place amidst the usual detritus of bus stops – stray tickets, damp flyers, discarded coffee cups. This was the city’s central interchange, a churning vortex of human motion and diesel fumes. The air hung heavy with the smell of exhaust, mingled with the faint, sweet ghost of frying onions from the nearby kebab van. Sunlight, a thin, watery presence, struggled to penetrate the glass canopy overhead, casting weak, elongated shadows that danced with every passing bus. A constant, low thrum of engines vibrated through the pavement, a persistent reminder of the city’s pulse.
The Patron Saint of Polyurethane
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Coming-of-Age | Genre: Dark Comedy
The cold was a physical presence, a thing that scraped at the lungs and turned the moisture of your breath into a cloud of tiny, instantly freezing knives. It was the kind of cold that made the city’s festive lights look brittle, like coloured glass about to shatter. Steam plumed from sewer grates along Portage Avenue, ghostly and slow in the windless dark, while the hollow chime of a distant bus announcement echoed off the icy facades of office towers.
The Unfurling Weaver’s Knot
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Psychological Drama | Genre: Espionage / Spy Fiction
The mid-afternoon sun, a persistent, heavy presence, baked the ancient cobblestones of Malá Strana, drawing a shimmering heat haze from the old stones. The scent of roasted coffee and something vaguely floral, mixed with the faint, metallic tang of the trams, hung thick and humid in the summer air. Ted sat, outwardly unremarkable, a man absorbed in the careful unwrapping of a traditional Bohemian glass piece, the delicate clink of glass against paper a counterpoint to the distant, rhythmic clang of a church bell.
About the Project
By design, these stories have no beginning and no end. Many stories are fictional, but many others are not. They are snapshots from worlds that never fully exist, inviting you to imagine what comes before and what happens next. We had fun exploring this project, and hope you will too.
The Unfinished Tales and Short Stories collection is part of an experimental, creative arts and research program by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners collectives. Each chapter is an interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment focused on two key areas: AI-Assisted Scriptwriting, where researchers explore using AI to generate story ideas, plot structures, and alternative story arcs to enhance creative development; and Talent Development and Training, where the project studies the necessary skills for creative professionals to manage AI and immersive technologies in production, helping to inform future training curricula. The project was made possible with funding and support from the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario. We thank them for supporting the arts, digital transformation research and innovation in Ontario.
About the Author
