Quests, Wonders, and the Everyday Fantastic
Here you will discover unfinished tales, each a compelling snippet from a larger, unfolding narrative. These short stories are presented as moments captured, scenes paused, inviting your imagination to explore the unseen chapters that precede and follow. They are starting points for individual journeys.
This project is an experimental program at the intersection of human creativity, interdisciplinary arts, and applied artificial intelligence research. It investigates how digital tools can serve as a partner in the writing process, shaping new forms of storytelling, scriptwriting, and enhancing digital literacy skills and workflows.
This collection features the works of Leaf Richards, Jamie F. Bell, and Eva Suluk, exploring genres such as Action-Adventure, Urban Fantasy, Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, and Satire. Their stories combine thrilling escapades with magical elements woven into modern settings.
We encourage you to step into the role of a co-creator. These tales await your unique perspective to complete their journeys, allowing you to imagine the full scope of their worlds and characters.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
The Star’s Return Through Snow
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Literary Fiction | Genre: Action-Adventure
The snow was a living, breathing thing, an insurmountable white wall that stretched from the frozen riverbank to the distant, blurred silhouette of the old cottage. Thomas pushed a gloved hand against the stinging cold, drawing a ragged breath that caught in his throat, each exhalation blooming white before him. His muscles screamed, a dull, insistent ache radiating from his hips and thighs, but he kept moving, one slow, deliberate step after another. The forest, a silent sentinel of spruce and fir, held its breath, the muffled silence amplifying the rhythmic crunch of his boots, the only sound for miles. The air carried the crisp scent of frozen pine needles and something mineral, like static before a storm. He wondered, briefly, if he was entirely mad.
A Filament Glows in the Gloom
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Domestic Thriller | Genre: Contemporary Fiction
The wind howled a low, mournful tune against the brick and glass of downtown Winnipeg, a prelude to the deeper cold. November had bled into December with a swift, brutal elegance, coating the branches of elm trees in a thin, crystalline glaze that sparkled briefly under the weak afternoon sun before dulling to grey. Storefronts, for weeks now, had begun their annual, almost aggressive, adornment – strings of LED lights, plastic holly, and frosted window decals promising discounts and cheer. It was the first true breath of the Christmas season, an invisible pressure settling over the city, touching everyone differently, like a cold hand on a warm window pane.
Ancestral Walls
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Gothic Horror | Genre: Fantasy
Carson, the last of his family line, is in his decaying study, overwhelmed by the ancient, malevolent magic of his ancestral home. Sarah, a determined scholar, enters and confronts him, unraveling the house’s dark secrets through a tense dialogue.
Dauber’s Gambit
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Romance | Genre: Urban Fantasy
It wasn’t a prayer, what Paulie was doing, but it was close. A frantic, internal mantra timed to the clatter of numbered balls in the tumbler. The air in the St. Jude’s Community Hall was thick with the scent of boiled hot dogs, cheap perfume, and the kind of low-grade desperation that clings to places where luck is the only currency. He wasn’t here for the jackpot. He was here for a number.
Salt-Stained Scores
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Psychological Thriller | Genre: Satire
Lena and Sam walk along a desolate, windswept beach at dusk, their conversation revolving around the dystopian ‘Collective Contribution Initiative’ and its oppressive social credit system, which dictates every aspect of their lives.
Storytelling and the Arts, Skills Development and Digital Transformation
AI-Assisted Storytelling and Scriptwriting: Our project delves into how AI can enhance creative development, particularly in genres like Contemporary Fiction, epic Fantasy, sharp Satire, thrilling Action-Adventure, and immersive Urban Fantasy. We analyze AI’s capability to generate intricate world-building for fantasy, craft dynamic action sequences, develop satirical dialogue, and integrate magical elements into urban settings, proving its utility in storytelling and scriptwriting.
Talent Development and Training: We are keenly focused on understanding the new competencies essential for creative professionals in an AI-driven landscape. The creation of these distinct narratives, ranging from imaginative fantasy to high-stakes action-adventure, illustrates the evolving demands on talent, underscoring the need for advanced digital literacy and adeptness in managing AI tools within future digital publishing and film production pipelines.
We’re excited to learn about these new technologies and how they can be applied to expand the boundaries of human storytelling. We encourage you to keep reading, keep imagining, and keep exploring the incredible potential that opens up when creativity meets technology.
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 interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment. It is part of a creative arts and research program by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners collectives. This project focuses on two key areas: AI-Assisted Storytelling and Scriptwriting, exploring AI for generating ideas, plot structures, and alternative story arcs; and Talent Development and Training, studying the skills and training needs for creative professionals managing AI and immersive technologies to inform future training curricula. Funding and support were generously provided by the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario. We thank them for supporting the arts, digital transformation, and applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) research for northern innovation in Ontario.
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