A Single Rifle Shot

This weeks story is called: A Single Rifle Shot [4003 words]

Please be warned, there are spoilers ahead!

I wrote this story in one day- last Monday to be exact! The idea though, began several months ago. I watched Looper on DVD and afterwards thought that I'd love to write a time travel story that was extremely complicated. 

Now there are two types of time travel- divergent and 'accounted for'. Divergent travel is based on the theory that every decision we make creates a parallel dimension where our lives continue on as if we had made the different decision. A great example of this is the Biff Tannen future from Back To The Future II. I've never really been a fan of either this theory or it's use in Sci-Fi. 'Accounted for' travel is where you meet a time traveller from the future, and then in the future someone travels back through time... a good example of this (but also a creepy one) would be The Time Traveler's Wife. Much more complicated but more satisfying I think! So I started ruminating on possible plots and I came up with something different after also watching Skyfall (and complicated), and I came up with this- a story in a forest.

I sat on it for a while. I couldn't decide on a setting (either time or place) and felt I really shouldn't start until I was entirely confident with it. I had a moment in December where I almost started when I hit on the idea of setting it in the old west (I've wanted to write a western for years now...) but never got round to it because I became so focused on writing A Study in Blood. And then only last week I realised that I could write it in such a way as to not need a time or setting- keep it oblique and open to interpretation. I think this really lends it a strength and I'm very glad I did it now.

One note about the title- I originally decided to call it Loop. I had that name since I first came up with the idea and even made a cover with that title first. Eve thought it gave away the twist (and therefore the whole point) so I started fishing around for something else. My dad suggested Recoil which I liked a lot but then only today I thought of the title I've gone with- A Single Rifle Shot, I think it's more my kind of title, and it works in a twisty way as well- there is only one shot fired in the story, since the second shot is the same one from a different angle. So sorry Dad, but that's how it sometimes goes with writers.

As always; please feel free to feedback.

B A Jones 28/04/2014