Writing Reflections: The Lover's Enchantment

Welcome back, readers! It’s been quite a week for me. I’ve been slammed with work, so I haven’t had time to write, but I’ve had all sorts of ideas for my upcoming (eventually) short story collection pop into my head, so hopefully that will start coming together soon. I was also surprised by landing an Honorable Mention in the Posthumous Author Challenge. In honor of that, I wanted to use this Writing Reflection to look at yet another Challenge entry that did NOT win—this time, one from as far back as three years ago. So, strap into your DeLorean because I’m going to take you back to the year 2023 and my story “The Lover’s Enchantment” for the Under Purple Clouds Challenge.

For those of you who don’t remember the Under Purple Clouds Challenge (I doubt that many of us do), here is the text from the original Challenge prompt:

Write the first chapter of a magical realism story that starts with the following sentence:

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.

-Vocal, Under Purple Clouds Challenge

Now, since “The Lover’s Enchantment” is a longer story, I will only leave the link below for you to read at your leisure.

The plot is, essentially, a love story with a tragic end in which a single mother must give birth to her first child without the father of the child, but the child has been blessed—or perhaps cursed—by the mythical astrological event called The Lover’s Enchantment.

In hindsight, I can see why it was not chosen for a placement in the Challenge. The most prominent reason is that it does not feel like the first chapter of a longer piece, as the first sentence of the prompt required. After the Fantasy Prologue Challenge—which I also lost—I was worried about leaving readers hanging, so I wanted to write something that could be the start of something larger but could also be complete in and of itself. So, that’s what I tried to do with “The Lover’s Enchantment”. Instead, I might have written a rather brief story that was complete all by itself. It could certainly be expanded into a larger story—at least, that’s how my imagination sees it—but that larger story might not include this smaller story as a first chapter, but rather a background story.

There is also the fact that I chose a writing style that would not be able to be carried beyond this story and, in fact, that might not land with many readers. I chose more of a “tell” style over a “show” style, and very purposefully. I wanted to create the feeling that I was telling a legend or rumor about the so-called “Lover’s Enchantment”. I also thought that it created a hypnotic rhythm with the in-between sections explaining what the Lover’s Enchantment was. I honestly still defend using this style of writing for this particular story, even though it goes against the typical advice of “show, don’t tell”, which I am often a strong advocate for. I am also a strong advocate for bending the rules when the story calls for it, and in this case, I believe that the story did.

Rereading the story after three years—this morning was truly the first time I had read this story since losing the Challenge in 2023—gave me what I believe are fresh eyes with which to look at it. As I said, I can see why I lost that particular Challenge, but as a story itself, I don’t think that I would change it. I am rather proud of it, actually. It made me emotional, it felt clever, and it brought a little joy into my life. Perhaps it was not the right story for that Challenge, but it was the right story for me.

What about you? Have you written a story for a Challenge that turned out to be right for you but not for the Challenge? Would you change it now, or keep it the same? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

As always, if you have any stories of mine that you would like me to analyze in future Writing Reflections, leave those in the comments as well!