Winning happens!

or the invisible link between a game of Solitaire and Freytag’s pyramid

It happened to me! My story Beyond Salt and Wings won first place in Fractured and Fused prize, judged by Sherrie Flick.

Exposition:

You start your day with a game of Spider Solitaire, betting on a wish — win, and it comes true. There’s always something to wish for, but mostly you wish for a story you’ve sent out to get long listed, even make it to the shortlist. Some days are lucky — you collect all the cards and they do a Macarena dance on your iPad — then you forget entirely about Solitaire and carry on: go to work, then home, write, cook, news/book/sleep.

Inciting incident:

One day at the beach, you help a wild creature return to its wilderness. You know there’s a story there, so you write what happened. As you’ve done your good deed for the day, you even buy a lottery ticket, but it doesn’t win. The story becomes a file in your laptop (or your brain) like another game of Solitaire you’ll forget about.

Rising action:

1. Every time you walk on a beach, you think of the wild creature. Every time you see one of them, you think about the story and open the file – on your laptop, in your head. You rewrite, edit, add something here, omit something there. Before you know it, there’s been two years of airing the story. It had stretched and shrunk so many times that animated, it would flap its wings.

2. Tired of Solitaire and writing, Solitaire and losing, you send it out, even to a competition. By now your skin has toughened up like the feathers of a Pied Cormorant – what can you lose but another game?

3. You play your Solitaire, and sometimes you wish for that story to be long listed. Amidst a flutter dancing cards, you’re told you’re on the long list.

4. You’re on the short list.

Climax:

You receive the email that tells you your story has been placed first. You dance the Macarena dance. You want to run to the top of the highest mountain, or at least a pyramid, and shout out: I’m the winner.

Falling action:

It’s been made official.

You’ve posted the news on social media. People are happy for you.

You translate your FB post to the friends and family at home. The words don’t quite carry across. Promise to translate the story too.

Beyond Salt and Wings is finally published, and you write a little post about it on Substack.

You look at your words and wonder did you really write them? Wonder if the Cormorant is alive. Wonder if your story touched someone out there.

Denouement:

You promise yourself that you will go to that beach soon and celebrate a three-years anniversary since you wrote the story.

You play a game of Solitaire, wondering what to wish for. The cards do their Macarena dance, regardless. Time to go to work.

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