The stories I will not be submitting to Irreantum

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I try to enter Irreantum's fiction contest every year although I don't always get something done on time and often end up sending in something half-baked because I couldn't get my act together. Here are three stories--one from last year, two from this--that I intended to submit but that never quite got put together.

[untitled]

I have a theory that a great genre story will do well in the Irreantum contest, but the only genre fiction I ever finish seems to be horror and the only LDS example, The Oracle, had the Mormon written right out of it during the first draft. This story was a deliberate attempt to write and LDS sf/horror story. A missionary couple in Africa travels from village to village digging wells. In one town the discover a horrendous Dr Moreau-esque operation by a multinational corporation that is killing and horribly mutating children. I think I couldn't finish it primarily because I hadn't done the research on well-digging missions. Without that basis, the rest of it couldn't gel.

And their (formerly) virgin brides throw themselves from the spires of the temple into the murky waters of the great Salt Lake

This one I hope to have ready for next year. It had too much silliness to write out in order to finish on time, but I love its title and its characters and its chiastic structure. "Maxwell knew well how well these damn Mormons could talk people into crap." How's that for an opening line?

An Atheist Girl Marries Outside the Faith

Frustrated with "Brides from the Spires" I started thumbing through old notebooks and found a page of notes from c. 2003 with this title and a few lines of dialogue between the girl and her father. And it was funny. I decided to give it a shot and I quickly made progress on the tale, but as I proceeded, the story got less and less funny and more and more racy and I was less and less sure how to end it. I worked on it again last night and added 1000 words but got no clearer sense of where to end it. I just need to let it sit a few months and then come back to it. Maybe I can submit it next year. If, you know, I ever finish it. And it's any good. You know. Those sorts of things. Responsible writer stuff.