Short Story challenge, round 1

In Next Chapters: Writing part 2, I mentioned I had joined the 2020 Short Story challenge, hosted by NYC Midnight.

The first deadline is a minute before midnight, EST. I just submitted what I believe to be my final draft (with just over 8 hours to go!)

Participants are broken into many heats, and some will advance to round two, with fewer heats, and so on, like brackets in basketball. Each heat is given an assigned genre, subject, and character that must be included (and not in a minor way) in their stories.

I’ll be honest, when I got the information for my heat, I was a bit at a loss. Political Satire, a diagnosis, a man with a missing tooth.

I have never tried my hand at satire before, and it took me a day and a half to noodle on the assigned elements before I had an idea of where the story was.

Then I thought about it for several more days. While we had 8 days to write the round one story, and up to 2,500 words, I didn’t start putting mine down on the page until yesterday, less than 48 hours before the deadline.

Clocking in under 2,000 words, I think I’ve hit the tone I wanted for the story. We’ll see how well it lands with the judges.

I will report back as to how I did in this round, if I advanced or not, and depending on which way the wind is blowing, a copy of my very first political satire.

Cheers