What the heck is a rhyming story? Isn’t that just a poem?

I had no idea, but I decided to enter the inaugural NYC Midnight Rhyming Story Challenge anyway.

I’ve had success in the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenges in previous years (stroll back through my posts to see my winning entries), so I was intrigued by the challenge this event would pose.

But I should say: I have never really written poetry before. This was as much about experimenting and trying a new approach as anything else.

Here’s the lowdown for newcomers:

• There are three rounds, and to progress to the next round you have to be judged in the top of your pod
• You have a week to write your story (and that goes down each round), and have only 750 words to use (which also decreases each round)
• Each pod has a genre, a theme and an emotion that must be clearly incorporated into your story. For the first round, mine were:
  • Genre: Comedy
  • Theme: Childproof
  • Emotion: Embarrassed

(Speaking of newcomers: a special welcome to my colleagues, who I hope to have drawn here through a plug in our internal newsletter. So glad you visited! If you are reading this you are by far my favourite colleague(s) and are welcome to anything you like in my snack drawer.)

 

Enough preamble, here is the story I produced:

 

Uncle Jamie

 

Well, the results came in last week and this story was sufficient to get me through to the next round!

I’m in the middle of writing my round 2 rhyming story right now, and only have three days to finish. I’d better get back to it!

 

One final comment:

One of my sisters’ husbands is called Jamie. To my children, he is Uncle Jamie.

I want to be clear: none of this story is about my brother-in-law! None of the protagonist’s characteristics are based on him. Sure, there are some similarities, but it is a completely fictional story.

I promise, Jamie! Your name just happened to work best with the rhymes!