Weekly Unfinished Tales and Short Stories from our Dataset
Welcome to our weekly collection of narrative experiments from the ‘Unfinished Tales and Short Stories’ program. This ongoing creative arts and research initiative serves as a dynamic archive of storytelling seeds, born from a simple yet compelling motivation: it was for fun, and to learn what we can do! Each fragment represents a moment of exploration, a question posed to the narrative form, allowing our interdisciplinary team to engage with the raw material of story in a playful, yet rigorous, manner.
These diverse narrative sketches directly serve our primary research objectives. For our work in AI-Assisted Scriptwriting, they act as foundational prompts for generating complex plot structures and exploring alternative story arcs. Concurrently, they are instrumental in our Talent Development studies, providing tangible case studies for examining the evolving skill sets required for creative professionals. By analyzing these fragments, we gain insight into the digital literacy and interdisciplinary approaches necessary for navigating the intersection of human creativity and immersive technologies.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Glass Frequency
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Psychological Drama | Genre: Noir
The wind coming off the water had teeth. Not the clean, sharp bite of a mountain cold, but a damp, grinding chill that worked its way through the wool of my coat and settled deep in my joints. It carried the smell of low tide and rust, a scent I knew better than my own name. The planks of the old amusement pier groaned under my weight, each step a complaint from tired, salt-bleached wood. Ahead, the skeletal remains of a Ferris wheel clawed at a sky the colour of a dead television screen.
The Stained Index Card
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Espionage / Spy Fiction | Genre: Action-Adventure
The public library was a tomb of dust and weak autumn light. Sunlight, the colour of pale tea, struggled through the tall, grimy windows, illuminating the slow, lazy drift of particles in the air. It smelled of decaying paper, floor polish, and the damp wool of someone’s coat. The only sounds were the soft rustle of turning pages and the distant, rhythmic thump of a librarian’s stamp, each one landing with an air of finality.
The Geometry of Falling
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Psychological Thriller | Genre: Sports Fiction
The air conditioning in the Zenith Performance Centre had one job, and it was failing spectacularly. It was the kind of thick, recycled air that tasted of sweat and ozone, clinging to the skin like a second layer. High above the padded floor, fifteen metres of vertical space separated Franklin from everything that felt solid, the multi-coloured plastic holds a constellation of impossibilities he was supposed to solve in under six seconds.
Whiteout Protocol
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Journalistic | Genre: Satire
The thermal undersuit was scratchy. Not the gentle, woolly kind of scratchy her gran knitted, but a stiff, synthetic irritation that felt like a thousand tiny needles against her skin. It was, according to Mr. Sterling, ‘state-of-the-art moisture-wicking technology designed for peak human performance,’ but to Poppy, age nine, it was just a bad jumper you couldn’t take off.
A Borrowed Warmth Against the White
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: First-Person Narrative | Genre: Western
The world had shrunk to the colour of bone and the sound of wind. Snow, driven hard and fine like sand, scoured the grey bark of the cottonwoods lining the creek. It was a cold that didn’t just bite; it gnawed, finding its way through the threadbare wool of a boy’s coat and settling deep in his marrow.
Design Notes and Applied Research
This collection merges classic genres like Noir and Western with intricate subject categories such as Psychological Drama and Espionage. This diverse range provided a structured framework for participants to develop fundamental storytelling skills, from building tension to mastering narrative voice. The juxtaposition of these elements directly serves our program’s goal of interrogating traditional narrative structures within a contemporary context.
As an exploration into creative production, this project was a valuable and engaging experiment. Applying established narrative forms within a digital framework allows for a direct analysis of the ongoing transformation of the arts. The resulting works provide a compelling case study on the intersection of foundational artistic discipline and new media.
About the Project
The Unfinished Tales and Short Stories collection was an interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment in 2025. It was part of a creative arts and participatory research project by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners collectives. It focuses on two key areas: AI-Assisted Storytelling and Scriptwriting, exploring AI tools for generating ideas, plot structures, and story arcs; and Talent Development and Training, studying digital skills, literacy and training needs for creative professionals by experimenting with AI and immersive technologies to inform future projects. Funding and support were generously provided by the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario. We thank them for supporting the arts, digital transformation, and applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) research.
