A writer can never take their writer’s cap off, so when an idea sparks to life, it sticks around. I am talking about the seed of an idea here. The seed of an idea is the easy part. Fleshing that seed out into a full-blown story takes brainstorming, feedback, and rewriting

Steven Blows – 26 June 2025

The Back Flap

It is impossible for anyone to know what the future will bring or even what is lurking behind the next corner, but it is possible to wonder, to question, to imagine. Have you ever imagined?

Machines with science beyond compare, intergalactic relics possessing unlimited power, creatures of nightmares, troubling family dinners, and more are included in this enthralling anthology of the awe-inspiring, the wonderous and the bone-chilling. Examining topics of greed, love, and fate, there are stories designed to make your heart race, others designed to melt it.

Possible futures and the horrors of today, Tales of the Forthcoming is a collection of ten short stories like no other.
So make a cuppa, sit back, and forget the world for a short while as you dive into a world of make-believe where imagination rules.

About the book

What is the book about?

Tales of the Forthcoming is a short story anthology containing 10 enticing stories of varying lengths. The first half of the book is devoted to science-fiction and the second half delves into the realm of the supernatural. The book explores a range of topics from intergalactic relics of immense power to haunted highways, examining themes from love to fate and everything in-between. All the stories share two commonalities: they are tales of the future, and they border either on the unknown or the unknowable!

When did you start writing the book?

I started writing this book without even realizing it. I mostly write screenplays and writing screenplays is very restrictive with its use of language and word choice. There is no space for imagination when it comes to descriptions. A yellow chair is simply a yellow chair. It has no texture and no vibrant description. So, I began to write short stories as a way of having fun with words to give depth to my ideas. As time passed, I noticed that I had all these short stories sitting there. So, I followed my admiration for self-publishers and decided to collect them into an anthology that I would self-publish.

How long did it take you to write it?

For me, a short story can take anything from an afternoon to a couple of days to write. Rewriting a story can take up to three times this amount of time. As explained above, because I had these short stories waiting to be turned into an anthology, I had already done half the work, so once I decided to create Tales of the Forthcoming, the real challenge began in creating a saleable collection of stories. There had to be a sense of unification in their tones, genres, and themes, yet there also had to be a variation between subject matters and styles. This is as much part of writing an anthology as writing the stories themselves. Putting the book together, fine tuning each individual story took, and doing all those nitty-gritty aspects that make up the world of self-publishing took me around 6-months, although I was still working on writing other projects at the same time.

Where did you get the idea from?

Since Tales of the Forthcoming is an anthology, my ideas came from an array of different places. Some came from story prompts provided in the Reedsy newsletter, but most came to me randomly in everyday places. A writer can never take their writer’s cap off, so when an idea sparks to life, it sticks around. I am talking about the seed of an idea here. The seed of an idea is the easy part. Fleshing that seed out into a full-blown story takes brainstorming, feedback, and rewriting. For example, my story Unbeknownst change drastically due to rewriting and went from being the shortest to the longest in the collection. It is a completely different story than when it was originally written and it is my personal favorite in the collection.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

I struggled with punctuation and grammar. I know that this is an unusual thing for a writer to admit to, but it is true. Ever since I was young, these things have always troubled me. They are like weeds that crop up as quickly as I cut them down. I consider myself more of a storyteller than anything else and I write whatever medium that a story demands. Sometimes this makes a story a short story, other times a film script. Since coming from a background of screenwriting where sentences are very basic, having the depth of the English language at my disposal when writing Tales of the Forthcoming was a challenge to get right. Luckily, the things I struggle with can be improved through rewriting and is always checked over by an editor, so such struggles won’t be clear when looking at the end product.

What came easily?

Putting words on paper came easily for me. I rarely struggle with writer’s block once I sit down to write, this is because I have already gone through writer’s block before I sit down to write, planning my story and character’s out in detail before I even attempt to write the first word. In a sense, I have already labored over the things that normally cause writer’s block such as not knowing what direction to take a certain scene in. Once I begin to write, I can just have fun with choosing the most interesting ways to describe what I have laid out in my story plan. It is easy to move forward in this regard, because you don’t have to write a masterpiece the first time around. Your first draft is concerned with having words on the page. Rewriting is an arduous part of writing, although it is often the most rewarding part too.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

My characters are entirely fictitious since I adapted them to serve the premise of the story and it’s key themes most effectively. For example, I don’t know anyone who would be a good candidate for raiding an interplanetary millennia old tomb of a space king. However, in saying this, I do take inspiration from the real world when creating my characters. Not directly from any one individual person, but from my lived experience. The more people you meet, the better understanding you have of the types of personalities people have and all of their idiosyncrasies that make them unique. It is almost as if you have this bank of personalities you can choose from that best fits the character you need.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

I love to read, however, as a writer I live in a world of fiction, so when I read, I like to get away from the make belief for a while and read non-fiction. This helps me learn about the world and provides me with all kinds of interesting stuff to write about. I still keep a fiction book on the go. An author who never fails to impress and inspire me is the great Terry Pratchett. He was a true original. His descriptions take the rules of language and make them his plaything. His imagination and whimsical sense of humor make for a guaranteed chuckle from every page. When a story that I am writing allows for a lighter tone, I like to think that I embody some of those same qualities that I admire in Terry Pratchett.

Do you have a target reader?

My target reader would be someone with an inquisitive mind who enjoys pondering on the unknown. In other words, anyone who enjoys science-fiction and the supernatural. Since Tales of the Forthcoming is an anthology, there is a breadth of variety in subject matters and tones. I would recommend it to anyone aged 16+.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

I am by no means a regimented writer, although I do follow a method that works for me. This method is to plan the story first and then write it. I always give myself a time gap of a week or more before I attempt any rewrites. If you don’t give yourself time to process things, you become burned out on the story. In terms of actually getting in front of a computer and writing, I clear my schedule for an hour or a few and do the work. W. Somerset Maugham once said, “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” What he is essentially saying is that the end product is what counts. I have found what works for me and other writers do the same.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

I do outline my story. I don’t plan every scene, because that leaves no space for serendipity and the joy of creating something new when you are in the flow of writing. I start my outline with Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! beat sheet. It is the holy grail of story structures. There are many story structure outlines floating around and all are as valid as the next one that comes along. Break a story into 3 act movements, or 25, it doesn’t really matter. They are both right. It is only that one lets you plan in a greater detail. The Save the Cat beat sheet is that sweet spot. It’s just the right length with the ebbs and flows of the plot clearly laid out in the correct order for a linear structure. This is my starting point for whatever story I am writing whether it is a short story or a feature-length screenplay, because structure is universal and synonymous with story. In other words, wherever there is plot, the rules of plot apply.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?

I edited each short story after its initial completion, because it gives a nice little bit of variety between solid sessions of creative writing. I only do this once though or else I would not be moving forward with the book. I then go over everything a few times after the book is completed. Editing is one of those things that you can do until the cows come home. It is never finished, because every time you look at the story you will see something else you either want to improve, or write in a different way, but you have to say enough is enough. Knowing when enough is enough is the hard part, because you want the story to be in its best shape, but you don’t want to edit it until it is no longer the same story it started out as.

Did you hire a professional editor? (May skip if being published by a small press rather than self-publishing)

I hired the wonderful professional editor, Pauline Nolet. I noticed that she had edited a few books from another self-published author that I enjoy reading, so I knew that her editing chops would make the cut. I can’t praise her enough for her thorough work and clear communication.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

I know that some authors do listen to music when writing, but I am yet to meet someone who does! I personally don’t listen to music when writing. I would be distracted, even if the music was instrumental, classical or jazz. If a beat were to get ahold of my attention, I would only be able to focus on that beat. Art deserves to be paid attention to, both the art of the music and the art that I hope to create in my writing.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

I decided not to submit my short stories or the completed Tales of the Forthcoming manuscript to any agents or publishers. Unfortunately, short stories are a small and therefore highly competitive market with little pay out. This is true for all creative endeavors, but even more so for short stories. As children, we begin our journey into literature with short stories, but as adults it is as if we have forgotten their merits and have grown out of them. Therefore, there aren’t many agents looking for short story anthologies unless they are by a named author. After doing some research I decided that self-publishing my book would bring around the same results, so I moved forward, bringing the book to life through my own vision.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

My book cover was created by the talented THISISREALLYCHRIS, a freelancer that I came across on the freelancer website Fiverr. This is one of my favorite websites. I have used many freelancers on this site for a range of reasons over the years and every freelancer that I have used is top level. For my book cover, I designed the layout myself. Like most of my ideas, I can’t recall where I got the idea from, but I liked the idea of having a clock face on the cover because it plays into the books topic of time, with all of the stories playing out in possible futures. I then replaced the hour markers with small illustrations of icons and images taken from each of the stories. This worked out great, because it then meant that I had illustrations to place above each chapter heading within the book. THISISREALLYCHRIS then created the cover’s artwork, giving the cover an otherworldly sense comparable to The Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

My marketing has been somewhere between the two extremes. You need a plan to make the best of timely opportunities as they come. For example, promoting book promotions alongside social media advertisements can help to boost sales. However, as a writer, I write to stay away from such administrative jobs such as market research, so marketing has been a task for me to complete rather than something to enjoy, but I did it just as religiously, nonetheless. There was some advice for marketing self-published books that I had to ignore. This was advice to do with creating a reader’s list and multiple book deals. Some authors want to create a living through self-publishing, whereas I wanted to self-publish just one book. I may well self-publish more books in the future and therefore that advice will become relevant, but for now it is something that I don’t have to pay attention to. As a self-publisher, there are a hundred different ways that you can plan out your book and sell it. You have to decide on one way and do that one way to the best of your ability.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

There is a lot to learn about being an indie author and it is overwhelming but take you’re your time and you will get it done. You are capable of it. Everyone is a writer. Starting with writing short stories is like taking an entry level course. Rumors, gossip, jokes, excuses, anecdotes, and lies are all daily inventions of short stories that we call life. When I tell someone that I am a writer, I often get a response of, “I have a good idea for a book”. Everyone has ideas. The only difference between the person who says, “I have an idea”, and the person who says, “I have written a book,” is that one person has put the time into learning and practicing the craft of writing. Like I said, things can be overwhelming, but you are not alone. There are countless websites, books, classes, and tutorials with all the information you need to get the job done. It may seem like there is a lot to learn and even more to write, and there is, but the good thing is, you only have to do it the once. Once you know how to do something, you can do it again and again.

About You

What are you working on now?

Between writing short and feature length film scripts, I am currently working on a stage play. This is the first story that I have written in this format, and as an avid theater goer, I am very excited to learn this craft.

End of Interview:

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Get your copy of Tales of the Forthcoming from Amazon US or Amazon UK.