Solitaire Stories by Andy Hoover

fiction, comedy · EN

After about a year of tinkering, I have invented a new method of quickly writing pieces of short fiction. I plan to spend 2026 testing and refining this method by using it to craft a brand-new short story… every single day of the year! This experimental storytelling method requires only a standard pack of playing cards (plus a notebook, or whatever) and a commitment to follow the suggested narrative road wherever it leads. I've always loved writing, but have struggled with finishing anything, largely because I'm an inveterate tinkerer with perfectionist tendencies, a penchant for over-complicated plot-lines and world-building, and a fear of failure (and probably success, too). I have decided to short-circuit these liabilities and confront these fears and leave my fate to the whims of cartomancy, which I understand is the practice of divining one's fate via playing cards. I did not research this practice much, nor will I do much research of any kind on behalf any of the stories