Story Chat is back!

Story Chat is a place on Marsha Ingrao’s blog–Always Write–where a different author every month shares their short story while readers come together to chat about the story. This is year three of Story Chat and the big change this year is that there’s two authors/two stories per month instead of one!

Story Chat is part writers group, part beta readers, part fun fiction, and wholly enjoyable! It runs from October to September. Learn more HERE.

First up this year is Hugh W. Roberts with his story called ‘You’re it.’

Hugh writes twisty tales with endings that you rarely predict. Have you ever watched the Twilight Zone? Well, Hugh might snatch you out of your comfort zone and catapult you into the Twilight Zone with his stories. Don’t expect to see the words, ‘and they all lived happily ever after.’

‘You’re It’ is no exception.

My favourite part of the story is the foggy setting. It immediately gives us a sense of eeriness and doubt. The main character isn’t particularly fond of walking in the fog but he wants to take photos for his blog post. As he climbs the foggy hill, he realises he has company. Or has he? Rather than retreat to the comfort of his home he continues on!

The chat about Hugh’s story is engaging, as always. A couple of readers wondered, why would someone who doesn’t like fog, go out there for photos? And what type of image would you manage to capture in the fog anyway?

I completely understand why someone would head out into the fog with their camera. I take my little Nikon with me quite often when I go for walks. I went searching through my thousands of photos for my favourite foggy pics.

The first photo was taken one foggy winter’s morning as I walked the path to Belleek Forest. I wasn’t alone. I don’t do forest walks alone no matter what the weather or season!

This next photo was taken in Sweden last March. It was such a beautiful scene. The lake was frozen and the fog was icy cold. It gave me the shivers but I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I took a few photos and they’re all similar, but this one was the best. I was surprised it came out as well as it did. I was playing around with different settings on my camera so some of them were quite dark and shadowy.

I think today’s post is appropriate for Marsha’s WQ (Wednesday Quotes) #41; photos, poems, thoughts, and stories about the surprises in your life.

Looking out to the sea on a bright sunny day is inviting and refreshing, but on a bleak foggy day it gives me a feeling of gloom and trepidation. I often wonder why fog does this to some of us. Is it because we can’t see clearly? What lies beneath…?

“Things aren’t always as they appear on the surface.”

The photo below reminds me of Hugh’s story; walking uphill towards the fog, but this isn’t fog, it’s clouds.

I came across this cloud quote and it made me smile.

Thanks for visiting today. But before you go…

Would you like a peek inside the pages of my fictional novel? It might just be your cup of tea!

Set in a gossipy small town in Ireland at a time when marriage is for keeps and sexuality is repressed, Secrets in the Babby House is a family saga over three decades that starts in 1956. It is a story of love, deception, and stolen diaries filled with sins and secrets.