Almanac Writing: ‘Chasing Juliet’, a short story review

 

 

Over the past six to eight months, I have been completing a writing course. The culmination of the course was to have drafted, written, edited and completed a short story. For the first two months of the course, I was unsure what to write. At the same time, I was reading as many short stories as I could find. Everything from Edgar Allan Poe to teen dramas. I eventually settled on writing a story based on a dream I had once. Which is not uncommon, or so I read. My tutor in the course even said that her early stories were based on dreams she’d had. I’ll just have to see if I win any competitions with the completed story.

There is a website that I frequent now called Reedsy. It is a blog filled with short stories. All of them are free and available to read online. It spans a heap of different genres, Coming of Age, Crime, Drama, High School and so on, and so on. There is one short story on there that I find myself going back to and re-reading because I like it. I’ve used it to inspire my own writing. The short story on Reedsy that I re-read is called ‘Chasing Juliet’, written by Jane Andrews and published in 2024.

The plot centres around Amy, a shy high school student, who loves Shakespeare. Amy’s friend Artie suggests to her that she should audition for their school’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Amy decides to do this, trying out for the part of Juliet. She wants this part because her secret crush, Jed, has the part of Romeo. She imagines sharing the kissing scenes with Jed. Before the audition, she practices with Artie and realised she loves Artie and not Jed. Amy misses out on the part of Juliet. She is beaten by someone else, a cheer-leader type named Sorel Anderson who is no Shakespeare connoisseur, but is sassy and confident. Amy, therefore, gets in a relationship with Artie and isn’t bothered she is not sharing intimate scenes with Jed in the production.

Now I am no Shakespeare fan. While studying it in high school, for the most part, I did not understand it. Did not like it and was glad when it was over. However, ‘Chasing Juliet’ does not require Shakespearean knowledge, though it probably would help. The story cleverly weaves facts about Shakespeare into the plot through its use of first-person narration and dialogue from different characters.  The plot of ‘Chasing Juliet’ mostly mirrors the plot of Romeo and Juliet, albeit much shorter. That is why I guess it works so well. After reading other stories written by Jane Andrews, I can see she’s used this technique in several other stories. Recognising that, I think is a good lesson in structuring a short story, developing characters and a plot revolving around them.

I suppose in a similar way that the 2000 Rom-Com 10 Things I Hate about You, also does. 10 Things I Hate about You is a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. So, Jane Andrews has used an existing and proven formula. But I am not suggesting that this decreases my enjoyment of ‘Chasing Juliet’. Not at all; I find it is the perfect blend of teenage romance, interesting characters and a predictable, yet satisfying end.

 

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