“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.”
― How to Win Friends and Influence People
The duality of intolerance
The Silver Plague was the easiest story for me to write because it was from a dream I had. I mean a very vivid one. I was actually going to save it for the fantasy series that I’m currently worldbuilding for along with my LGBTQ+ Crimeverse series. Anyway, I had this dream and I wanted to get it down on my paper before it escaped me. Glad I did, too, because I felt like this would be a close candidate for My Top Ten Favorite Short Stories.
Racial and social intolerance has always been a hot-button topic for me. I could never understand how people can have so much hatred and disdain for things that can’t be controlled. In addition, I’m mystified at their justification for their hatred as if it’s their right to be cruel to people that are different than them. Granted the First Amendment gives them freedom of speech but they always take it too far and without remorse. So, I got to thinking after having this dream: Wouldn’t that be a great story? A better I had was “Wouldn’t that be great if it was possible”? That’s the thing about fantasy and science fiction. The shoulda, woulda, coulda. Especially with topics as dark as this.
So, for the story, I wanted to keep the basic troupes in a fantasy story. You know, werewolves and witches? But this time, I added something that I started to become fond of after reading the Colin McCool series by M.D. Massey. Druids don’t get a lot of credit in literature and I wanted to contribute. However, I didn’t know too much, and I wanted to get these short stories done, so I kept it as basic as possible. A type of witch who draws magic from the four elements. Easy peasy…until I decided I wanted to create a unique druid. You know, me being me. I won’t tell you how unique he is; you’re going to have to read to find out.
Anyway, I took a moment to create a brief string of events because I wanted the main conflict to be disjointed and shrouded in inconsistencies like the natural state of intolerance. No one knows where it came from but they do that it’s here and it’s causing problems. I also wanted to show how far someone with magic can spread hate and, vice versa spread peace. It’s the magical battles of the extremes and there will be no clear winner. I can assure you of that. There never is. People will go to great lengths to get their point across. We’ve all seen that throughout the media.
The letter format of the story was something that I decided on a whim, really. I wanted to see if it could work since I’ve done something similar for Revenge or Justice (click here and here). A diary format and people seemed to like it. Plus, I think it’s a dying art form. The whole letter story thing.
I managed to get the story done within a couple of days. I had my notes that I wrote about my dream and everything else was just smooth sailing. Oh! Side note, don’t be surprised if you see the main character, the writer of the letter, in another story. And, with that, I hope you enjoy the story.
You can buy the book on Amazon. The link is here.
You can also learn about it on Goodreads. The link for it is here.
