Machines, Eras, and Unsettling Futures
The collection offers a distinct experience through its unfinished tales, presenting short stories that feel like pages torn from larger, unfolding works. Each piece is a glimpse into a world already in progress, designed to spark curiosity and challenge readers to construct the narrative whole from its intriguing parts.
This project is an experimental program at the intersection of human creativity, interdisciplinary arts, and applied artificial intelligence research. Its purpose is to explore how digital tools can partner in the writing process, shaping new forms of storytelling, scriptwriting, and enhancing digital literacy skills and workflows.
This selection features the chilling themes of Horror, the detailed settings of Historical Fiction, the relatable realities of Contemporary Fiction, the high-tech dystopias of Cyberpunk, and the intricate gears of Steampunk. Authors Jamie F. Bell, Leaf Richards, and Eva Suluk contribute these varied unfinished narratives.
We invite you to engage with these stories by allowing your imagination to expand their boundaries. Consider yourself a collaborator in their creation, piecing together the unwritten chapters and finding personal meaning in their open-ended forms.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
The Spin Cycle of Regrets
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Romance | Genre: Horror
Denny hated laundromats. The smell of ozone, the damp chill that seeped into your bones, the lonely melancholy of watching your life tumble behind a smudged porthole window. But the Coin-Op on Elm Street was different. It had a reputation, whispered among people like him. It had a machine, Number 7, that could wash more than just grime from your clothes. Tonight, he was here to wash away a family curse.
A Goose for Percy
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Dark Comedy | Genre: Historical Fiction
The prairie wind howled its familiar, desolate tune against the snow-drifted panes of Aunt Cathy’s kitchen. Inside, the air hummed with the strained warmth of a wood stove and the sharp, almost metallic scent of a freshly plucked goose. Vicky stood before the vast, white bird, her breath still misting faintly as the last vestiges of outdoor cold clung to her. The scene was set for a Christmas meal, yet the silence felt heavier than usual, laden with the recent, raw absence that no amount of festive bustle could truly displace.
The Thawing Bloom
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Romance | Genre: Contemporary Fiction
The air in the university lecture theatre hung heavy and dry, recirculated heat doing little to combat the biting Winnipeg winter that pressed against the tall, grimy windows. Fluorescent lights hummed a low, persistent note overhead, casting a pallid glow over the rows of students hunched over laptops and notebooks. Outside, the Exchange District was a canvas of muted greys and whites, another January storm threatening to descend, mirroring the quiet tension within the room.
Data Dust and Digital Fire
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Satire | Genre: Cyberpunk
The air in the community hall hung heavy and still, thick with the unseasonal humid warmth of a northern summer. A low hum vibrated from the ceiling-mounted projector, a sound that usually meant nothing, just the persistent background noise of the ‘Digital Hearth’ functioning as intended. Tonight, however, it carried an unnerving, discordant undertone, a frantic buzz suggesting something fundamental was off-kilter. The holographic display, meant to showcase local artists’ digital work, pulsed with a sickly green, then shifted to an angry, pixelated red, casting a momentary, unsettling glow over the scarred linoleum floor.
The Perils of Brass and Steam
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Psychological Drama | Genre: Steampunk
The hiss of a misaligned steam valve was the first thing that tipped me off. It was a sharp, angry sound, quite unlike the usual gentle chuffing and whirring of the factory floor. I looked up from my ledger, the ink still wet on my calculation of rivet expenditures, and saw it. The Morag-Model 7, our new automaton floor manager, was standing over poor Timothy from assembly, one of its polished brass hands clamped firmly on his shoulder. Steam vented from its neck-joints in furious white puffs. This was not part of its standard employee interaction protocol.
Storytelling and the Arts, Skills Development and Digital Transformation
AI-Assisted Storytelling and Scriptwriting: Our team is investigating AI’s potential in creative development, using genres like Contemporary Fiction, Horror, Historical Fiction, Cyberpunk, and Steampunk as key case studies. We are studying how AI can tackle genre-specific challenges, from grounding realistic character arcs in Contemporary Fiction and building dread in Horror, to meticulously world-building in Historical Fiction, Cyberpunk, and Steampunk narratives. This research aims to understand how AI can enhance the core processes of storytelling and scriptwriting, offering new tools for narrative construction and creative ideation across diverse forms.
Talent Development and Training: Our research further examines the evolving skill sets required for creative professionals in an AI-integrated landscape. The process of generating compelling chapters within these varied genres—from the intricate world-building of Steampunk to the psychological tension of Horror—serves as a practical exploration of future digital publishing and film production workflows. This work highlights the critical need for digital literacy and the strategic management of AI tools, empowering creators to adapt and thrive in an increasingly technologically driven creative industry.
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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