Jerry's Proposal (a short story)
With a few notes
Here is my entry for the finals of the NYC Midnight flash fiction competition. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the win but as I did last time, I’ve included some of the feedback that stood out to me.
Just to reiterate how this competition works: There are three rounds. At the start of each round you are given a genre, a key word and an action—all of which must be incorporated into a 250 word story. You’ve got 24 hours to submit it.
Apparently, this year’s competition started with a pool of 5400 people, 124 made it to the finals.
The finals criteria were as follows:
Genre: Open—pick your own genre essentially.
Action: “Shushing”
Key word: “blur”
Here’s the story:
Jerry’s Proposal.
We all saw it. The type of stone you could snap a heel on. Larger than the olive in my martini, enough carats to keep Bugs Bunny happy for a lifetime. Not a single blur on its clean diamond face. And most importantly, eleven times cuter than Katie T’s cat’s-eye.
The sight of Jerry Fig dropping to one knee, appeared in a blur. We were all gathered along the beach, dressed for Paris, cocktails clinking, Prim out front, snapping pics for the ‘gram. “Happy thirtieth, Katie!” Then, quicker than a Tik-Tok cut, Jerry crouched in front of all of us. Prim dropped Katie’s phone in the sand—my fav moment of the day—and started sobbing, “Yes…Yes!”
On Tegan’s shushing cue, every mascara-lined eye, clocked that ring. From Jerry the Fireman? Mr sneak-a-bottle-into-a-nightclub-to-save-money?
I was so focussed, I almost missed the blur of black and white! And I know I’m not the only one. Wings, and a beak. Jerry’s hand, empty. A splash. One glimmer in the sun, then who-knows-how-many pay cheques, fading into the blurry deep.
Prim? Pug eyed. As if she expected this.
I remember laughing the first time I heard Katie’s question. But, when Holly, Jess and Tegan started nodding along, the espresso martini I’d topped off earlier began wrestling with the chilli-marg inside my belly.
“Is it just me, or did that ring look fake to anyone else?”
We all saw it. I want to believe that. But, did we really? Memories, they can be so…
Given the lack of genre, I felt this one out as I was writing it and came up with a genre retroactively. I settled on “Contemporary Tragedy.”
In hindsight, I probably should have stayed within the lines of a classic genre a bit more. This is a competition after all. You’ve got to assume they’ve got certain criteria boxes they’re trying to tick off.
It’s a tricky one though. I personally find my stories lose about sixty percent of their depth when I start trying to steer them like that.
Here’s some of the positive feedback I got from judges:
Judge One: Oh my gosh, this was a funny story! You painted a vivid picture of the friends gathered together at the birthday party, watching the proposal in amazement. The "blur of black and white" was startling and entertaining - I laughed at Katie's question, and the way that the friends now started to doubt what they'd seen with their own eyes. I really wanted to see more of these characters - and to know if Jerry Fig bought another ring!
Judge Two: The author portrayed the tastes and habits of the characters with amusing and unique sensory descriptions. She/he clearly showed what they valued, and their judgment of Jerry was disappointing but realistic.
Judge Two: Contemporary tragedy - yes! And, comedy! The lingo, syntax, and plot all worked together to describe a fantastic story of double tragedy. I thought the ring getting stolen by the bird was bad enough, but this creative writer had another plot twist up their sleeve, equally tragic, but delivered with superb comedic timing.
The opening lines rolled off the tongue, immediately creating a voice and visual of the narrator and really made the point of how great this diamond was.
Judge Three: This really captures the mindset of today with social media. You can't just have a party or a proposal, you've got to get your really well-lit photos for online. There has to be video proof or it didn't happen. In this case, it sounds like definitive proof of the ring's status was not captured in time.
None of the characters stick out really distinctly. Even the narrator is a bit hazy to the reader, jumping from one topic to another. But this style is in tune with the messy group mentality of those present for the party and the attempted proposal.
There were five judges on this, but I omitted the generic filler comments. I’ll give my thoughts on the negative feedback below, but I don’t think there’s any need to do it for the positive. It’s nice to be complimented, but there’s less to take away from praise in my opinion.
And onto the negative:
Judge One: I felt that the description "the espresso martini I’d topped off earlier, began wrestling with the chilli-marg inside my belly" was a little awkward and odd. I found that I paused here to consider the meaning. I would maybe simplify this and focus instead on describing her rather hazy, perhaps tipsy, perception of the ring being taken by the bird.
I noticed that you sometimes added commas that created an unnecessary pause in the flow of your writing. For example, the comma after "dropping to one knee" wasn't necessary. Maybe you could consider the word choice "appeared", which was what I think made you decide on the comma. The idea of a sight appearing feels redundant. Perhaps rephrasing the sentence would help it flow more easily. Similarly, I would consider the placement of a comma after "mascara-lined eye". The eyes "clocked that ring", so I would remove the comma.
I wondered about Prim being "Pug eyed". Did you mean "Bug eyed"?
My comments on this: This is the tricky thing about trying to write in a distinct voice. The line about the espresso martini etc. was my attempt to “burn” the language a bit and reflect the cadence of someone caught up in this specific world. They’re going to speak in run on sentences and dip in and out of a vernacular that’s more showing off than concise. Likewise with the pug eyed comparison—I assume my narrator would be seeing a lot more pugs in her day to day—real life and on social media—than bugs. Therefore this would be a more likely comparison to reach for in that moment.
The comma comment is a recurring theme in my writing. I guess I need to pay a bit more attention to basic grammar. Sixteen and a half years of schooling didn’t quite cut it.
Judge Two:
It was tough to distinguish the narrator from her companions, and differentiating her would strengthen her characterization. Consider this question: is she rooting for Prim and Jerry? Does she secretly hope the underdog gets the girl? That said, she might be the only one who's envious of the couple after a botched romance or failed marriage. If there's one characteristic that sets her apart, the reader will clearly see why she was the one chosen to narrate the story.
"Jerry's Proposal" is a very entertaining narrative. Once the author continues to shape the narrator's character, it will be stronger as a result.
My comments: The lack of distinction from character to character is a valid point. Yes, as one of the judges noted above: you could argue that these people largely outsource their personality’s to the group and would all carry a fairly flat personality. But, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t thinking in that level of depth while writing, so I’ll take it on board.
Judge Three:
If the ring was really a fake, then wouldn't his fiancee figure it out pretty quickly? I'm not sure how Jerry thought this would play out? Does the story need a fake diamond to get stolen or would the seagull theft of a regular ring also have story potential? It feels like a bit of a weak point in the plot line when the other elements are pretty solid.
My comments: This one speaks to the risk I spoke about in my last post re: this competition. The above judge clearly missed the point of the story, so inevitably is going to end up reading the end result on a much shallower level. This is where “playing the game” is crucial in a competition format. Who knows how far down the list I got marked down as a result of this confusion. Once again it’s my fault though. I knew the animal I was dealing with, took a risk, and paid for it.
That’s all for now. I’m not sure if this is interesting to anyone else. But it’s a bit of an insight into my thought process.