Creating A Story
While still relatively new to the world of fiction, I keep finding the same hurdles. I either write myself into a corner OR I bore myself with detail. Details, however, are a strength to be reckoned with. If a story, fiction or not, isn't believable - then it ultimately fails. I like details! But how much is too much?
I started work on a new novel a while back. When finished, I think it'll be an excellent read. The issue, at least for me, is creating a believable 'history' for some of the characters. To create a modern character, it's pretty easy. Who are they? Where are they from? What do they do? What brought them HERE? I can usually cobble together something authentic enough to be believed.
I've created a mythological group of people. This has become a minefield of "Oh, that doesn't work!" or "Sounds like bullshit to me". So, I have to go further back to create more faux history for a group of people who have never existed.
That said, I'm getting there.
I'm a very visual person. If I can imagine what something looks like, I can usually write about it. I had recently written myself into a proverbial corner again. I needed a visual. I spent the morning trying to come up with one - and I think I managed it. Ultimately, the reader will decide. Enjoy! - MM
The First Chronicle of the Shim-O-Mites
(Fragments gathered from oral tradition, disputed texts, and mountain accounts)
Before they were called Shim-O-Mites, they were something else.
Before that, they were simply Simeon.
And before Simeon...there was wrath.
The First Scattering
In the Book of Genesis, Simeon is not remembered kindly.
He and his brother Levi avenged their sister Dinah by slaughtering the city of Shechem. The act was brutal. Entire households were cut down.
Jacob, their father, spoke words that would echo for centuries:
“Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations...
Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce...
I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.”
Genesis 49:5–7
And so they were.
The tribe of Simeon never held territory of its own. It lived scattered among Judah. Even in Scripture, they were a tribe within another tribe.
Present.
But not fully seen.
The Silent Remnant
By the first century, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, records mention a small militant sect fleeing north.
Some scholars believe they were Zealots.
Others claim they were something older.
A fragment preserved in a Byzantine monastic archive reads:
They said they carried the anger of their fathers.
They believed the curse had not ended.
They believed they were meant to wander until the last accounting.
They fled into the Taurus Mountains.
There, they became something new.
Or something very old.
They kept the Torah.
They also followed an early messianic tradition.
They refused Roman authority.
They rarely spoke of their origins.
But they called themselves The Hearing Ones.
Because Simeon means:
“God has heard.”
The Balkan Camouflage
By the 10th century, they appeared in the Balkans.
Small communities.
Hidden.
Quiet.
They merged with Bogomil sects in Bulgaria and Bosnia - a convenient camouflage. Dualist asceticism allowed them to hide their older traditions.
To outsiders, they were just another strange religious minority.
But certain habits remained:
They built low churches.
They avoided digging deep foundations.
They preferred fog-covered valleys.
They told their children never to shout in the hills.
The Ottoman Years
When the Ottomans came, persecution followed.
Bogomils were hunted.
Christians were controlled.
And once again...
They scattered.
Yet there is a curious detail:
Under Ottoman rule, churches could be built - but not taller than a Turk on horseback.
For the scattered Simeonites, this was no hardship.
Their churches had always been low.
Close to the earth.
Some said this was humility.
Others said...
They were listening.
The Dubrovnik Departure
By the 1600s, small groups began disappearing westward.
Shipping ledgers in Dubrovnik record unusual passengers:
Families carrying little.
Speaking mixed dialects.
Refusing to swear allegiance to any crown.
One ledger notes:
"They carried an object wrapped in blue cloth. They would not allow it below deck."
Amsterdam
They appeared briefly in Amsterdam.
Dock workers.
Carpenters.
Quiet families.
Then, in 1693, a ship manifest recorded several families under variant spellings:
Shimot
Schimot
Shemot
Destination:
New Amsterdam.
Rhode Island
Unlike Puritan Massachusetts, Rhode Island offered religious freedom.
Here, they lingered briefly.
Colonial accounts describe:
Men observing Sabbath on Saturday
Ritual immersions in cold streams
Foreign prayers spoken at dawn
They refused to swear loyalty to the Crown.
They swore only to the God who hears.
Into the Mountains
By the early 1700s, they vanished again.
West.
Into the Allegheny Mountains.
They settled in deep hollows.
Fog-filled valleys.
Stone foundations built low into the earth.
The settlers called them:
Shim’onites
Later shortened to:
Shim-O-Mites
The Melungeon Whispers
Frontier legends spoke of strange mountain families.
Dark-featured.
Quiet.
Speaking mixed languages.
Carrying curved blades.
Some settlers called them Melungeons.
Others simply called them:
The Quiet Ones
They rarely appeared in towns.
But sometimes...
Travelers reported hearing voices in the hills.
Not loud.
Not threatening.
Just...murmuring.
The Bronze Key
Their most sacred relic was said to be a bronze key.
Massive.
Oxidized.
Wrapped in sapphire-blue cloth.
They claimed it came from Shechem.
The city of wrath.
They believed they were not guardians of holiness...
But guardians of anger.
Gatekeepers.
Waiting.
The Iroquois Encounter
Early frontier records mention unusual alliances.
Some Shim-O-Mites intermarried with Iroquois families.
Shared hunting grounds.
Shared silence.
Shared caution toward certain hills.
One account from 1768 records an Iroquois elder saying:
“They know the quiet places.
They listen the way we listen.
They do not dig where the ground remembers.”
The First Appalachian Warning
A journal dated 1798:
The old woman told me they never build on high ridges.
I asked why.
She said:
“Because the high places hear too much.”
Then she added:
“And sometimes...something answers.”
The Modern Ridge
Even today, there are stories.
Hidden terraces.
Stone foundations.
Strange agriculture.
People who feel watched.
Some hikers report finding small charms:
A curved blade
A green stone
A bronze fragment
Warnings.
Never threats.
Just warnings.
And somewhere...
In the deepest hollows...
They are still listening.
Because they believe something else is listening too.
And that is why they came.
copyright notice © 2026 Michael C. Metzger
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