Notes On Hellscraper

This story began as a series of writing exercises when I was living, single and alone, with a lot more time on my hands, in my one bed apartment in Kanagawa near Tokyo, Japan in 2006, called the 'Top Of My Head'. The premise was to write whatever came off the top of my head for an hour and see what came out. What did this time was a short story about a futuristic assassin called, "Another Day At The Office." It ended as the protagonist climbed onto his rock bike having obtained a personnel shifter, and rode back down the surface of the skyscraper. 

Years later and on a different continent, I included the story in a printed A4 binder full of tales called 'Hidden in The Old Stone Wall' and gave it to a fellow West Lothian writer to read. 'Another Day' fell into his 'Needs Work' category. He commented that he wanted to see more of the central character and his world.

As I hoped to self-publish 'Hidden in the Old Stone Wall' sometime before I died, expanding 'Another Day' became a priority.

Around that time I was giving another fellow writer feedback on his science fiction, asking, "How do people live? Are they inhabiting skyscrapers high up in the clouds or living in shafts deep in the ground?" I don't think he applied my suggestions, so when I received the signpost about 'Another Day' I decided to turn these thoughts to my own story.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time with spreadsheets calculating terminal velocities of falling humans in different positions (spread-eagled or bullet-straight, accelerating or in free-fall) and discovered that the fastest speed a human has ever skydived was 373 mph by Henrik Raimer in 2016 or 601 km/hr (167m/s) in the upper edges of the atmosphere. I put this towards how high a future skyscraper had to be and calculated floors fallen per second and all that, and in the end just thought 'Fuck it. It's high. It all happened fast. It's just a story. That'll do." When I ran the scene past West Lothian Writers they confirmed this. No-one cares.

After finishing the re-write I decided the tale merited a better title and figured it was all about getting into his home shaft, which now seemed the most interesting and futuristic element of the story. It was basically an inverted skyscraper, so I wondered if a hell-scraper was a thing. I googled it, and the word appears in one other place, to describe an architectural work in Madrid, Spain in 1972. I figured the link was tenuous enough to use the word as a title and there you have it.

I was in two minds about the "Sayonara, fuckface" line. At one point I deleted it and exchanged it with, "Goodbye, Mr Grant," only to find that the story immediately lost something. It became boring, bland, insipid, like a cup of weak, lukewarm tea you'd immediately pour in a nearby pot-plant. Is that all the protagonist could think of to say when his family, life and livelihood hung by a thread?

Around that time I began to realise no-one was likely to buy an anthology of short stories from a writer they hadn't heard of, and decided to switch tack and submit some stories individually to magazines where they might fit in thematically and therefore hold more value by adding to the publication.

I sent it off to a couple of places (it was enjoyed but rejected by Neon (a great online literary fiction magazine, check it out) who responded that although they liked it, felt it didn't fit in their publication. When I read their magazine I agreed, but their positive response encouraged me to keep trying elsewhere.

After hearing about StarShipSofa in an email from either Federation of Writers (Scotland) or West Lothian Writers (I forget which) saying they were open to submissions, I gave it a shot, crossed my fingers and waited.

Just when I was about to lose hope, I couldn't believe my eyes when I received an acceptance email in my inbox.

What followed was another few months of waiting as I did my best and failed to stop thinking, wondering, hoping what the story would sound like read by an American voice artist as an audiobook. Every second Wednesday I logged in to StarShip and found someone else's name on the featured story banner. I bit my knuckles. I chewed my nails. I pondered the imponderable.

Finally there it was. I couldn't wait a moment longer - I leapt into the podcast and listened with bated breath. I loved the host's reaction to the title of "What The Maid Sawed" and settled down as Hellscraper was read in an suave, hard-boiled tone by Mike Boris, with a high quality recording and wide array of voices (especially impressed by the robotic ones). But as he continued, one thing became clear: he'd put a lot more into his reading than I had into my writing, which I felt paled in comparison. Each word he spoke was done so with care and attention, whereas I flung words out haphazardly like buckshot, hoping to hit a target. 

I decided to take more care with my words from that point on.

One last thing: Mirligo, the name for the assassin's daughter, comes from the archaic Scots word mirligoes, meaning vertigo or dizziness.

Thoughts for other aspiring writers: Don't give up. Keep trying. Believe in yourself. Join writing groups. Sign up to newsletters. Knock on doors. Listen to feedback. Polish. Someone out there wants your work. Set a time aside daily for writing and stick to it.

You can listen to Hellscraper, delve into a huge back catalogue of awesome SF stories, or maybe even consider supporting writers & voice actors by setting up a regular Paypal donation to Starship Sofa here. Hope you like it!