A Shift Back to Contemporary - College Stories

During my college years I focused a lot on fantasy, but for a brief time I shifted back to contemporary and wrote several short stories that were just about real people with real problems. I enjoyed the step away from fantasy worlds and fantasy creatures to right about teenagers who were in need of help. I believe part of this was me working through my own traumas, and part of it was just me exploring how things in the world were different now to when I was younger.

So far, I haven't done anything with these stories, though I've considered making up a collection of them to sell.

What are they about you ask? Well... let me tell you. The first is a set of three stories called Heroes are Real. Each story follows a character Alec, Dhakiya, and Ryder.

Alec's story is about a boy (Alec) who finds himself face to face with a girl who is being abused by an alcoholic father. With support from his parents, he helps the girl get away and find a safe home to live in.

Dhakiya's story is about a girl (Dhakiya) who finds herself trying to overcome the fear and trauma of living with an alcoholic father. She works daily to overcome her trauma, only to be pulled back in when her father is released on bail and finds her. She is rescued by a boy who she learns, needs to be rescued himself.

Ryder's story is about a boy (Ryder) who saves a girl from an attack by her abusive father. Struggling himself and living on the streets, he is surprised when she steps up to attempt to help him out of the situation he's gotten himself into by living on the streets so long.

All three stories connect, if you couldn't tell. They need some work as I've written them years ago, but the bases of the story is still pretty solid.

One of the other stories I have is called Letters. It's about a boy who is mute and is given a suggestion by his therapist to write letters to his foster father to communicate what he is thinking and feeling to him.

I also branched out and started a horror story, and a sci-fi story. Both are only beginning concepts but it was neat to get an idea and a plot for a genre I'm not very familiar with.

As I mentioned, I am considering working on a collection of these, though I have not decided yet about it.

What do you think? Are these things you would want to read and check out? Let me know in the comments below.