I got a disappointing, but not terribly gut wrenching, rejection response to a very short story I sent in up against some heavy competition. The anthology wanted stories under a very short word count, in a specific genre, with very specific plot devices used. They also announced such-and-such famous authors would already be included, lessening the space available. And the deadline was in a week.
Still, the premise intrigued me, and I was curious to see if I could make a story work within the tight constraints provided. I set out on what turned into a wild ride of white lace, pharmacies, and the search for the world’s most expensive cake.
Writing that story was so. much. fun.
I set the story at an ultra-luxury wedding, and discovered, after just a little online research, it is impossible to create a fictional over-the-top wedding that has not already been done in real life. I ended up throwing in endangered animals as part of entertainment to try and create something new, but, honestly, you cannot put anything past someone with millions of dollars to spend and an intense desire to show off how great they are.
And I inflated the egos of the main characters as much as possible, with the money pouring in from what the profits would look like if someone had a world wide monopoly on a vaccine, smug that their riches came from saving lives, as I gleefully got ready to pop that balloon with a very expensive dish of revenge.
“It’s the journey, not the destination” is a creaky old saying trotted out far too often to adorn cheap posters of mountainous bike trails at sunset, but it has its merits. Getting to the point where the story was finished was a blast, including the part where I rewrote the entire thing to jazz up the point-of-view and make it more action based as all my characters rushed around to set up what both I and the bride wanted to be the most fabulous, expensive, spectacular, post-quarantine wedding ever.
Perhaps it was too on the nose to imagine what the roaring 2020’s will look like once the current crazy is over – and the kind of chickens that will come home to roost – but it felt freeing to describe what parties in the not-too distant future may look like. We have all been cooped up for far too long and when people can actually let loose again, the parties are going to make anything Gatsby threw pale in comparison.
I think the next few years are going to be a quite a trip!
Kara Race-Moore Writes More 