Even Hell Has Standards

“Pride”, it’s the first story in my “Even Hell Has Standards” collection / series (not quite sure where this one stands, because they are separate stories, yet they’re interlinked with each other, and they all belong in the same ‘universe’ so to speak.) This story has been giving me some grief over the past few months.

The idea for a series came from two stories I wrote about Hell, and I used the same theme in both. I thought it would be great if I worked both those stories out and added some more. For some reason I thought 7 stories would be a good number, and from there I decided to use the 7 sins concept.

What I want to do with this series is not just write about demons, but I want to write about the darkness of humanity. My story ‘Only Forgotten’ was a perfect fit for this idea, and with a rewrite this story should become ‘Pride’.

I’ll not lie to you, I’ve struggled with finding the right balance for this story. It’s challenging to rewrite something that already made a statement. I got some very good reviews about Only Forgotten, and it was a solid story. But in my opinion it needed some improvement too, a better narrative ‘voice’ for one. I’ve written so many drafts that –to be honest- the story went to the point of frustrating me. The character didn’t quite work each time, though the story was there. I wrote a lot of background for Adolf Zakerny, and then decided to use none of it. I made him more human, and then in a new draft, I took his humanity away again. The struggle still isn’t over, so I’m still writing and tweaking, until I’m satisfied this story will impress readers (okay, maybe not all readers, but that’s impossible)

At this moment I’m focusing more on full length novel writing, than I am on short pieces, but the “Even Hell Has Standards” series will be a fun challenge.