Behind the Scenes: Red Sheets
Hey everyone! I’ve already writen this article in spanish, so check here if you happen to be here and want to read that version.
One of the best things of writing a book lies purely and exclusively within the anecdotal, that is, in the story behind the story. Each book has a why, a what for, a how, and this is what I want to talk about in this note. Referring to my my first published book, as the title reads, Red Sheets.
Everyone who has already read it may notice that it is not a read for anyone. Not everyone enjoys the crude stories and the harshness with which some scenes are described. For those who have not yet traveled through its vertiginous lines, perhaps this article may feed their curiosity a little.
Sheets Rojas is a collection of ten short stories, some within the thriller genre, others in the crime genre, others of mystery. But the question is: what led me to write such a book?
First, I have to admit that in my adolescence I was influenced by two books that I devoured in a few hours: Crónicas de una Muerte Anunciada (“Chronicles of an Announced Death”), by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Cuentos de Amor, de Locura y de Muerte (“Tales of Love, of Madness and of Death”), by Horacio Quiroga. The latter was the one that struck me the most, because I had never before read a book of stories with these characteristics. Without thinking too much, I made my first attempts, and that was how at age 16 I wrote my first short story, “Revenge”, which we now know as “Debts.”
Of course, Debts is very different now than its initial sketch, the grammar and its drafting are more mature. The core idea is the same, and in fact the introduction, the body and the ending are identical. The tales “Narwhal Operation”, “The Anniversary” and “Shattered” also come from my adolescense, although these ones did change a lot from its first version ten years ago. Narwhal Operation didn’t have a name, but its initial scene with the murder in the public bathroom was always been the trigger of the story.
The Aniversary’s name was “Until death brings us together”, as a counterpart of the phrase “Until death do us part”, and it was quite more… how can I say it… corny. It had nothing to do with the tragic end of the current version. Shattered, in the other hand, I never got to write it down, but it was a vague idea that I had in my mind, until I could finally shape it. Today is my favorite story, I feel really fascinated (and proud) when I read it!
The question that arises is, why I didn’t write Red Sheets way before? Well, the truth is that I never thought I would write a short stories book until early in 2016. During 2015 I was interested in participating in some writing contests, and that’s how “He is a Writer” and “Thank you very much” were born.
But I have to admit that I wasn’t comfortable with those contests. I never knew if the stories would be mine, or they would belong to the entity or institution that promoted the contest. It was all very uncertain, and the fear of losing the intellectual rights over my work led me to stop participating in contests.
It was at the beginning of 2016 when I realized that, at the age 27, I had wasted a lot of time. My dream of becoming a published writer had always been posponed for some reason: my career, the final exams, the “lack of time” (this is the most vile and untruth excuse in the universe), a heartbreak, the struggle agains unemployment… Although it is true that you need to be in good spirits to write, experience has taught me that it is a matter of willpower, discipline and, above all, avoiding the search for perfection. There’s a reason why proofreading exists, and in order to write you need to understand that the stories will never be perfect the first time you sketch them.
Although the epic-fantastic genre is my favorite and I have a story in development called “Harbinger of the Ancestors”, I chose to follow the advice of my good friend Marce and venture in the world of eBooks . I had no idea what I had to do, and I didn’t want to make mistakes with Harbinger, a work that has been going on for more than ten years.
This is why I set up to make Red Sheets, reviewing each tale I had already writen and putting myself to work to write new stories. I love my first book, I’m not ashamed of saying it, because I’ve learned many, many things thanks to it. And I’m still learning each day.
I end this article by saying what I always say: I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Until next time!
Duilio Giordano Faillaci
