Narratives Awaiting Completion
This collection offers a unique journey into the heart of storytelling. Each piece is an incomplete narrative fragment, a moment captured mid-scene, or a page torn from a larger book. They invite your imagination to fill in the gaps, pondering what came before and envisioning what might happen next.
This project stands as an experiment at the intersection of human creativity and artificial intelligence. It explores how digital tools can act as a partner in the writing process, shaping new forms of storytelling and enhancing digital literacy in a collaborative environment.
This collection spans genres from sharp Crime Procedural and comforting Cozy Mystery to intricate Historical Conspiracy, shadowy Noir, and heartfelt Romance. This installment brings together the works of Tony Eetak, Eva Suluk, and Jamie F. Bell.
We invite you to explore these unfinished tales not just as a reader, but as a co-creator, completing the narrative in your own mind and shaping its ultimate direction.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Featuring Crime Procedural, Cozy Mystery, Historical Conspiracy, and Romance, alongside unique categories such as Poetic / Lyrical and Post-Apocalyptic Survival, this endeavor advances digital literacy. We apply creative technology to innovate short stories, propelling the future of publishing through AI-assisted narrative development.
The First Thaw
Author: Tony Eetak | Category: Poetic / Lyrical | Genre: Crime Procedural
The wind carried the brittle scent of freezing pine and something else, something metallic and sweet. Snow, fresh and undisturbed, stretched out like a shroud, broken only by the sharp, stark silhouette of the evergreens. It was a canvas, thought Graham, where someone had painted a very specific, very cold picture.
Larry’s Empty Stand
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Post-Apocalyptic Survival | Genre: Cozy Mystery
The smell of wet leaves was a thick blanket over Clearwater Narrows, heavier than usual this autumn. It clung to the rough-hewn cabins, seeped into the cracks of the old dirt road, and whispered through the skeletal branches of the maples that lined the almost-empty lake shore. A low, persistent wind hummed, a mournful song against the silence that seemed to have deepened since the Event. There was a chill in the air, not just from the season, but from a quiet, almost imperceptible shift in the community’s heart, a small, worried flutter that had nothing to do with firewood or dwindling rations.
The Weight of Paper Dust
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Fast-Paced / Pulpy | Genre: Historical Conspiracy
The smell of old paper and dust motes suspended in the weak, autumn light that filtered through the high, arched windows of the National Archives in downtown Winnipeg. It wasn’t the heroic scent of ancient scrolls or forgotten treaties, but something more mundane: stale air, cheap adhesive, and the faint, persistent metallic tang of filing cabinets. Leah sat hunched over a heavy, brittle binder, its corners worn smooth from decades of neglect, her finger tracing the yellowed lines of government policy drafts from the late 1980s.
The Haze
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Satirical / Ironic | Genre: Noir
The asphalt shimmered under the faint, sickly glow of a busted neon sign, exhaling the day’s accumulated heat back into the already thick, humid air. It was a summer night that felt less like a season and more like a heavy, wet blanket draped over everything. A broken fire hydrant wept a thin stream down the gutter, carrying with it a faint, cloying scent of stale rubbish and something metallic, almost like old blood. Above, a single, tired cicada sawed away at the silence, its song a frayed thread in the oppressive stillness of the back alleys. Simon, leaning against a graffiti-scarred brick wall, felt the grit of it through his thin shirt, the fabric already sticking to his skin.
A Resonance in Scratched Vinyl
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Western Style BL | Genre: Romance
The attic of Pete’s house was a kingdom of forgotten things, hazy with heat and the sweet, cloying smell of old paper. Sunlight streamed through a single grimy window, cutting a thick, golden bar through the air that illuminated a swirling galaxy of dust. It was their shared sanctuary, a place of retreat since they were kids, and today, their mission was to sort through the vinyl.
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 an experimental, creative research project by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners Storytelling clubs. Each chapter is a unique interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment, born from a collaboration between artists and applied AI researchers, designed to explore the boundaries of creative writing, automation, and storytelling. 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.
