My story “Hazard Pay; Competence; Wyrms” is out today at Luna Station Quarterly! I don’t want to say this is my favourite of all the stories I’ve written, but it is probably the one I’m most proud of. I’ve always loved stories that use an unusual format; about five years ago I made a note that said “story told in the form of legal cases? court reports? case summaries?”, which was of personal interest to me because as a lawyer I spend a lot of my day reading case law, and often the cases tell a story. I didn’t do anything with the idea for a long time, though, because I couldn’t come up with a plot that could be conveyed through the lens of a series of law reports. Then, a few years ago, I had an idea for a story about monster hunters forming a union, and in the summer of 2024 I thought to put these two things together, with the idea that labour law (which deals with disputes between unions and employers) would be a good fit, because there’s an extended narrative and multiple cases involving the two sides. From that, “Hazard Pay; Competence; Wyrms” was born. Some parts of it — coming up with the fantasy dispute resolution systems, for example — were fun and easy. Other parts — figuring out how much detail the cases needed in order to sustain the arc of a story — were tricky. (I also spent an inordinate amount of time coming up with the names for fantasy months and making sure that the dates for each case fit with the narrative.) I was very pleased when I came up with a plot that would tell a story both about the conflict between union and employers as a whole, while also telling a story about one individual monster hunter.
The end result is a story that, I think, rewards re-reading, because the story about the individual monster hunter is very much a matter of inference and reading between the lines for the first two-thirds of the case reports. (Another tricky point: trying to figure out how much I needed to foreshadow for the reveal to feel earned, but not too obvious. I am still not sure I got that right, so if you read this story and want to report back on when you went oh, I see what’s happening here, I’d love to hear from you. Or feel free to comment and say I still don’t know what you’re talking about!)