“Lord Parrington’s Promotion”, one of my flash stories, dropped today on the great email-a-day story site Daily Science Fiction. In this article I provide story notes on this strange little tale.

WARNING: There are spoilers in this article, so please take the few minutes required to read this one thousand word story: Click Here to read “Lord Parrington’s Promotion” on the DSF website.

Story Origins

This was a story that I started writing with no idea where it would go. That’s not too typical of my writing but I like to try that every now and then. I started by just writing nonsense. The original opening was this:

Hellfire.
Suffusion. Indigo whorls. Partial differentials. Violet thuds. Lord Parrington. Mauve insights–

Snap out of it, lady.

What?

I didn’t even use quotes on the first few lines of dialog. In the first draft the quote marks slowly started getting added to dialog as the main character, Polly, woke up out of her dreamlike simulation state. I had to scrap that as it confused workshop readers, though. Which is ironic because it was supposed to get across the point that Polly was confused by keeping the reader feeling off-balance… I guess it worked too well.

There was a lot of violence in the news the week I wrote this (when is there not?) and also a commentator talking about how video games might cause violence in some people. I also read a news article about the theory that we may be living in a simulation (I’d heard of this years ago but it came up in the news again for some reason). In addition, I had watched a historical movie about royalty in Europe, and it struck me how much time they spent in religious services, worshiping Jesus, “The Prince of Peace” yet had no problem murdering their rivals and “prosecuting bloody wars” for the purpose of gaining power. The hypocrisy was overwhelming.

Those ideas all got mashed together into this story. By the time I had the first four or five paragraphs drafted I knew where it was going and just banged it out. Another week or two of workshop comments and polishing, and it went out to market. DSF was the second market I sent this to and they bit (F&SF declined).

Part of the fun of the story is slowly learning just how different the game-playing aliens are, with weird combinations of body parts (wings, tentacles, vomiting mucus to show emotions) getting revealed over time. Even the final line of the story reveals one last anatomical detail. But perhaps the way these flying squid creatures differ the most from human beings is how they see violence, and are willing to put an end to even simulations that are too violent. Even though the alien culture doesn’t have a Jesus figure, they are much more willing to “turn the other cheek” than the rulers of old Europe. (Not to beat up on Europe’s history by any means! You can likely find the same sorts of hypocrisy among at least some leaders in every culture and time period.)

Layering

This story is a good example of the technique of “layering.” There are a bunch of different layers: The alien’s body structure reveal, the implicit commentary on religious hypocrisy among some world leaders, and ideas about simulation theory and the nature of reality, as well as how video games might affect people’s views on violence. Polly comes out of the simulation with violent habits evidenced in her speech patterns, and it takes a while to start breaking those habits.

Arc

The main character also has a clear arc in this story. When Polly first wakes up, she wants “heads to roll” and acts a lot like the demanding, power-hungry human Queen she played for 50 years of experiential time. But as she adapts back to her own world, she decides to “turn the other cheek” and not punish the hapless intern who burned her at the stake. She thinks a bit further about how it affected her and decides the entire simulation should be shut down.

Timeline

Here’s the full timeline of this story.

• Draft started 6/20/2019
• Submitted to workshop 6/22
• Revised 6/24 based on comments from 3 reviewers
• Revised 6/25 based on 3 more sets of comments
• Submitted to F&SF on 6/25. Declined on 6/26 “DWMO” from CC Finley
• Revised on 7/2 based on additional comments received in workshop.
• Submitted to DSF on 7/8. Bump notice on 8/4. Acceptance notice on 8/17. Contract signed on 8/20/2019.
• Published on DSF 1/8/2020

Total calendar time: 2 months from started first draft to contract, about 6.5 months to publication. This is not an unusual amount of time.

Total actual writing time was around 4 hours including all edits.

Is This Story Anti-Religion?

One workshop reviewer commented that the story seemed anti-Christian. I didn’t see it that way at all, and I certainly didn’t intend it to be interpreted that way. It’s anti-hypocrisy. It’s anti-violence.

Conclusion

But regardless of anyone’s religious beliefs, I hope the idea that trying to reduce the level of violence we find in our current world is something that we can all both-heartedly agree on!

What does the story mean to you? Leave a comment and let me know.

See also: “Gator and the Big Buzz” Accepted by FFO
See also: Turning Everyday Life into Science Fiction Story Ideas