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Andi Brown liked her new job, but sharing the same name with a co-worker was causing nothing but confusion...until she met the other A. Brown!
In a Nutshell:
Tired of getting her co-workers mail, Andi takes matters into her own hands. She strikes up a work place acquaintance with him until he goes one step further and asks her out for dinner.
Observations:
I'm afraid I've fallen out of the habit of reading theses stories weekly. The magazines have piled up and so I find I don't have an easy recollection of the types of stories that have been published lately. So, when I tried to think back on if I've seen a misunderstanding story lately, I couldn't remember.
However, this is a very good opportunity to talk about the trope of misunderstanding. In full-length romance novels, misunderstandings, if handled well, often create a believable conflict between the hero and heroine. If handled badly, it can seem contrived and lead to reader frustration.
In Woman's World stories, the misunderstanding is very often a way to get the hero and heroine together, as in this story. It gives the two main characters a reason to meet, and meet cute. Usually, the characters take it from there, again, as in this story.
Don't get me wrong. The other type of misunderstanding--the conflict kind--also happens in Woman's World romances. In our short 800-word stories, the misunderstanding is often based on an assumption, like the woman she sees him with must be his wife/girlfriend, right? Pfft. No. It's his female cousin/co-worker/neighbor. This kind of hokey plot works for the editors and readers of Woman's World. The trick is to make the characters interesting, get some good banter going, put a spin on it that seems new and different--like a unique setting or event or problem we haven't seen very often.
Photo credit: Russavia via Wikimedia Commons
13 comments:
Misunderstanding storylines can be really irritating, mainly because the characters need to not ask the obvious questions that anyone with a scattering of brain-cells would ask. So they do need to be handled deftly. This one was fine for me, although I couldn't see why Andy wouldn't just ask Andi out instead of going to the bother of buying lunch for the folks in the mail room to get them to continue wrongly delivering the mail. That was a little too contrived for my taste. But otherwise, nicely done.
I liked this story. The name misunderstanding was cute. i hadn't thought it a problem that he went to great lengths to keep seeing her before asking her out. If he was shy, he might want to find ways to see her a few times before asking her out.
I loved this story. Tina never fails me with her work. I thought the setup was cute and the characters adorable. The story worked for me.
I thought the story was very well written, but it went out of its way to make things complicated. It was a cute way to meet, but once they did meet, liked each other, chatted, why didn't the guy just ask her for a date? Instead, he got all embarrassed and she didn't appear particularly interested. In other words, it just seemed like padding to me. You wouldn't think 800 words needed any padding. It was a stretch.
Off the subject a bit, does anyone receive rejection notices from WW any more? It has been almost a year since I have had any communication at all from the editors. I thought maybe they had eliminated that service when they adopted the new protocol of obtaining all rights to published stories. Are there new guidelines available? I would appreciate any information other writers have in this regard.
Just as a reminder, Mary Jo (we were discussing this on the mystery blog), I received a rejection from Patty Gaddis (with no comment) in March, six weeks after I sent it, and have two other stories out--one submitted in January and the other March 2. All romances.
Thank you for the information, Tamara. I have submitted eight stories to WW since May of last year. I did get one form rejection letter from WA (Johnene) last September for a story submitted in June, but nothing since. My latest submission was in February, almost three months ago. There is probably an explanation, but I don't know what it is.
Mary Jo, they definitely still send out rejections--I got 5 of them last year. But I also never heard anything at all about 2 stories, sent in January and August, and have re-submitted them. I sold one story, and the response time on that was 5 months. We're definitely experiencing a longer response time and more "lost" manuscripts.
Thanks, Betsi. I wonder how the manuscripts of these stories are transmitted between editors. They could be packed up and sent by snail mail, I suppose, or scanned and sent electronically. I guess anything can be lost when it goes from the main office to an editor in the South to the editor in the Northwest and back to the EIC wherever she may be.
I love writing these little snippettes, especially the romances, and it would be encouraging to know that they actually reached an editor. Also, I think I have noticed names of new authors in the magazine. Maybe they are looking for fresh voices...good news for those hoping for their first WW sale.
The late Jimmy Meiss told a friend of mine that she picked out the ones she liked and put them in a big box and sent them to Seattle.
Yes, I got the same feeling that the actual manuscripts were forwarded to Johnene, not scanned versions. Isn't it a cumbersome way of doing things in this electronic age!
It has to be the actual manuscripts, or Johnene wouldn't have the envelopes.
Maybe she doesn't have the envelopes, for one reason or another, and that is why some of us hear nothing from her. That is, even with our complete address on the story. Well, most publications don't bother with a reply anyway.
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