Echoes of Narratives: Engaging with Partial Worlds
These stories are presented as incomplete narrative fragments, moments captured mid-scene. They are snapshots, pages torn from a larger book, evoking a sense of mystery and inviting the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps of what came before and what happens next.
This collection represents an 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.
This collection spans genres from Slice of Life to Contemporary Drama, Literary Fiction, Cyberpunk, and Coming-of-Age. Leaf Richards and Jamie F. Bell contribute to this diverse selection of tales.
We invite you to engage with these unfinished tales, not just as a reader, but as a co-creator who completes the narrative in their own mind.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Explore captivating short stories including Slice of Life, Contemporary Drama, Literary Fiction, Cyberpunk, and Coming-of-Age narratives, alongside Allegorical, Crime Noir, Epistolary, and Western Style BL entries. Our project emphasizes digital literacy in publishing, showcasing how creative technology shapes AI-assisted narrative and the evolving future of digital publishing.
The Frozen Seedbed
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Allegorical | Genre: Slice of Life
A deep winter morning clings to the small community arts centre in Northwestern Ontario, where a diverse group of young adults, emerging artists, and passionate individuals have convened. Inside, the chill of the boreal landscape is held at bay by the quiet warmth of shared purpose, coffee, and the clanking of an old radiator. This is a roundtable discussion, a delicate crucible where individual artistic ambitions are meant to forge into a collective, a non-profit arts organization. The air is thick with anticipation, tinged with the faint scent of damp wool and old paper, as the participants prepare to navigate the complex, hopeful journey of creating something lasting.
The Scrutiny of Unflinching Light
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Crime Noir | Genre: Contemporary Drama
The old warehouse, now a hollowed-out bastion of the collective, shivered against the relentless autumn wind. Inside, the air hung heavy with the scent of turpentine and damp plaster, a constant reminder of both their creative ambition and their crumbling reality.
A Fading Light
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Literary Fiction | Genre: Literary Fiction
The mid-summer air hung thick and greasy over downtown Winnipeg, a tangible weight that pressed against the old brick of the art centre. Inside, the recycled air conditioning wheezed a tired protest, a low, mechanical hum that became another layer in the atmospheric soup. Light, diffused through grime-streaked windows, painted the lecture room in shades of sickly yellow and grey, making the faces of the young adults gathered there seem drawn and faintly unwell.
A Highway of Scratched Promises
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Epistolary | Genre: Cyberpunk
The asphalt shimmered, a long, grey ribbon unwinding under a sky the colour of a faded denim jacket. Inside the automated ‘Cruiser’—its designation a relic of a bygone era—the air conditioning whirred a quiet, persistent hymn against the summer heat. Winnipeg’s receding cityscape, a fractal mess of glinting towers and smog-smudged low-rises, finally gave way to the monotonous green of prairie fields, punctuated by the skeletal frames of automated agri-farms. Jack, slouched in the passenger seat, fiddled with a stray thread on his cargo shorts, while Penny, hands resting loosely on the haptic steering interface, watched the highway flow under them.
The Unfastened Hours
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Western Style BL | Genre: Coming-of-Age
The Winnipeg summer dawn bled a pale, insipid blue through the gap in the curtains, a colour Fred despised. It was the precise shade of disappointment, a thin, weak wash over the lingering vibrancy of the night just vanished. His bed sheets, damp with sweat from the oppressive heat, felt like a shroud, clinging to him, anchoring him to a world he desperately wished to escape, a world that offered none of the profound, gentle solace of his dream.
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.
