Monday, October 12, 2015

According to the Queen Bees

by Shannon Fay from the October 5, 2015 issue

Tagline: Her 8th-grade student-matchmakers had been a little out of line, but Janet had to admit she liked the way they thought!

Observations: What stood out to me the most with this story was the quite long dark moment. We are used to seeing an actual moment where you worry for the romance.

Here's where it happens in the story "On Blueberry Hill."

Her breath caught as they neared the young man handing out buckets. Ryan? Of course not. Much too young.

Here's an example from "When Tracy Met Rick."

"What I'm wondering is, since you had such a bad day, would you like to talk about it over coffee? There's a place in the mall."

"Oh, but I'm afraid I can't do that," said Tracy.

Disappointment crossed his face and he pointed to her hand. "I'm sorry. When I didn't see a wedding ring, I thought you were single."

"I am single. I just meant I can't have coffee with a complete stranger." She held out her hand. "I'm Tracy."

So it's often short, for obvious reasons. You only have 800 words to work with.

However, in this story, things look dim for about one quarter of the story. Poor Janet is upset for a long time. But in the end, Charlie redeems himself by explaining that he totally respects how much work she does and that he likes spending time with her. This bodes well for the relationship. Who doesn't love a man who can admit when he's wrong? And with flowers!

So, to review, dark moments don't occur in every Woman's World story, but they don't have to be fleeting. You can draw it out for more drama.

Photo credit: Who Da Funk Style via the Creative Commons License

7 comments:

Mary Jo said...

What stood out for me in this story (yet another let's have coffee romance)was the "Valley Girl" dialog. I don't recall anyone ever using it before in a WW story, and I thought it was a very cute way of getting the couple together.

Sandy Smith said...

I enjoyed the plot of the girls trying to fix up their teachers. When I was in 8th grade, I had a single male teacher and 3 single female teachers, and my friends and I were always trying to tease him about them. (He did end up marrying one of them.) I agree it did involve more of a black moment than most.

Bettye Griffin said...

What's with all these invitations to have coffee? I'm starting to think they'll turn down any story that ends with a dinner invitation.

Mary Jo said...

Cheap date.

Betsi said...

I suppose we can't end the stories with "hey, maybe I'll see you around!" ;-)

Pat said...

I loved this story, reminded me of those old schools days.

I guess coffee is the new dinner. LOL

Tamara said...

i realize that this outcome (dinner/coffee) is overdone, but many dates in real life begin with a dinner/coffee invitation. It would be interesting to see statistics on this, which I'm sure don't exist. As for this story, I was reading along thinking good it was, until I read that Janet informed Charlie she wanted to spend time with him. Not subtle enough maybe or something I can't quite put my finger on. Shannon's such a good story writer -- editor's concoction perhaps?