Solitaire Stories by Andy Hoover
9 episodes
(Actual number of episodes significantly different than number of episodes as recorded in database.)
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Creator from RSS feed: Andy Hoover
Database Creators: Andy HooverSynopsis:
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 emerging from this project; this inherent messiness, in the service of consistency and experimental fidelity, is my promise to you.
The mission statement of this whole project is that short fiction is easy (or at least fun) to write if you don't particularly care about it being perfect, and are willing to allow certain quasi-structural guardrails to both challenge and guide your story as you go. I think short fiction writing is an important skill (or pursuit) to nurture for everyone who loves reading, writing, or storytelling. I hope this podcast will serve as a proof of concept of sorts: that there is an infinite number of possible stories out there waiting to be discovered, and we only need to give ourselves permission to discover them.
I can't guarantee that any of these stories will be much good, but I'm going to write and share them anyway. With any luck you'll find one you like!
For extra content (and to support Solitaire Stories, if you're so inclined), please check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AndyHoover.
Language: English
Format: Audio Book
Continuity: Anthology
Writing: Scripted
Voices: Solo
Narrator: Third Person
Genres: Multigenre
Soundscape: Voices only
Completion status: Not applicable
Not tagged: [Maturity] [Country of origin] [Transcript]
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Episodes:
Fri, 06 Mar 2026 04:05:32 GMT
This is the Solitaire Story I wrote on February 1, 2026. It's about a romance cover model who feels uncertain about a recent career development. He has lunch with his agent and spies a mysterious woman and makes a late-night phone call. Kind of a meandering, character-heavy, portrait type of piece, but I like this one.
Sun, 01 Mar 2026 02:50:32 GMT
This is the Solitaire Story I wrote on 1/28/26. It concerns the career anxieties and related struggles of a park ranger who really loves pirates, but does not much care for office politics. By the end of the story, she has a better handle on what she really wants, but beyond that I can't say there's much of a traditional arc to this one. Enjoy!
Fri, 20 Feb 2026 04:21:55 GMT
This is the Solitaire Story I wrote on January 15th. It's about a retiring science teacher who takes on a new short-term gig involving experimental educational domes. This one has both comedy (at least I think so) and tragedy (kind of)! Enjoy!
Valentine's Day Special Double Feature (Stories #20 and #21)
Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:14:33 GMT
Happy Valentine's Day! As an apology for being a couple days late on dropping this episode, this one is a double feature. "The Premiere of the Redeemed" (written 1/20/26) and "The One That Got Away" (written 1/21/26). Appropriate for the holiday, these are two love stories (that are also about other things.) The first is happier than the second, but I think I like the second a little better.
Fri, 06 Feb 2026 04:54:47 GMT
This is the Solitaire Story I wrote on 1/17/26. It's called Exit Interview. A journalist assigned to cover a magical wargames conference ends up getting more directly involved than he had anticipated. It's in first person and set in a whimsical (sort of) fantasy world, if either of those elements appeal to you!
Chainsaw Guy and The Frogman (Story #9)
Fri, 30 Jan 2026 02:38:03 GMT
Alternate title: "Chainsaw Guy and The Frogman (2006)." An employee for a haunted hayride pitches an idea to his boss, and then is forced to see it through. Sorry for a few verbal flubs in this one!
The Evenly-Spaced Life and Times of Karl Geoss, Tourney Knight (Story #10)
Fri, 23 Jan 2026 02:40:35 GMT
This story is set in a low-fantasy sort of realm, where knights can carve out a living in tournaments and so forth. Timely, now that Game of Thrones is back in the zeitgeist! I picked this one for the third episode both as a celebration of finally having ten of the notebook stories typed out (I'm behind in this regard), and because I wanted to experiment with a story that covered a very long time period -- in this case a century or so -- and this seemed like a fun way to do so. If you don't like fantasy stories, don't fret, most episodes going forward won't be in this genre. If you do like fantasy stories, let me know, and maybe I'll write more! When you do one a day you can theoretically consider a lot of requests.
Fri, 16 Jan 2026 01:55:53 GMT
Story written on 1/5/26. A dinner party guest with a secret and a crush attends an unusual sort of dinner party. Mortal peril ensues!
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 19:53:32 GMT
"Quitting Time" is the Solitaire Story I wrote on 1/1/26. It's about a guy who wants to quit his job but then has trouble quitting his job.