Futures, Secrets, Growth, and Legacies
The short stories presented here are unique in their deliberate incompleteness. Each piece functions as a momentary capture, a scene or character interaction presented without its full narrative context. They are intended to ignite the reader’s own imaginative faculties, inviting speculation about their deeper histories and potential resolutions.
This project explores the dynamic collaboration possible between human creative input and artificial intelligence. It is an experiment to illustrate how digital frameworks can support new forms of storytelling and enhance digital literacy, fostering a broader understanding of literary possibilities.
This final selection delves into compelling genres: the stark realities of Dystopian futures, the comforting intrigue of Cozy Mystery, the trials of Young Adult Contemporary life, the sweeping scope of Family Saga, and the everyday observations of Slice of Life. These diverse unfinished tales are presented by Leaf Richards and Jamie F. Bell.
We invite you to immerse yourself in these narratives, approaching them not as fixed texts, but as invitations to co-creation. Allow your imagination to complete the arcs and breathe full life into these intriguing unfinished tales.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Discover engaging short stories within Dystopian, Cozy Mystery, Young Adult Contemporary, Family Saga, and Slice of Life genres, featuring Horror, Mystery, Noir, Psychological Drama, and Western Style BL categories. Our project is dedicated to digital literacy, exploring AI-assisted narrative and creative technology to innovate publishing and define the future of digital publishing.
The Sky’s Fever
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Horror | Genre: Dystopian
The morning sun, usually a balm, felt like an interrogation lamp today, highlighting every disquieting detail. A strange, almost imperceptible haze still clung to the air, a leftover from the previous night’s celestial spectacle. It wasn’t smoke, nor fog, but something thinner, more insidious, that seemed to cling to the edges of vision, making the world shimmer faintly, as if seen through old, rippled glass. The birds, usually raucous with the arrival of spring, offered only a few tentative chirps, their songs cut short, as if remembering a tune they no longer quite understood. Beneath the oppressive quiet, a low, persistent hum thrummed just beneath the threshold of hearing, a mechanical pulse that had become the new soundtrack to existence.
A Custard Tart and a Missing Trinket
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Mystery | Genre: Cozy Mystery
The aroma of cinnamon and stale coffee hung thick in ‘The Daily Grind,’ a small café nestled on the main street of Willowbrook Falls. Outside, the early spring sun, watery and pale, was just beginning to coax reluctant green from the dormant branches of maples lining the pavement. Inside, Agnes Winter, a woman whose spectacles often sat askew on her nose, was meticulously dissecting a custard tart with a tiny fork, her attention only partially on the pastry. Her friend, Betty Davids, across from her, was in full flow, detailing the latest local scandal.
Fluorescent Hum and Fading Futures
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Noir | Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
The air in the convenience store was a stale blend of old coffee, synthetic fruit scents from the slushie machine, and the metallic tang of melting snow tracked in from outside. Fluorescent tubes hummed overhead, a sound so constant it had become a new form of silence, casting a sickly, unchanging light on rows of chips and forgotten magazines. Outside, the early spring night pressed against the smudged plate-glass, a murky canvas where streetlights bled into the lingering slush on the pavements.
The Unfurling Acre
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Psychological Drama | Genre: Family Saga
The afternoon light, thin and pale, struggled through the window, painting the familiar living room in shades of muted ochre. Outside, the maple tree, once a riot of crimson, was shedding its last, stubborn leaves, each descent a silent, slow-motion surrender to the inevitable. Inside, the only sound was the shallow, papery breath of Herman, a rhythm Joan knew better than her own heartbeat, now a fragile drum against the backdrop of their quiet, winding down life.
Windchill
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Western Style BL | Genre: Slice of Life
A frantic walk through downtown Winnipeg in freezing weather, moving from the streets to the skywalks and finally to a bridge.
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.
