Brief Encounters – February Short Story Call Out

Last month we had a peek-a-boo into the world of intercultural romance. Out of it came these three stories.

1. The Veiled Woman

2. A Tribal Love Affair

3. A Fine Girl

In February, we continue with the ‘Romance’ theme seeing as it is the month of love and Valentine must receive homage ( a double edged sword that one seeing as all three Valentines linked to the February 14 kissy face festivities were martyred, yes, killed, completely dead.)

Here’s your challenge. 

1. Pick up a book that you have already read. The book must be a work of fiction.

e.g I pick ‘I Capture the Castle’ by Dodie Smith which I recently finished reading.

2. Pick two characters in the book.

e.g I pick Father (Mr. Mortmain) and Mrs Fox-Cotton (all the best to me).

3. Write an alternate storyline for the two characters in which they meet as complete strangers and begin to fall in love with each other.

e.g In my story – Mr.Mortmain goes to London to research his puzzles and stumbles upon Mrs Fox-Cotton’s photography studio. Mr. Mortmain finds Mrs Fox-Cotton’s photography fascinating. She happens to have read his book, They bask in each other’s praise and maybe sort of begin to like each other.

4. Build up your story to a minimum of 1200 words and a maximum of 2000 words. At the end of your work, state clearly from which book by which author you derived your characters from.

5. Send us your story in Word attachment to blogs@storymojaafrica.co.ke. Your Email Subject must read as: Brief Encounters. Deadline is 21st February 2014.

6. The prize is KES 1000/- and an opportunity to feature on DrumbeatsKE’s FANFIC page.

P.S.: Fan fiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don’t do it for money. That’s not what it’s about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They’re fans, but they’re not silent, couch-bound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.

—Lev Grossman, TIME, July 18, 2011