Which Super Little Dead Girl™ Are You? Take Our Quiz and Find Out!

"This story came out quite a while ago, and it was one of the first I saw that was really successful at interactive storytelling. It’s acknowledging the way that storytelling has changed – because of the internet, because of social media, because of the way people consume the written word now. Cipri was at the forefront of examining new narrative structures. My entire life I have loved narrative structure as a way to really impart the impact of a story – from the time I read It by Stephen King, and saw just how broadly you could work with narrative structure. I’m fascinated by people who can come up with a story in a framework that feels completely different, and yet relevant; instantly understandable, but not easily reproducible. It’s a quiz. We’ve all played these quizzes… And it tells you a story with every solution that you have to choose from. With every answer, you’re choosing one of these dead girls’ horrible stories, which you learn they have risen above – they’ve turned into an origin story for something far better. It’s horror, because I have to slide one horror story in here. My first love is SFF, and horror is one part of SFF – sometimes people like to put in an ‘H’, but personally, I see no difference. When you’ve read certain SFF stories that end a certain way, I dare you to say they’re not horror! And you can have SFF stories that are mystery, horror, romance, whatever you want – they all fit together. Sometimes people don’t like to have fun, and they take an element out – but that’s not how it used to be. You would just write a story and people would read it. You read Frankenstein, and just say, “Great!”. But now we’re obsessed with labelling things, so a lot of people are missing out on things because it doesn’t carry the correct label. That’s why I wanted to include this story, because it defies the label. It is about superheroes, so it should SFF. It’s horrifying, so it should be horror. Narratively, it should be a quiz – but it is most definitely a short story, with a lot of impact. It also says something really important about friendship and community and women – you’re beginning to see the thread! I love when we talk about found family and community. These are things I’m intimately familiar with, culturally and personally, so I’m always drawn towards stories that can capture this feeling of being in a community that’s working towards something – and that have commentary on how people treat communities, how people forget that community is one of the building blocks of society. This one is about a crew of persons who have had terrible things happen to them, and use that as a jumping off point to become something far more powerful. Yes, this is one of the wonderful things about short stories. I was reading another one just the other day, We Will Teach You How to Read by Caroline M. Yaochim… And everybody, I think, has heard about Stet by Sarah Gailey, because it was Award nominated. That’s a short story that is intended for creators, who understand what it is to have to deal with other people’s comments on your work. I almost put another of Wole’s work there as well, because he also had one in Clarkesworld , Comments on Your Provisional Patent Application for an Eternal Spirit Core : it was basically a form, and the person was asked to make comments on the form. And the story is in both the form and the comments, and it was just – chef’s kiss!"