Finch: Interactive Fiction

Years ago I used to write interactive fiction as enthusiastically as I did short stories and unfinished novels, but until very recently I hadn’t touched the medium again.

And here is the fruit of my nostalgic experimentation, a story titled Finch.

Thanks are in order for Joseph Humfrey, who designed an IF scripting language that was pleasant to write in, and for Yannick Lohse, to whom I owe being able to make Finch playable in your browser.


I say, “I’ve lost so much because of you.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “But we can make it right. I’m here for you.”
I look around his apartment for something I can hurt him with.

Future Cop

I wrote a story about a cop who has visions of deaths that are about to take place. You can read it here.


“I saw it. Like a vision.” I say, “I saw it happen, and I stopped it.”
“What, you saw them run over a kid and then you stopped it from happening?”
“Yeah.”
“Like Tom Hanks.”
I laugh, “Yeah, I’m goddamn Tom Hanks. Future cop.”

Heaven and Back

I’ve been doing plenty of writing recently, though I have been very bad about actually finishing anything. But today I put my writer pants on and got a story DONE, which you can read here.


Martha, Steven’s mother, took her prescribed antidepressants all at once. She woke, bleary, in an ambulance. Joshua, Steven’s father, held her hand tightly. Steven sat impassive in a corner that Martha could barely see. An EMT told Martha she’d be all right, and then she stopped breathing.