Content Warning: death, homophobia, gay romance Full screen recommended! ~ The Music Box Maker (Beyond the Lines) // January Short Story (5088 words) Press space, left/right arrows, or left/right edge of the screen to progress through slides. Forum version: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/post/7774421/ Note if you're gauging how long it'll take you to read this -- there are a total of 33 slides in this project, so it's a short story on the longer side. ---------- General info: After a month of brainstorming, outlining, and drafting, I have finally finished this story! There's more information in the Author's Note (mild spoilers), but my New Year's resolution was to write a short story every month, with no word requirement. The only constraints I gave myself were to do a new genre each month (this month was romance) and that the short story I wrote would not be submitted to any competitions. My prose skills have never been the best (I'm more adept in poetry), so the main reason I'm doing this challenge is to show my progression in writing prose. This story is by no means a perfect draft. There are obviously parts that are a little wonky, but alas, I'm not going for perfection, just completion. I hope you enjoy this story-- see you next month ;D ---------- Author's Note: This is the first of twelve short stories I have challenged myself to write every month. I guess you could see this short story as the spiritual successor to Along the Lines, a short story I wrote in November 2022. You could interpret it as a story providing more context to the events in Along the Lines, or you could interpret it as a stand-alone story-- that's up to you :) I’ve noticed that the only time I fully completed any short story was when I was writing for writing competitions, and I decided that needed to change. My 2024 New Year’s resolution was to write a short story every month with no constraint; at first, I thought this would be a time-consuming process that I would lose the motivation to do, but I found myself allocating hours each day planning, revising, and drafting this short story. There’s so much freedom in not having to be restricted to a 2,000-word limit, and I was able to choose topics and experiment in a way that would’ve been difficult if this piece was to be judged in a competition. I always choose character names with intention. Besides the association with the constellations Lyra and Sagittarius (which was a total accident!), Lyron’s name means “a song that brings joy” and Sage’s name means “wisdom.” There’s some symbolism in there. :) Speaking of symbolism, this piece probably has the most motifs I’ve ever scattered throughout one short story. From the different forms of boxes to the word forever, this is likely the most complex story I’ve written in terms of symbolism yet. Special thanks to , , and some irl friends for reading over and critiquing my first draft! Their feedback was extremely valuable during this process. <3 Let me know if you're available to critique my future stories! ---------- Credits: Canva for slides Piano covers of Say Yes to Heaven - Lana Del Rey & Earth - Sleeping at Last by me (you can subscribe to my YouTube channel of piano covers here! https://www.youtube.com/ ) Me for everything else :)
