Narratives in Progress
This collection presents a series of unique, unfinished tales. Each piece offers a vivid glimpse into a larger narrative, much like an intimate diary entry or a scene paused mid-dialogue. We invite readers to approach these fragments with an open mind, ready to construct the absent beginning and potential conclusion.
This project is designed as an experiment at the intersection of human creativity and artificial intelligence. Its purpose is to explore how digital tools can act as a partner in the writing process, shaping new forms of storytelling and enhancing digital literacy in contemporary settings.
Today’s selection journeys through diverse genres, from the intense suspense of a Thriller and the intricate depths of Psychological Drama, to the high stakes of a Legal Thriller. Eva Suluk, Jamie F. Bell, and Tony Eetak are the authors contributing to this particular collection.
Engage with these stories and allow your imagination to complete the arcs, transforming these moments into personal, expansive narrative experiences.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Explore a rich collection of short stories in Thriller, Psychological Drama, Legal Thriller, Coming-of-Age, and Contemporary Fiction, often flavored with Surreal / Absurdist, Fantasy, Gritty Realism, or Slice of Life elements. We are dedicated to advancing digital literacy by investigating AI-assisted narrative and the future of publishing enabled by creative technology.
The Perpetual Discontent
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Surreal / Absurdist | Genre: Thriller
A persistent, soft drizzle patterned the vast, grimy window of the Department of Harmonious Transitions, blurring the nascent greens of late spring into a watery abstract. Inside, the air hummed with the dry, recycled scent of paper and stale ambition, punctuated by the mechanical clack of distant keypads. Dust motes, in defiance of all diligent cleaning protocols, danced in the anemic glow of the fluorescent tubes, illuminating nothing particularly vital.
A Catalogue of Grey Buttons
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Coming-of-Age | Genre: Psychological Drama
The sound wasn’t just in their ears; it was in their teeth. The rhythmic slap-slap-slap of their winter boots on the polished linoleum floor of the Portage & Main concourse was a frantic drumbeat against the deep, indifferent hum of the city’s circulation systems. Each gasp for air tasted of pine-scented floor cleaner and the metallic chill that clung to the grates in the walls, a flavour unique to the places built to connect other, better places.
A Nickel for a Parallel
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Fantasy | Genre: Legal Thriller
The oppressive weight of a Winnipeg summer noon pressed down like a hand, the air thick with the scent of hot asphalt and something faintly metallic. Marvin Jessop, a man whose tailored suits had seen more courtrooms than dive bars, adjusted his spectacles, the humid sheen on the glass a minor irritant. He pushed through the glass door of ‘Tommy’s Sundries and Curios’, the jingle of the bell above his head a thin, reedy sound swallowed by the heat. Inside, the cool air promised by the humming, struggling air conditioner was a lie. It was merely less hot, heavy with the cloying sweetness of stale sugar, old newspapers, and something else – something indefinable, like damp dust and the ghost of forgotten ambition.
The Memo
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Gritty Realism | Genre: Coming-of-Age
The control room hummed, a low, persistent thrum against the backdrop of an impossibly bright spring day outside. Dust motes danced in the anemic shafts of light that pierced the gloom, illuminating a space crammed with ancient technology and the stale odour of lukewarm coffee. This was not the glamorous world of broadcast media, but the gritty, overlooked reality of community television, a place where dreams went to slowly pixelate and fade. Maggie, barely past her twentieth year, found herself tethered to a swivel chair, her gaze fixed on a screen that had just delivered an unwelcome jolt to the fragile ecosystem of their humble operations.
Winter Recollections of Melgund
Author: Tony Eetak | Category: Slice of Life | Genre: Contemporary Fiction
The community centre, usually bustling with the echoes of children and the smell of old coffee, held a different kind of quiet today. Outside, a fresh layer of snow blanketed Melgund Township, muffling the world. Inside, a low, rhythmic hum pulsed from a corner, drawing little Paul closer.
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.
