After I finish The Winter the Troll Danced with Old Nick, which really isn’t as far away as all that, I’ll be taking some time to work on a couple of costumes, and I’ll be working on a novella.
Let me tell you about the novella. I’ve been calling it my Southern Iowa werewolf novel, and it’s based in part, on two events from my childhood.
1. Mine was not the only dysfunctional family in town. We had a perpetual drunk, whose wife supported him until she died falling asleep coming home from her job. The drunk and the son lived alone for a while, and in retrospect, the situation was a bad one. I remember an older sibling sweeping in and taking charge of her younger brother, but there were some perilous months.
2. I stayed overnight with one of my farm friends. On that night, her dad and some other farmers had to go out and shoot a pack of wild dogs who were attacking their livestock. It horrified me.
I’ll be basing my story on these two events. It takes place in a small town in the 70s. These two stories will run concurrently with each other, and three people will grapple with the moral angles of what’s going on.
My question for you:
Which title would you prefer?
Were-humans
The Were-humans
Because I’m not sure whether the version with the article sounds better or not.
And yes, this is another one of those stories where I examine what it really is to be human, and it’s not just about the kind of species you happen to be. Which at this point surprises no one.
Catherine
I think I like “The Were-humans” better, as in my head, I read it as “they were humans” the first time, and I liked the inference/symbolism/whatever the fancy literary word for that is.
Sounds like it’d be interesting; I hope it gets published so I can read it.
I vote for “The Were-humans” too. It just sounds better to me.
This sounds like my kind of story. Iowa, Werewolves, the 70’s. You’ve sold me on this one already.