I'm Back! What's Happening?

      Hi, readers! It's been way too long since I last posted here. But I'm back again to tell you that Two-tone Tales is still alive, update you on what's been happening in the meantime, and let you know what's in store in the near future.

     So...the last post here was in July. To be honest, the spring in which I began creating this blog was full of major ups and downs that I couldn't have prepared for. My last semester of my master's certificate program took up a lot of energy. I was involved in an ESL internship that was very intensive in many ways. I also admittedly got sidetracked by novel-length projects I wanted to work on. And on top of all that, I faced a major shift in my mental health. All of that combined into a perfect storm that knocked me off balance quite a few times and now, as we're nearing the end of 2025, it looks like my dream of sharing more writing with you didn't quite go as planned.

     But 2025 isn't over yet. And as I've been looking after my mental health and reconfiguring my writing priorities, I'm back on track to fulfill my promise. I'd like to let you in on what that'll mean.

     In working on novel-length projects this year, I both saw improvement in my writing and I also drove myself close to the brink of burnout. Fewer things help me out of burnout like working on A) smaller projects and B) new/different ideas. Now, obviously my unfinished In the Midst series with author's notes hasn't concluded yet. That will continue to be serialized here until the final installment I wrote years ago. I also want to get back to the rough, experimental short works that I played around with earlier this year. And while I won't promise anything, I'm interested in seeing if I could potentially bring my Salem story to life here starting in 2026.

     But my most exciting announcement for Two-tone Tales is this: once I've spent enough time developing characters, setting up adequate worldbuilding, and writing up a minimal outline, I'm going to share a sci-fi series with you!

     Now, all kinds of speculative fiction appeal to me. Sci-fi, however, is one I have a complicated dynamic with. The sci-fi I tend to gravitate towards is on the softer side - think Star Trek: Next Generation, Doctor Who, the Portal game series, etc. I'm not much for hard sci-fi (setting everything up to be as scientifically realistic as possible), and when I think about writing any kind of sci-fi myself, I get intimidated by the kind of work needed to render a believable yet engaging world. Which is kind of funny, because one of my earliest attempts at writing a book was an unfinished story I wrote in my teens about a crew of runaway androids. 

     Now, however, I have an idea that just won't let go of me. It involves things like androids, time paradoxes, modified humans (with what you could call superpowers), and memory extraction/erasure. I'm still early in the development of this, so I don't have a premise or even a one-sentence plot summary to share. But there's a ragtag crew, hidden identities, lost pasts, adventures, and resisting the powerful for the good of all. And I really want to write it.

     Here's the thing. If I was working on this like one of my novel-length projects, there'd be (at least) a month's worth of development and outlining before I even drafted. And then, I'd work on it over and over until it was good enough. But this time...I want to do something different. Working on a new genre is a learning experience - one I want you to be part of. I've shared rough, unrevised works here before. I've done this both as a way to encourage myself to just try things with courage and as a way to help aspiring writers see the drafting phase of writing in real time. 

     So - I'm only going to develop this story so I have enough information to start writing with (characters, world, other useful info). I will create a rough outline to get the story going, but I won't outline the entire plot of the whole story. This sci-fi series is going to be something you and I discover together as it is written. It's meant to be rough, imperfect in places, but also mostly unplanned. Because sometimes the most interesting parts of a story are the parts we couldn't have prepared for. For you readers and writers alike, this'll be a chance to see the pros, cons, and workarounds of making things up as you go.

     I'll need a couple weeks or more to get all I need figured out. But once I do, it's take-off time. I'm excited to see what this series becomes & I'll be very interested in your thoughts, too!

     With that, that's all I have for updates at the moment. Keep your ears and eyes open for new short works and for the beginning of the upcoming sci-fi series. If you follow me on Instagram (@madeleinefmilligan), I'll make a post when the first part of this series is available. 

     Thanks for sticking around even in the silent period - I'm looking forward to sharing stories with you again!

 ~ Madeleine

In the Midst #2 - A Tale of Two Drafts

 

     So, this is going to be a longer post, but bear with me! If you’re a writer interested in learning others’ processes or a reader curious about what the process looks like, you’re going to love this installment of In the Midst!

     The thing about Part 2 of this unfinished series is that there are two versions of it. I’ll show you the first version before I explain what I liked/didn’t like and before I show you the second and final version of Part 2 that was originally published.

 

In the Midst #2

     I’ve been debating with myself all morning. After looking at my completed list of locations, I see that I’ve failed to explore the majority of it. I should…but I really don’t want to.

     It’s all because of my stupid dreams. For the past few nights I keep having anxiety dreams and nightmares. The nightmares actually aren’t the worst. At least with those, there’s just a shock and then you wake up (maybe in a cold sweat, but now worse for wear). I can usually sleep again after a few heart-pounding moments.

     But the anxiety dreams hit differently. They have a dread that lingers in my body, that makes it hard to breathe. And unlike my nightmares (which are about my real world problems), every anxiety dream takes place in this world.

     I’m always wandering alone. Everything around me is alright until it isn’t. Suddenly something like a staircase leading into the clouds will appear. Or a skyscraper slowly melting. Or a pool that has no visible floor. Shadows grow darker.

     And then there are footsteps. Distant and quiet at first, but when I turn around, they get faster. There’s no one in sight, but the footsteps keep coming. I run to hide somewhere and the invisible stranger runs by. I’m safe, but too terrified to come out of hiding.

     That’s how these dreams usually go. It would be easier to push them aside if I wasn’t alone. But they make even a trip to the Sweet Tomato feel like it could be my last.

     No. This can’t go on.

     I’m going to pick one – or two? No, one. One is enough. I’ll pick one place on my list that I haven’t fully explored, and I’ll prove to myself that everything is fine.

     As fine as it can be, that is.

 

     Picked the easiest location – the Outskirts Gas Station. It’s been awhile since I was out of town (guess I’ll have to name that, too). It’s also the first time I’ve seen the unbuilt spaces in broad daylight. It’s pretty out here…if also familiar in an unsettling way. It looks like every computer background from 15 or even 20 years ago: rolling green hills and bright blue skies. Too perfect to be real. And no noise, which makes me wish there were birds chirping. Still, I guess it’s better than that weird static hiss in town.

     This gas station also makes me kind of sad. It reminds me of the road trips my family used to take. At least, Mom and my siblings and I. Dad was usually too busy at work. I have lots of memories of staring out the window, wondering why the land zoomed by but the sky stood still. And, obviously, memories of stopping at plenty of places like this along the way.

     Strange, though. I went inside to see what kind of snacks there were. The logos on everything were…how shall I put it? It was like the fonts were melting. You can’t read the names of anything because the letters are mushed together beyond legibility.

     Many people say they can’t read in their dreams. Is this what they’re talking about when they describe what they see?

     If only this whole place – and my stay in it – was a dream.

     Being out here makes me feel braver, though. If there was any room to sleep, I’d make my homebase in this gas station. At any rate, I’m brave enough that I’ve drawn up an exploration plan for myself. I’ll look into the Familiar Schools first (3 total). Then I’ll move onto the offices on White Collar Avenue. My last main target will be the neighborhood of Daisy Hill. With that, I’ll comb the streets and look inside just one or two houses. No point in checking all of them when I’m pretty sure I know what I’ll find. That and I want to spend as little time in that creepy neighborhood as possible.

     I should probably go back to town before it gets dark.

 

     Had another anxiety dream. Can’t sleep. It’s too dark in the rest of the mall to walk around, so I’m writing instead. The kids clothing store (across from where I normally sleep) is the only store that has its lights on 24/7, which is where I am.

     I should find something like a radio. If I had a little music, maybe these nights wouldn’t be so bad. At least, I wouldn’t be so paralyzed with fear after these dreams. Hell, it could help with exploration in general. Half the reason I don’t want to go anywhere is because the quiet is too much.

     Or what if I found the mall’s music system? It’s quiet in here, too, but this is a mall. Every mall in the real world played music. Music was about the only thing that let you know that places like this were still alive.

     Searching for that could also help me find the power to this place. Then maybe I could turn on some more lights…

     I’m going to look.

 

     Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

     I’m not sleeping for the rest of the night. And I’m not going back there until daylight is pouring through the skylights. Don’t want to say anything about whatever I just saw – I’ll just keep watch until the night is over.

 

     Like I said in the author’s note for Part 1, I drew on a lot of memories and past experiences of the late 90s/early 2000s to create a nostalgia-haunted world fit for a dreamcore story (see previous author’s note if you need a refresher on what dreamcore is).

     In this one, as you could probably guess, I was drawing on memories of places you find in transit – places like gas stations you’d stop at during road trips. My family (my mother, my siblings, and I) used to make a trip every summer from Nevada to Colorado to visit family. Gas stations and rest stops had a certain strange feel to them as a kid – as if they existed in a reality far removed from those of neighborhoods and cities.

     In this version of Part 2, I included the element of anxiety dreams. Lots of lists of writing advice will tell you to avoid using dreams in storytelling (often with the saying that they’re almost never executed well). But I’m stubborn and to me, I think dreams have a lot of potential in storytelling. They’ve had a huge impact on my waking life and I feel it’s a waste to cut them out of stories entirely.

     Looking at this version of Part 2 overall, however, I see the reasons why this didn’t make the official cut for online publishing. It’s pretty threadbare as far as any actual storytelling. All we learn is that the unnamed narrator is having bad dreams, is slowly but surely exploring, and can’t stand the silence. There are elements here, but none are really expanded upon to either progress the plot or reveal more about the narrator – they’re just kinda there. Also that poor excuse of a “cliffhanger” at the end doesn’t give enough of an idea of what scared the narrator to make the reader want to know what happens next.

     I can also see in here a mistake I still make from time to time. Sometimes, when thinking of my potential readers, I feel the urge to sort of “touch and go” – bring up things in a story and then move on too quickly from them. This means a lot of things come up, but they’re not always developed well enough to mean something to the overall story. And while you can always go back and fix this kind of stuff in revisions, I was writing this series with the purpose of it being polished as little as possible (to push on my fears of imperfection). If I was going to publish something rough, I still wanted it to have some semblance of quality.

     So after rereading this a few times, I went back and tried again. This was the version of Part 2 that ended up published 2 years ago.

 

In the Midst #2

I don’t know why in the two and a half months I’ve been here, I haven’t thought to find a radio or anything that plays music. All this time, I’ve been living in unbearable silence and hating it so much. It just makes me so paranoid about going anywhere or being alone. Leaves too much room for my mind to imagine things that would make me more scared. If I had something that could play music, news, or literally anything, things would be a little better.

     I’ve also been thinking I ought to explore more. Like really explore. As is evident by the partial list I gave last time, a lot of this town remains a mystery to me. Mostly because I just walk the streets. Knowing no one is around doesn’t make the buildings any less ominous. Instead, it makes the houses feel like they could be sentient. It’s as if now that no one’s around, the houses have woken up and are watching everything – watching me.

     Anyway, I don’t like going inside. But once I have something to break the silence and save my sanity, I should. There could be useful things in the houses, schools, and offices. If nothing else, there might be clues as to what this world is. Its history, its people.

     If there were people. There would have to be people, right? Why else would all this be here? You can’t have architecture without someone to build it.

 

     Spent all day and nearly gave up, but I have music!

     First, I looked around the mall. I’d been through every store before, but I just wanted to double-check. When I didn’t find anything, I moved onto the downtown area. It has more restaurants and clothing boutiques, but I figured it was worth a shot. Then I was at the edge of Daisy Hill, checking every little place I could.

     By then, that very faint hiss you hear in town sounded louder. I’m sure it was just me freaking out inside, but it really did feel like something in the air was closing in on me. Trying to block my ears to anything else. It got to the point where I was too dizzy to walk. Plopped under a tree, I looked over at the identical cream houses of Daisy Hill, fearing today would be the day when I’d know them better.

     But as I rose, I saw something lying on the sand of a nearby playground (Blue Jay Playground = explored). It was a Walkman with headphones. At least, that’s what it looked like. The lettering for the brand name was mushed and illegible. That didn’t matter, though. Immediately I tried turning it on. Success! It worked without a hitch and it’s what I’m listening to as I write.

     The only downsides are these. I have no cassettes and even if I did, I wouldn’t know exactly how to use them (I was very small when they were still popular). On top of that, there are only two radio stations. One is constant static. And the other plays, well, Weather Channel music. Very 80s and 90s smooth jazz fusion stuff. I mean, it’s not the worst, but…I don’t know. It’s just bland and it makes me kinda sad.

     It makes me think of Uncle Jerry.

     He was one of the only relatives I have clear memories of. Probably because he was the only relative who was comfortable hanging out with his small nieces and nephews. Tall and robust, he wore mostly Hawaiian and polo shirts, a flat cap, and colored sunglasses. He was always either golfing or bowling. And wherever he took us, he’d always play The Rippingtons – one of those bands you’d expect to hear on the Weather Channel. The music bored me to death, but I liked being with Uncle Jerry, so I’d sit through every minute of saxophone and synths.

     He was the only one who noticed something different about me back then.

     “You look out the window a lot, kid. What do you see?”

     “What everyone else sees.”

     “No one seems quite as interested in it as you.”

     I shrugged. “I imagine things, too.”

     “Like finding shapes in the clouds?”

     “Hmm…” I caught my attention slipping and forced myself to look at him. “Not really. Sometimes I imagine stories. Other times I just…drift. I kinda go places.”

     He nodded. “You know, your mind is a powerful thing. Sometimes it’s scary, too. It can fill you with bad and sad thoughts. Or it can wander so far you feel lost.”

     Lost as in I feel like I’ve left my body? Like I can’t find my way back? I didn’t say any of these things out loud. Instead, I asked, “How do you get…un-lost?”

     Uncle Jerry turned up the volume.  

      “Music!” He tapped the rhythm on the steering wheel. “When everything in your head is big and loud or you don’t know where you are, you blare it all out with music. It brings you back to earth without bringing you down.”

     I don’t remember if I responded to him or not. Or if I went back to staring out the window. But I suppose I took his words to heart because I listened to music a lot more after that. I didn’t sense any magical changes, but music did keep me grounded. Especially in the teen years when nothing seemed to go right and all I wanted was to run away from everything.

     By then, however, it was too late to thank him for the advice. He died when I was ten.

     Sheesh…what am I doing talking about family stuff at a time and place like this? Nothing about my life before means anything here. Here I am, full of these old memories, thoughts, and experiences, and not a single one of them makes sense in this place. This world with no past and no future…

     I wish I wasn’t alone.

 

     Woke up from a bad dream. Heard something from beyond the fountain. I got up and walked over there and, as usual, saw no one. But a mannequin had tipped forward and was leaning against the display window. Must have lost its balance. The sound of it hitting the glass was probably what I heard.

     Nothing to worry about. Going back to sleep.

 

     I was going to explore today anyway, but I think it’d be best if I was out of the mall all day.

     The store with the tipped-over mannequin is a mess. All the mannequins were on the floor when I checked the store. A lot of clothes racks were thrown over, too. And there’s a big crack running along the back wall.

     For my sanity’s sake, I’m going to assume I slept through a little earthquake.

     There’s nobody else here so no one could have done this.

     There’s nobody else here so no one could have done this.

     There’s nobody else here so no one could have done this.

     No one.

     I’ve got my Walkman and I’m going out. There’d better not be anything else happening at the mall while I’m gone. If there is…well, I don’t know what I’ll do. Except maybe find somewhere else to sleep. If it was an earthquake, then that’s just another factor I have to live with.

     If it – god, this is going to sound so stupid. But if it’s the world itself doing stuff, then I guess I’d better learn its rules quick. And if it’s anything else, like some creature I haven’t seen yet –

     No, I can’t go there. Stop thinking these kinds of thoughts. Nothing has happened for two months. Nothing will happen. I’ve lived here long enough to know that nothing ever happens in this place.

     I’m just going to listen to the stupid jazz and explore. Everything will be fine.

 

     Big difference, huh? Let’s talk about it.

     Instead of trying to rewrite the gas station section from the previous version and emphasize the liminality of the space, I decided to tackle a different aspect that would impact the narrator more personally: her past. So in her search for something to break the silence of this world, we learn about her Uncle Jerry, and through a memory of him, we get a closer glimpse of the narrator (and see that perhaps something has always been a little different with her before she stumbled into this empty world she’s in). We also see why it is she gravitates towards music to keep her grounded – even if it is just “Weather Channel music” (that 80s/90s jazz fusion stuff has never left me over 20 years later – though I will say unironically that The Rippingtons aren’t half bad if you need something chill to listen to).

     I think the attempt at horror in this version of Part 2 works better. Instead of lingering too much on a series of anxiety dreams, we have just one brief one and then add mysterious goings-on in the mall. The latter element brings in a lot more true horror because, as far as we know (this far into the story), no one else is in this world with the narrator. So what on earth is moving the mannequins? What is happening in this place? Plus, this horror element does double duty by pushing the narrator out of her comfort zone to make her explore more (setting the readers up to know the world they’ve been thrown into).

     The biggest improvement here in my eyes is the fact that everything is more developed. I’m very satisfied with the section where the narrator allows the music to take her back into her memories, to remember a glimpse of her past, and to tap into her loneliness. I often think of this particular bit whenever I remember the In the Midst series because to me, it really encapsulates the things I wanted to explore in this dreamcore-inspired story. Because beyond the wacky visuals, dreamcore carries a more intricate essence in my eyes. It reminds me of:

     A past that barely feels real that still echoes within me

     Little things I took for granted back then that mean something more to me today

     The signs of the person I’d become in the child I once was

     Experiencing fear as a child

     The loneliness you feel when you carry even a handful of a different era with you into an era that you feel you were never meant for

     The loneliness of growing up

     Maybe that sounds like me putting a little too much meaning into an aesthetic. And maybe I am. But when I look at dreamcore media and I see the kinds of responses to it, I see those sentiments I listed above echoed by my peers and even by younger generations. There’s a lostness and a loneliness many feel when they look back, but in dreamcore, a part of them finds home again.

     Few things in art ever arise for its own sake. Considering the people making dreamcore media during the pandemic – people my age and younger people trying to imagine beyond the boundaries of their rooms – is it any wonder that these wistful themes should emerge from their creations?

 

     I know this was a bit of a different post and it wasn’t originally how I was going to do things. But I figure if I have an opportunity to share my process and give you some insights on writing, I might as well take it! Besides, I feel like it can be easy to look at the writing of others and imagine that it came out that well. The truth is writing is all about decision-making. The choices you make determine the kind of story you tell, and you’ll not always pick the choices that feel right for you the first time around. All writers understand this, but sometimes for beginning writers, that’s a harder thing to accept when the only unfinished work they see is theirs. In sharing my first/failed attempt at a Part 2 for this unfinished series, I hope (if you’re a writer) that you walk away from this feeling less pressure about your own writing. If you’re a reader, I hope this helps you appreciate the writing process even more.

     [And if you’ve made it this far, I want to thank you for your time and your patience. I know I haven’t been as busy on here as I’d have liked to be. Recent developments in my mental health (along with some outside life stuff) have made it really difficult to get back into the creative swing of things and I’ve felt bad about not being as prolific. I made a promise early this year to write more for you guys and to share what I could in a world that’s growing darker and darker all the time. My mental health plays a significant role in my life and I must honor its rhythm. But while mental health setbacks can slow me down, they’ll never stop me. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for waiting, thank you for still being here, and thank you for believing in me. It means more than you can ever know. I'll keep living up to my promise, no matter what happens]

Evening by the Sea: A Poem

To be the calm inside

a shell as you hold it close

to your ear - the hush

that steals you away, breathing

stillness into the careworn

chambers of your heart.

Or perhaps to be the coral blush

within - so like a sunset - 

that could guide your sight

and your mind to softer thoughts.

Could I be even that much

for you?

You try to hide 

your grimace as you resist 

the tide that sighs

Everything is lost, everything

flies away from you.

The pearls in your eyes

tell me you almost believe this.

Take me in your hands like a shell. Look

Listen. Stand on this shore, stay

in this moment with me when

your deepest desires don't have to speak

in whispers anymore...

In the Midst #1

 

In the Midst - #1

 

     The fantasy of running away is a nice one…until you realize you never really wanted to run away. You just wanted somewhere to escape to every now and then.

     I’ve been stuck in this…place for nearly two months. And no matter how hard I’ve searched for a way out, I can’t find one. It’s as if this place doesn’t want to let me go.

     I say “place”. Perhaps I should say world. Place is too small for what I’m living in. But if I admit it’s a world, then does that mean I’m forever lost? That there’s no hope of finding home or family or anyone ever again?

     Nearly everywhere is a place designed for humans. Neighborhoods of cookie-cutter houses, malls, grocery stores, restaurants, offices, schools, playgrounds, pools (lots and lots of pools). Any and every kind of building or place you could imagine. Everywhere you go, there’s intent behind it. Someone had to have built everything. But in two months of wandering, I have yet to meet anyone else.

     And that lack of people makes every doorway and every hall feel ominous. Like maybe even if there isn’t a person around the corner, something else is waiting and watching. Something I can’t begin to imagine.

     It’s to the point where I avoid going inside most buildings. The only ones I step into are grocery stores for food and the Pink Mall to sleep. You might think it strange, sleeping in a mall, but if you set foot in one of the empty houses, you’d understand. With no life and no furnishing whatsoever, you get the feeling that something else is inside. Something else will find you sleeping and –

     It’s creepy not just because everywhere is barren. Everywhere is familiar. I remember places like this from the late 90s and early 2000s when I was a kid. Rigid carpets, peachy-beige walls, warm lighting that throws lots of shadows, glossy sheens, wacky colors. Even this notebook I’m writing in is straight from childhood. It’s the same Lisa Frank journal my older sister had – two hugging penguins with bright purple and orange accents.

     It’s like I’ve been left behind in a strange bubble where the past never stopped existing. It’s just abandoned like a stage when a show is over and for some reason, I’m the only actor left.

     I can’t keep thinking about this right now.

 

     Another day in the world of nothing and nowhere.

     I know there’s no one to read any of this except me. But I can’t lose my mind. I need to at least imagine the hope that someone out there will see this. That someone out there can find me.

     I haven’t done much exploring lately, but I’ve been constructing a map of sorts. Naming places. I’ve even started a list.

            Pink Mall = explored

            Daisy Hill (suburb) = unexplored

            Sweet Tomato (grocery store) = explored

            White Collar Avenue (business district) = unexplored

            Waterworks (park) = unexplored

            Familiar School #1 = partially explored

     These are just a handful. And as you can see, mostly unexplored. I’ll admit I’m a terrible coward, but…even if there isn’t anyone around, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. I can’t ignore that feeling, however irrational or paranoid it seems.

     I realize I’ve said nothing about how I got here. “How” is a question I really can’t answer because I don’t know how.

     The last time I was in the real world, I was alone in my apartment. I remember it was almost 3 AM because I’d stayed up late again to finish homework. Around that time, I went to brush my teeth and when I looked out the bathroom window, I saw someone high tailing it from my car. I ran out to check, but nothing looked damaged or broken into. Shrugging the incident off, I went back to the main door of my apartment complex.

     When I opened it, nothing was the same.

     Ahead lay a dim hallway with beige walls and dirty carpeting. The only light came from a bulb at the end that kept flickering.

     Thinking the all-nighters were getting to me, I closed the door and opened it again. I blinked. I pinched myself. Nothing changed.

     When I turned around, the parking lot was gone. There was only open road and open fields. All darkness except for a few lamps.

     Now I was properly scared. Inches away from hyperventilating. But I didn’t want to lose reason. You’re tired and stressed, I told myself. You’re not in your right mind. The last thing you should do is freak out.

     With no other options present, I started walking down the road. Alone and vulnerable in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. The quiet out there was unnerving – not even a faint whistle of wind to cut through the darkness.

     About 20 minutes later, I finally saw a gathering of lights in the distance. A town. Surely there’d be someone to help. My feet dragged as exhaustion kicked in. I don’t remember closing my eyes for the last time. I only know I woke up later in a playground on a grey foggy morning (Pinwheel Playground = explored).

     From that day on I kept track of my time here by leaving tally marks at the Sweet Tomato every time I came for food. That and the watch I got for my birthday last year are the only things keeping me grounded.

     I was scared once I realized this all wasn’t an insomnia-induced hallucination. Still, I had a sliver of hope of finding a way out in that first month. Or at the very least, of finding anyone else. It was the only thing that kept me wandering the streets, knocking on doors, and peering through windows.

     But the longer I spent walking through the stillness…

     Hearing in the quiet a near-imperceptible hiss …

     Seeing things out of the corner of my eye…

     Seeing no end to this emptiness…

     The longer I’m here, the closer I tip-toe to the edge of my own sanity. This place which months ago was the kind of place my mind would have gladly run to in darker moments…

     This is why I’ve started writing. I know I could just talk to myself to deal with my reality. But this world makes you feel like anything you say will be lost. That eventually your existence will lose all context, just like these buildings made for people that have no people.

     I’ve already lost the real world. I don’t want to lose anything more.

 

 

 

AUTHOR’S NOTE

          This first In the Midst author’s note is going to be a bit of a long one, so lock in!

     The origins of this story came from my fascination with the internet aesthetic of dreamcore. It’s better explained through visuals (the medium it fits best with), but I’ll try explaining it here. Dreamcore is an aesthetic inspired by the surreal imagery and vibes of dreams, with a tendency of utilizing visuals from the early internet, 90s, and early 2000s. It blends nostalgic imagery like neighborhoods and childhood items with strange things like random eyes, mushrooms, empty liminal spaces, and people with TVs, stuffed animals, eyes, or flowers for heads. Even music fit into this aesthetic. It grew quite popular in the early days of the pandemic (specifically 2021 & 2022).

     To me, it had a big impact. Being a kid with only a few memories of the late 90s and who grew up in the early 2000s (in the U.S.), a lot of the imagery was truly nostalgic for me. But the thing, too, was that the strangeness of the aesthetic felt very much like where my mind would go as a child. One feature in dreamcore that especially hearkened back to an irrational childhood anxiety I had is silhouette people. Within dreamcore (and its predecessor/originator weirdcore), sometimes people in photos will be completely blacked out so that they look like shadow people. As a kid, I always had the strange anxiety that I would see some shadowy person like that around a corner or in the hall outside my bedroom. To see that realized in a world like the one I grew up in felt uncanny, but it also made my inner child feel seen.

     While some internet creators have tried incorporating worldbuilding into the look of dreamcore, not much has been done with it story-wise. Some people have written dreamcore-inspired stories on fanfiction websites. You could argue that The Backrooms is the clearest offshoot of dreamcore. In my opinion, it leans a little too much into horror for that. To me, true dreamcore exists on that fine line between familiarity and nightmares. So many things were like that in childhood – anything sweet could turn frightening or strange and you’d never expect it nor be able to explain the how or why of it. Dreamcore succeeds when it gives just enough of the uncanny to give you the chills without quite making you want to leave.

     The more I took in the aesthetic, the more I wanted to create a story involving the components of it all. And having memories correlating with the eras most often association with dreamcore, I could lend some of my own uncanny childhood insights. So in 2023, I decided to create a dreamcore-inspired series that I originally published on Tumblr called In the Midst. I handwrote every draft before providing minimal editing later. I’ve left them unaltered since their original creation and now that I’ve deleted my Tumblr, this is the only place you’ll be able to find them.

     One thing with dreamcore that I often felt was a sense of yearning, as well as a sense that the memories I yearned for were eaten up, made nonexistent. When you look at the comment section of lots of dreamcore videos, a lot of people express similar feelings: either people my age relate to their own childhoods or younger people express a sense of anemoia (a longing for something they never experienced). I let that feeling guide the first lines and the motivation of the unnamed narrator who loses herself in a nostalgic and empty world.

     This was one of the few projects I’ve done where I went in with absolutely no plans and no brainstorming. I made things up as I went and chased the vibe rather than the point of the story – I figured that both fit dreamcore better and allowed more for the protagonist’s interior thoughts to have more of an impact. Because something I quickly realized in experimenting with dreamcore story ideas is that you have to be careful with plot. There’s one other dreamcore story I worked on that was supposed to be a dramatized podcast (too huge a project for my abilities), and while that story did have more in terms of plot, I still left a lot of the hows and whys of worldbuilding mysterious on purpose. It was one of the few ways I knew I could potentially recreate the feeling that dreamcore visuals gave.

     This first entry is just a very general beginning to the story, so I’ll save narrative insights for upcoming installments!

Enter Salem, 1692: A Writer's Research Reflection

     These past several weeks, I've been digging deep into a dark chapter of the past for a story.

     I learned about the Salem witch trials in school, of course. What U.S. history book is there that doesn't at the very least mention it? I could find hints of it mentioned in the books I liked to read and even movies that I saw. But I never looked deeper into it when I was younger and my obsessions with periods of history lay elsewhere for a long while.

     Cut to the present day. It was maybe one or two months ago when I saw a video essay discussing the frightening relevance of the Salem witch trials to the present (The Salem Witch Trials: A Warning for America by Mindshift). I only got hints of the paranoia and unbending authority of the Puritans in that time, but what I learned was enough to make me sit up and pay attention.

     And it also inspired the writer in me.

     Last spring when I was writing tons of flash fiction, I incidentally started writing a story that took place in Salem, with a woman people suspected of being a witch and a fantastical element thrown in. I abandoned it, both because I had other things to write and because I was overwhelmed by the kind of historical research I'd have to do to bring that story to life. But the essence of that story still lingered in me, and it returned to me as my interest in the witch trials grew. 

     At that point, it was inevitable that I'd fall down the research rabbit hole.

     I found lots of resources online, of course. Many of them were helpful in putting together a better picture of who the Puritans were, what their lives were like, and what made them stand out in history. Some of these resources include A Method for Prayer by Matthew Henry and A Token for Children by James Janeway. The Salem Witch Museum gave me a better idea of what the community of Salem was like, as well as a frame of reference for the structures that existed at the time. And, of course, accessing the sermons of Reverend Samuel Parris gave me an idea of both what was discussed in Puritan services and see just how great the fear of witchcraft was.

     I also took to literature for both Puritan culture and the specific time of the Salem witch trials. One was Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials by Stephanie Hemphill (a YA book that also happens to be a novel-in-verse). From the Dear America series, I Walk in Dread by Lisa Rowe Fraustino. And currently, I'm in the process of reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

     My first fictional foray into Salem, though, came through the well-known play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I went through the entirety of my theater studies (years ago) without ever having read it. But I did once I knew I'd be writing a Salem story and as soon as I finished reading it, I looked for a performance to watch. While I could only access a video and not attend a live performance, I still felt the dread of the times and anger at the injustices at play. It's not completely accurate from a historic perspective, but it's still a good starting point for exploring the witch trials in fiction (this production by Chatham High School was the performance I saw).

     But easily the most valuable resource I've had for the research process has been The Salem Witch Trials: A Day by Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach. It does exactly what the title suggests and takes you through the tragic and horrible events - from January 1692 to March 1693 - one day at a time. It also includes some really helpful maps of the impacted areas that give you a truer picture If any of you have been following my Instagram story updates, you'll have seen some of the passages and quotes from that book that I've taken note of (you'll also have seen my thoughts on the truth behind the accusations, but more on that later).

     Here's a handful of my notes and quotes I've copied down:

     MAR 24, 1692 - during Rebecca Nurse's trial, the afflicted screamed so loudly that people could hear them from a long way off beyond Salem Village

     - speaker (Deodat) Lawson suspected church defectors being part of Satan's plans to overthrow the Puritans...he did say "Give no place to the Devil by rash censuring of others without sufficient grounds, or false accusing any willingly"

     "We are either saints or devils. This you and I may be, and yet Devils for all that." - Rev. Samuel Parris

     - Abigail and Mary (two of the afflicted) mention seeing the "witches" partaking in communion with an angel in Abigail's uncle's pasture. He was described thus: "A fine grave man and when he came, he made all the witches to tremble"

     APR 22, 1692 - the trial of William Hobbs (John Hathorne as judge)

     Hobbs: I hope I worship God only...In my heart

     Hathorne: But God requires outward worship

     "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink." - Sarah Good

     The confession(s) "was no other than what was suggested to us by some gentlemen, they telling us that we were witches, and they knew it, and we knew it, which made us think that this was so. And our understandings, our reason, our faculties, almost gone, we were not capable of judging of our condition; as also the hard measures they used with us rendered us incapable of making our defense, but said anything and everything which they desired, and most of what we said, was but, in effect, a consenting to what they said." - explanation from the accused Mary Osgood, Eunice Fry, Abigail Barker, Deliverance Dane, Sarah Wilson, and Mary Tyler (Andover)

     "It were better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned." - Increase Mather

     "And what grief of heart it brings to a tender conscience, to have been unwittingly encouraging of the sufferings of the innocent." - Rev. John Hale

     NOV 12, 1692 - Mary Herrick (afflicted) was "visited" by (Mary) Esty's ghost, who cried, "Vengeance, vengeance!" and told Herrick to report the ghostly encounters to the reverends Hale and Gerrish (in order) to put Esty's soul to rest (and to stop Sarah Hale's specter from hurting Herrick)

     SEP 10, 1692 - "Knowing my innocency...and seeing plainly the wiles and subtilty of my accusers (I) cannot but judge charitably of others that are going the same way of myself, if the Lord steps not mightily in. I petition not for my own life, for I know I must die, (but) if it be possible, no more innocent blood may be shed, which undoubtedly cannot be avoided in the way and course you go in. I question not but your honors...would not be guilty of innocent blood for the world. But by my own innocency, I know you are in the wrong way. (To confess false guilt/lie before God) I cannot, I dare not, belie my own soul." - Mary Esty

     The more I researched and the more personal stories I learned about this period, the more sickened I felt. 

     There have been a lot of theories as to what caused all the witchcraft hysteria to happen in the first place. About what was really going on with the afflicted - a group of (mostly) teenage girls. It's obvious to us in the present that no real witchcraft occurred. The Devil was not lying in wait in the forest, consorting with the accused in pastures at night, baptizing them in any rivers and ponds, nor threatening anyone to swear allegiance to him by signing "his book". But the reactions of the afflicted - seizures, fits, seeing/hearing things no one else could, scars or burns, loss of appetite - have been enough to keep people guessing what was really happening.

     I think it is very likely that some of them, being survivors of the Wabanaki attacks in Maine during the Seven Years' War, could have been from PTSD. I also think it's likely that maybe some of them struggled with epilepsy and similar (genuine) afflictions.

     However, unless research provides some new discoveries concerning the reality of Salem at the time...it seems very clear to me that the afflicted were faking everything. 

     There's an incident that happened at a tavern (Ingersoll's) that appears pretty damning. On March 28, 1692, Hannah Ingersoll (tavern-keeper's wife) overheard the afflicted, who were gathered at the tavern. While there, they claimed to "see" the specter of Elizabeth Proctor. Unlike in court, however, there were no theatrics when they proclaimed this, and their manner of speech was casual. One of them even said, "Goody Proctor, old witch, I'll have her hang". When Hannah scolded them for such talk, one of them named Mercy Lewis said that it was all for "sport, we must have some sport."

     There are inconsistencies in the various "accounts" the afflicted give about their torments. When they saw the latest accused of witchcraft in court, they always reacted. They'd scream, they'd swoon, they'd claim to see birds and specters. They'd make it out to seem like the accused cursed them to not speak. Sometimes they'd even say that the Devil was whispering in the accused's ears, telling them what to say. One of the biggest things that stands out to me as evidence of them faking everything involves the "touch test". It was a bit of folk magic (contentious but accepted) where anyone afflicted by a witch would only feel relief if the guilty witch touched them. Every single time the court ordered the touch test, it worked.

     If there really were witches, the touch test should have failed on the innocent. How could it be possible that every single person the afflicted singled out/bore witness to was a witch? And if the afflicted were given visions of the Devil's accomplices and his plans, wouldn't that mean that they themselves would have had some kind of covenant with him? (This last point became a concern as the trials drew on and people began to doubt the claims of witchcraft)

     Many of the accused weren't random selections. When you look at who they were, you keep seeing the same kinds of people. The poor, the elderly, the outcasts, the "improper", disliked in-laws, feud rivals (like the Putnam and the Porter families), those with more land/wealth, those who missed too many sermons, those whose strength of faith wasn't clear to the broader community - over and over again, these were the people who were thrown into prison and placed on trial. 

     Not long after the first accusations of Tituba, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Bridget Bishop, the afflicted and many other Salem villagers started pointed fingers everywhere. As the year went on, the accusations even included people outside of Salem - people from the nearby towns Lynn, Andover, Reading, and Wenham showed up in the afflicted's "visions". And anyone who was related to one of the accused was suspect by association, no matter how young or old they were. A tragic example of this point is Dorothy Good, Sarah Good's daughter. Dorothy was arrested when she was only four years old and kept in a cold prison for almost eight months. She saw her mother being taken out of jail to be executed, and even though she was eventually released, she was psychologically scarred for life.

     When it came to the trials themselves, "trial" is an extremely loose term for the procedures that took place. These played out more like interrogations. No matter who was brought in, the afflicted (who attended the trials) would always react like the accused was magically hurting them. The magistrates asked the afflicted who hurt them. They would then direct their questioning to the accused and though they'd ask the accused whether they pled guilty or innocent, the assumption was the same: anyone brought into trial must be a witch and therefore must have the "truth" forced out of them. And when these men posed questions to the accused, they did not seek answers of innocence - they sought confessions. 

     "What evil spirit have you familiarity with?"

     "Why do you hurt these children?"

     "Why do you tell such wicked lies against witnesses...?"

     "You dare thus to (lie) in all this assembly. You are now before Authority. I expect the truth, you promised it, Speak now and tell..."

     "Give glory to God and confess then."

     "Do not you see how these afflicted do charge you?"

     "Here are more than two that accuse you for witchcraft. What do you say?"

     "You are a (Gospel) woman, will you (lie)?"

     "You charge these children with distraction: it is a note of distraction when persons vary in a minute, but these fix upon you..."

     "Tell us who hurts these (children): We came to be a Terror to evil doers."

     "You say you are no Witch, may be you mean you never Covenanted with the Devil. Did you never deal w'th any familiar?"

     "...you have engaged you will not confess. but God knows."

     Reading through the court transcripts, it's all too clear to see that pleading innocence would only get you prison and death (either by execution or sometimes in jail). 

     But even if you pled guilty and made up a satisfactory confession, you were still in for a world of hurt. The jails where the accused were kept were often cold, packed, and harsh places to live in. These people were forced to pay for the time they spent in jail (and had to rely on others to bail them out). Livestock, food, and other belongings of theirs were taken from their properties, if those properties weren't snatched up outright. And if any of the accused was bailed out or released, they had to contend with their friends and neighbors who might never trust them ever again.

     As autumn arrived in 1692, changes were made to Massachusetts court laws concerning trial procedures. Spectral evidence (like the afflicted provided) was ruled out and only concrete proof could convict someone of a witchcraft charge. After Governor William Phips's wife was accused of witchcraft, he demanded all the accused be released from prison and pardoned. These factors brought about the end of the trials and the end of the hysteria.

     The damage, however, was done.

     In all, 19 people were executed: fourteen women and five men (one of whom was pressed to death with stones). Five more died in prison. And between 150 to 200 people were imprisoned during the course of the trials.

     All those lives were ruined at the hands of the afflicted, the magistrates, and the entire community of Salem Village.

     Every time I think about it, I'm hit with the weight of it all. The terror of not knowing whether you'd be the next one on trial. Whether some small thing you said or did would make people suspect witchcraft. The despair that no one would believe you. The horror of being kept in prison and the helplessness that the death sentence invoked. It's unimaginable. When I read the words of the accused, I do not blame them for their condemnation of their fellow Puritans

     It also struck me just how much worse the unforgiving Puritan life made this. They had to work hard all the time, both to survive and because it was part of their belief in what made a good Christian. There may very well have been genuinely kindhearted people within that society, but that kindness is buried beneath the austerity and self-righteousness everyone else espoused. The most minor offenses were dealt with by corporal punishment and/or public shaming. 

     Their belief in everyone's fate being decided by God made them all desire to be as righteous as they could in the hopes that they'd be one of the ones going to Heaven. The fear and self-loathing that such a mindset created is evident throughout many of their prayers.

     "O may angels glorify Him incessantly, and, if possible, prostrate themselves lower before the blessed King of heaven! I long to bear a part with them in ceaseless praise; but when I have done all I can to eternity I shall not be able to offer more than a small fraction of the homage that the glorious God deserves...."

     "Help me to live to You for ever, to make You my last and only end, so that I may never more in one instance love my sinful self."

     "I am utterly ashamed that I am what I am in myself; I have no green shoot in me nor fruit, but thorns and thistles; I am a fading leaf that the wind drives away; I live bare and barren as a winter tree, unprofitable, fit to be hewn down and burnt. Lord, do You have mercy on me?"

     "...the least sin deserves infinite punishment because done against an infinite God..."

     "Defend me from assailing foes, from evil circumstances, from myself. My adversaries are part and parcel of my nature; they cling to me as my very skin; I cannot escape their contact...my enemy is within the citadel...."

     "I step out into a wicked world; I carry about with me an evil heart. I know that without You I can do nothing, that everything with which I shall be concerned, however harmless in itself, may prove an occasion of sin or folly, unless I am kept by Your power."

     "Lord Jesus, I sin. Grant that I may never cease grieving because of it, never be content with myself, never think I can reach a point of perfection. Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self. Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable, to live for You and not for self...Deliver me from attachment to things unclean, from wrong associations, from the predominance of evil passions, from the sugar of sin as well as its gap; that with self-loathing, deep contrition, earnest heart searching I may come to You..."

     "Grant that my proneness to evil, deadness to good, resistance to Your Spirit's motions, may never provoke You to abandon me. May my hard heart awake Your pity, not Your wrath..."

     "In prayer I see myself as nothing..."

                                  Excerpts from prayers featured in The Valley of Vision, edited by Arthur Bennett

     And, on top of all this, there was the vivid belief in witchcraft. Magic is a tricky thing with the Puritans, because though they forbade it, there were instances where it was indulged in. Cunning folk - people who did good magic (known as "white magic"), divination, and anti-magic to counter magical afflictions - were part of their society. They weren't always completely trusted, but they did garner a certain respect. Witches, however, were seen as evil without question. Supposedly, they only got their powers from the Devil and used these powers only to inflict harm/temptation upon innocents. 

     With the Puritans fearing no one else as much as the Devil, it was small wonder that the idea of witches in their own village and throughout all New England terrified them. And when no doctors could explain the fits and seizures of their children, it didn't take long for them to jump to the conclusion that witchcraft was behind it all.

     

     With all this in mind, I'm still in the process of brainstorming my own story. While I'll be working a lot on figuring out the plot for this, I'm also keep my research close to heart. This story will have one or two fantastical elements to it, but I don't want that to upstage or devalue the very real horrors of the trials. Some of the people I've read about will show up in my protagonist's life. Real locations will be mentioned. The reality of Puritan life, especially for a woman, will be an important theme. Since I am writing about such a dark moment in time, I want to honor the past to the best of my abilities.

     One of the more awful parts of my research was learning how long it took for the wrongdoings of Salem to be acknowledged. The families of the executed weren't given any justice by either Salem or Massachusetts. Very few of the afflicted apologized for what they'd done. It wasn't until 1957 the state issued any of apologies for the trials, and it was as late as 2022 when the final exoneration (for Elizabeth Johnson Jr.) was given by state officials...330 years after the trials. Given that this is America, I can't say that this is all that surprising. This is not at all the only dark chapter in America that has been hidden or buried. Still, the state and the country turned their backs on history long enough that a Walgreens got built in front of the very site (Proctor's Ledge) where eighteen people were tied up and hung to death in front of their community, who would gather and watch (a memorial would eventually be built behind the store in 2017).

     The one word, the one emotion I keep circling back to with all this is dread. It was what I felt when I saw The Crucible. What I felt when I read both the real and the fictional stories about the trials. What I felt every time I imagined what it must have been like living in that time. How could you possibly hope to defend yourself when everyone was convinced you were guilty? How could you hold onto any hope that you might live? How could you dwell amongst neighbors who had accused you and called you a witch (and who would most likely shun you)? 

     How do you survive such times of darkness and hysteria when everyone sees the Devil in you?

 ~ Madeleine