Fragments of Thought: Engaging with Incomplete Stories
This collection presents a series of unfinished tales and short stories, offering readers a unique literary experience. Each piece is a moment captured mid-scene, a few pages torn from a larger, unfolding narrative, or a scene that implies a world beyond its present confines. They invite an active engagement, prompting the imagination to consider what came before these glimpses and what might follow.
This project is an experimental program positioned at the intersection of human creativity, interdisciplinary arts, and applied artificial intelligence research. It explores how digital tools can act as a partner in the writing process, shaping new forms of storytelling, scriptwriting, and enhancing digital literacy skills and workflows.
This collection spans genres from the introspective depths of Contemporary Fiction and Psychological Drama, to the tense world of Espionage / Spy Fiction, and the stark realities of Dystopian narratives. These compelling pieces are crafted by the voices of Jamie F. Bell and Leaf Richards.
We invite you to explore these incomplete narratives, not merely as a passive reader, but as a co-creator, completing the arcs and filling the silences within your own mind.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
A Looming White on Asphalt
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Domestic Thriller | Genre: Contemporary Fiction
The first truly bitter breath of December clawed at the city, a cold that seeped through layers of wool and Gore-Tex. Streetlights, still struggling against the stubborn twilight, began to shimmer with haloes of moisture. Already, the festive decorations, strung like hopeful arteries across Portage Avenue, felt less like cheer and more like a desperate, flickering defiance against the encroaching white. A bus groaned to a halt, exhaling a plume of frosted air that briefly swallowed a cluster of bundled figures waiting on the pavement, their shoulders hunched, faces tucked into scarves, each lost in their own interior world as the city began its annual, reluctant transition.
A Geometry of Folded Napkins
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Boys Love (BL) | Genre: Contemporary Fiction
The air in the kitchen of ‘Gino’s Slice of Heaven’ was a tangible thing—a mix of garlic, scorching cheese, yeast, and the metallic sweat of teenage boys working too hard for too little. The ticket printer chattered relentlessly, a mechanical insect spitting out orders. It was Friday, it was August, and the entire neighbourhood seemed to want pizza at the exact same moment.
Those Distant Shores
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Psychological Drama | Genre: Psychological Drama
The lingering chill of a prolonged spring permeated the recreation hall’s foundations, seeping into the forgotten basement where the air hung heavy with a heavy gauze of airborne dust and disuse. Outside, a pale, anemic sun struggled to warm the thawing permafrost of Colony 7, its light filtered through the thick, atmospheric processors that kept their distant world breathable. Here, beneath the grey, utilitarian surface, three young adults moved with a slow, deliberate cadence, their task a quiet rebellion against the overwhelming apathy that seemed to settle on everything these days.
Frozen Assets
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: LitRPG / GameLit | Genre: Espionage / Spy Fiction
A wind-swept intersection in downtown Winnipeg where the temperature has dropped to dangerous lows, forcing the city’s inhabitants into the underground walkways.
A Blanket of Unscheduled Quiet
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Whimsical / Playful | Genre: Dystopian
The city, usually a symphony of muted, rhythmic hums, found itself momentarily softened by a thin, unscripted layer of crystalline precipitation. It was a deviation, an aberration, from the meticulously catalogued weather patterns broadcasted daily. In the sprawling, geometric expanse of Centennial Park, where every tree and bench had its designated coordinates, the pristine white offered an unsettling, yet oddly beautiful, contrast to the rigid order. A cold, crisp air, sharp with the metallic scent of static electricity, hung heavy, stirring the skeletal branches of the ‘Approved Flora’ and hinting at a much deeper chill to come.
Storytelling and the Arts, Skills Development and Digital Transformation
AI-Assisted Storytelling and Scriptwriting: Our research at the arts and technology incubator is deeply engaged in understanding AI’s role in creative development, exemplified by our exploration of genres such as Psychological Drama, Contemporary Fiction, Dystopian, and Espionage / Spy Fiction. We are investigating how AI can facilitate the intricate character studies and internal conflict central to Psychological Drama, or craft the detailed world-building and social commentary required for Dystopian and Contemporary Fiction. Furthermore, we examine AI’s ability to generate complex plots, authentic dialogue, and high-stakes scenarios for Espionage / Spy Fiction, demonstrating its capacity to address the diverse and specific narrative challenges inherent in these compelling story forms.
Talent Development and Training: A critical aspect of our project involves studying the new competencies creative professionals must acquire in an era of digital transformation. The process of generating these varied case study chapters, from the subtleties of Psychological Drama to the intricate plots of Espionage / Spy Fiction, offers invaluable insights into the future of digital publishing and film production workflows. We analyze how artists develop advanced digital literacy and the nuanced skill of managing AI tools for plot generation, character exploration, and narrative refinement. This ongoing research emphasizes the importance of empowering creatives to effectively collaborate with AI, thereby enhancing their storytelling capabilities and adapting to the evolving demands of the creative industries.
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.
About the Author
