Open-Ended Adventures
These short stories are presented as incomplete fragments, each a window into a larger, unwritten world. They are designed to engage the reader’s imagination, offering moments captured mid-scene or narrative beginnings that invite speculation about what led to them and where they might ultimately go. This format emphasizes active readership.
This project explores the intersection of human creativity and artificial intelligence. It stands as an experiment in how digital tools can act as a partner in the writing process, shaping new forms of storytelling and enhancing digital literacy. The goal is to observe new possibilities when a creative concept is given a fresh, algorithmic perspective.
This collection features a rich mix of genres, including the imaginative Urban Fantasy, intriguing Mystery, sharp Satire, suspenseful Espionage / Spy Fiction, and relatable Slice of Life. These unfinished tales were brought to life by Jamie F. Bell and Eva Suluk.
We invite you to step into these narratives as a co-creator. Consider the paths these characters might take, the secrets yet to be revealed, and the resolutions that you, the reader, envision.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Discover our unique short stories spanning Urban Fantasy, captivating Mystery, incisive Satire, thrilling Espionage / Spy Fiction, intimate Slice of Life, expansive Space Opera, introspective Stream of Consciousness, and timeless Romance. We are committed to advancing digital literacy through modern publishing practices, demonstrating how creative technology and AI-assisted narrative are shaping the future of digital publishing.
An Accounting of Sub-Basement Realities
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Space Opera | Genre: Urban Fantasy
The sub-basement of the new condo tower in Calgary smelled of damp concrete, ozone, and a faint, cloying sweetness like burnt sugar. Fluorescent lights, the cheap kind that hummed with a headache-inducing frequency, cast everything in a sterile, flickering glare. Robb knelt, tracing the outer salt circle, his fingers steady. The client, a terrified man named Bart in a thousand-dollar suit that was now sweat-stained, huddled by the elevators, clutching a briefcase like a shield.
Coordinates for Cracks in the Pavement
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Stream of Consciousness | Genre: Mystery
A map can be a lie. Or an invitation. Or a work of art. The grid of streets we live on, the one that feels so permanent, is just one version of the city. The note the girl dropped is a different kind of map, one that ignores roads and buildings and instead plots a course based on… what? I’m still not sure.
The Collapse of Conviviality
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Romance | Genre: Satire
The Grand Glacial Grotto, a hyper-commercialised winter spectacle, hums with the manufactured cheer of artificial fog and synthesised music. Beneath the glittering facade of a colossal ice sculpture, a subtle tremor begins, a prelude to a slow, almost dignified collapse that will unveil a secret far more intriguing than mere structural ineptitude.
The Lure and the Line
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Romance | Genre: Espionage / Spy Fiction
The afternoon heat of a Northern Ontario summer presses against the tall windows of the Cobalt Bay Community Museum, making the air inside thick with the smell of old paper and lemon-scented polish. Dust hangs in the shafts of sunlight, illuminating the quiet history of a town built on silver and timber, now guarding a different kind of secret.
The Moth-Eaten Scarf
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Slice of Life | Genre: Slice of Life
My mind, always a cluttered attic, rifled through memories of past bus stop encounters. Usually, it was the briefest of nods, perhaps a shared sigh about the weather, then the mechanical groan of an arriving bus would disperse the moment. Today, however, the air was thick with something else. It clung to the thin, almost transparent man perched on the far end of the bench, draped in a moth-eaten scarf that seemed to carry the weight of decades. The sun, a pale, indifferent disc, struggled to break through the perpetual haze that hung over the industrial park we bordered. The scent of ozone from the nearby power station hummed under the usual exhaust fumes, a metallic tang on the back of the tongue. Every now and then, a gust of wind would whip past, tugging at the man’s scarf, as if trying to unravel his story.
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.
