Story Inkcorporated | Creative Fiction | Guest Fiction Writer

Creative Fiction and Storytelling, Story Inkcorporated

Guest Fiction Writer | • Creative Writing • Fiction • 2020

Project Summary

Story Inkorporated is a storytelling podcast that explores day-to-day life, from distant dystopias to everything in between. Story Inkorporated presents stories that are stimulating and engaging- yet short enough to fit into even the busiest schedules.  Through this podcast, I developed original works of fiction focused on immersive storytelling, character development and narrative structure for publication and literary audiences.

My Role

I worked alongside the narrators to write creative fiction stories. As one of the many guest writers, I focused on blending creative writing with audio-first storytelling to maximize emotional impact and listener retention. Each story is crafted to be engaging, thought-provoking, and easy to listen to.

Key Contributions to Story Inkcorporated Creative Fiction Podcast include the following:

• Conducted audience and format research for podcast storytelling

• Wrote and edited original fiction scripts

• Collaborated with narrators on tone, pacing, and delivery

• Structured scripts for audio clarity and listener engagement

• Optimized sentence flow for cadence and rhythm

• Applied storytelling techniques suited for short-form audio

• Refined scripts based on performance feedback

Samples of Work

The Last Life Is Blood Red, Story Inkorporated

Read "The Last Life Is Blood Red " Below

I am Mario. I was a plumber, a hero on a grand noble adventure.

Not really. I lived in a different world, an endless galaxy. Everything was so simple. I knew what I had to do and how to do so. The mistakes I made never hurt me. Upon any level, I could try again.

I wondered intensely but rarely if there was something more. I quickly ignored my subconscious and soon found another distraction. I triumphed over levels, fights, and foes. I was unstoppable. With the help of a star, I was invincible.

I thought that my life was complete. Then I found a purpose: a gorgeous princess to rescue. The levels now meant nothing. Even though she wasn’t at the end of each level, I fought for her and her alone. The princess peach was the fruit to my Yoshi, my damsel in diamonds.

Rapunzel had nothing on the lovely locks of my dearly beloved. Ariel’s melody wavered to noise when the charm of my princess spoke but a word. And forget Snow White; the apple of my eye is and only is Princess Peach.

Oh, I should add that it wasn’t an apple that caused Snow White’s beauty to whither. It was a peach, my peach. The only princess that could even compare to mine was Cinderella—compared to her grace and elegance, Cinderella had nothing. Only in aloofness are they similar. Like my princess, Cinderella evaded her prince, taunted him, and left him wondering and yearning and swooning with nothing but a fleeting glimpse of her beauty fading away into the night.

This gave me hope that, eventually, the prince won her heart with the return of her shimmering glass slipper. He proved to her that he loved her because he fought not only to reach her but also brought her back that which she lost. She fell into his arms with such grace and admiration. I would lay at night dreaming about the moment. The moment that I would finally have Peach in my arms.

But I didn’t have a glass slipper.

Though I came to learn the contrast between us and them, between me and him, between a plumber and a prince. The fact that he was a grand prince, and I was a lowly plumber hit me like a grand piano from the fucking sky. It hit me and hit me hard.

Not to mention that all the wealth, stars, and powers I could muster would never amount to a glass slipper enchanted in the moonlight. Not only did the elegance of my offerings falter, but the romantic notions behind them. Those attempts combined almost killed me. No matter how hard I prayed or cried, how hard I forced myself, it was never good enough. I was never good enough. I sometimes felt as if she was toying with me.

I no longer celebrated a successful level at the end of every level. I was mourning another failed attempt to gain the love, nay even the warm acknowledgement of Princess Peach. The only times I would see her were the images of her going away. I knew she saw me. At first, I thought it was the timing of it all, as if the cosmos and their grand design would reward me for my patience.

But it wasn’t timing. Was it?

She saw me. She knew I was there. She knew everything. And she still left.

At least Cinderella had a curfew to explain her chase. What was Peach’s excuse?

I thought it wouldn’t get worse.

I pictured myself as a dying mouse and her a sadistic cat without mercy. She reached in and worsened my agony by gripping my heart. It stayed in her palm for a moment, sometimes hours, as she watched it pathetically attempt to circulate blood through a body lying two feet from it.

My princess didn’t even have the mercy to rip out the traitor organ away completely. She left it and placed it beside me on my sleeve. I bared my heart on my sleeve to her, and in a cruel twist of fate, she did the same.

She laughed as she walked away. As I watched her, my heart pumped blood into the ground. It poured out as my fingers went numb, and my eyes wept. This didn’t even end the pathetic suffering. No, I patched myself up and carried on.

After this, I tried once more. My mistress of misery, I owed it to my muse to try once more. I continued to the next castle, praying she would see how I care and love her. I’m begging that it’ll all change. I sobbed as I continued, realizing that I couldn't save her. That was never how it was supposed to be. I realized that she could save me, but she never will.

I reach the castle.

I reached my princess.

But this time will be different.

This time I’m not going to save her. I’m going to save myself.

I arrive, and the door shuts behind me. There is no going back now, but I don’t think there ever was. I put up no resistance to the blows.

The first blow stung a bit.

Soon it all became numb. I

 looked up pitifully as the giant fist crushed me for the last time.

Goodbye, my princess.

If I can’t have you, I will have nothing,

not even life.

Writer's Block, Story Inkorporated

Read "Writer's Block " Below

There's a curse that comes for the inspired and has come for the inspired since any of us can remember. Ever since the moment a word was spoken with passion, instead of necessity or desperation, they've hungered for us. We were something new, and they grew a taste for the passionate word. The words dripping with even the most subtle of emotions brought them from the deepest corners of the universe with gnawing hunger. Buried in dark crevices, these demons hid in this world's infancy as imagination grew and inhibitions lessened. They waited in the shadows. The inspiration had come, and it was time to feed.

These creatures of sorrow haunt those with stories running in their veins, with narrations choking their throats until they're released from their tongue. Their inspired victims run with ink in their veins, with letters pressed against their wrists, with pens and keyboards in weapon hilts, with sentences draped around their neck like gothic diamonds. With tales streaming behind them wherever they go, there is no way to run from them. The words trail behind us like a shooting star.

Feasting on all that brings life to the storyteller, these parasitic demons feel no remorse, only vindictive gluttony. Nobody is safe from the plague, for there is no warning, no glimmer of premonition, no sense of foreboding. Not until it is too late. You don't notice it as it starts to spread, subtle like a sprinkling rain amongst chalk. It comes in silent, dark, and indifferent. It arrives unannounced and leaves its prey ignorant and blissful in their focus until it is too late. They stalk in the shadows. Waiting for the right time, for the right prey; We call it writer's block, and it's the killer of ideas, the stagnation of creators, the ruin of all that it could be.

An ecstatic writer sits unknowingly staring at the screen, waiting for the words to flow. She feels words begin to pour toward her fingertips, arriving from her muse, a kind of fairy godmother, if you will, of literature and inspiration, of prose and creativity. She steadies her fingers, bracing for the words, but it's already come. She's already cursed. The potential of what could be lured it here to feed upon her inspiration. It’s here. As the hair on her neck stands on end, she strains to try to understand the reason for the lack of focus.

A cool breeze flows down her back.

She trembles, feeling it behind her.

She can barely feel it, but it’s there.

Its claws slowly press in below her shoulders and drag down her back. Its breath gets heavier on her spine. Heavy and wet. Reaching deep past her arms, she feels the ideas being ripped from her very fingertips. The words right on the tip of her tongue are stolen. The demonic curse has staked its claim on all that belongs to her muse, draining the mana from its source.

More and more and more it takes and takes and takes.

It overpowers the writer's inspiration, making it cower until finally retreating to a muse that has abandoned her patron.

The lights start to flicker, on and off, switching inspiration from a bright orb to a mere glow and then to shadowy dust. The light gets snuffed out by something that she can't quite see but can still feel. She can feel it feeding, feeding on the words, feeding on her story, feeding on her.

Darkness engulfs the room as it digs its claws in. The shadows dance against the wall, silhouetted by the glow of the computer screen.

With shadowy tendrils, they reach toward the wordless document as if mocking it, showing the shifting and feeding of the creature. They move and moan around the room, ooohing and ahhing at the empty Word document on the screen, mocking the lack of words.

The demonic voice whispers, you could say it’s almost indescribable.

"It's okay, shhh, it's okay to merely be an audience,” The writer's block whispers in her ear. Voyeurism is overrated. It's just going to be bad anyway because you rushed it. Just stop trying. Procrastination is intoxicating, isn't it?"

Then, in tongues, it laughs and laughs.

They stared at each other before her eyes faded to grey. She stands up and stares toward the demon. She turns off her computer screen and walks out of the room. The demon laughs and laughs, all the while licking the inspiration of its stained claws.

It won another one.