Looking Back at “Beyond the Island”

John W. Steele

Well, I must offer my congratulations to all that were involved in this project. We made it through it. Cheers.

I think the Challenge is interesting. The last sentence in “Island” is intended to eliminate the possibility of the “dream scenario.”

Bill mentioned that the way the story originally ended might suggest that Brian was a serial killer. I seriously did not want the dénouement to give that impression.

Looking at the ending objectively the story cannot be a dream. A fantasy for sure, but never a dream.

Why? Because Brian has a few million in his bank account and he’s in an expensive ski lodge he intends to buy. The money did not float into his mind, and the Hummer in the garage is a testament to his reality.

I thought about smoothing out the Kaminski brothers, but in a sense they were disposable characters I needed to set up the transaction. Don’t forget, Brian was an ironworker and could hardly pay his rent; if there is any plot in the story, his tutelage under Max is real. But there are only two main characters in this story, and now you’ve got me thinking: is Brian delusional?

I think you could apply that intensive analysis to almost any fantasy story, though. The only ones I think can escape that sort of interrogation come from the best writers. When you write fantasy, it already has the “delusional” label on it before it even unwinds. This observation has been brought to my attention, and I’m okay with it. The real character of a story for me is in the quality of the imagination and the sincerity and insight in the prose.

This novella has been a great learning experience for me. I thank you once again for publishing the story on Bewildering Stories.

I think I’m done with first person narrative for a while. I do enjoy the writing style because of its connection to the action and its link to the present. The writer can experience vicariously some of the events and try and reason how the characters will react. The downside is that people might think they understand the writer from these word paintings, and that is not possible. For me, the story pulls the characters along, not the opposite. My next, next novel will be written in the third person.

Looking back at when I started this story about a year ago I’m amazed how much some of my ideas have changed. Not that there is anything wrong with the concepts I tried to write about; most of them I’ve gleaned from minds better than my own. The challenge was to knit all this theory into a story that would hold a reader’s attention and be entertaining. If there is any merit in “Island” it lies somewhere in that creative endeavor.

Not to mention I wanted to dodge the heretic, blasphemer, evangelist, prophetic voice in the dark minefield. If there is any message in my work it is simply the Golden Rule. I hope I’ve accomplished that. In the end I’m an entertainer who wants to evolve into a writer of some merit.