Romance with a side of eye-roll.
For several years, along with thousands of other writers worldwide, I have entered the NYC Midnight short story competition. I love the challenge of writing 2,500 words in a randomly-assigned genre within a week. Stretching outside my comfort zones of mystery and historical fiction is good exercise for my writing brain. The time and word limits make a welcome change of pace from the chapter-by-chapter slog of constructing a full-length novel.
This January, my assigned genre was Romance, and I groaned. Not only have I never written a romance, but I don’t read the genre either. Where would I even start?
Yes, I admit it: I’m an intellectual snob. I associate romance novels with a supermarket carousel featuring book covers with heaving bosoms and manly torsos, a hero called Jared, a heroine named Cassandra, unbelievable plots, and unrealistic settings. But with no time to do the research necessary to overcome my prejudices, I had to make the genre my own.
Having just overseen the translation my novel Daughters of Riga into an audiobook, I decided to employ my newfound knowledge of that process in my first-round entry. I took a meta approach: a romance within the world of romance publishing, a kind of side-eyed look at the genre. By the way, NYC Midnight rules also require that the story involve an object and a character. I was assigned a broken leg, and my character was a film star.
They liked it—they really liked it!
I had great fun writing You Never Knew Me. And the judges liked it enough to advance me to the second round. One of the reasons I like this competition is that every writer, whether promoted to the next round or not, gets feedback. My feedback included the following: “a charming story with an interesting meta narrative…not a straightforward “boy meets girl”…nuanced and layered years of history, hurt, and reconciliation in one concise, well-paced story.”
A stretch too far
In Round 2, I would have less time to write fewer words, and a different assigned genre, character, and object. I opened the email communicating my assignment with fingers crossed: oh no, Horror! Coupled with a suddenly busy schedule and travel plans, the thought of diving into another unfamiliar genre dismayed me. This would be a stretch too far. I did not submit in the second round.
I will enter again next year. I’ll hope the assigned genre is mystery or historical fiction, but whatever genre comes my way, I’m going to give it my best shot.
Let me know what you think
I hope you enjoy You Never Knew Me. You can read it here. I may never write a romance again—at least until a future NYC Midnight competition—but I’m proud of this one.
