"Pageant Work" is about Mike, a beauty pageant consultant whose client is the victim of a hate crime. Amara was on the verge of beauty queen status when she was killed for being a Muslim woman participating in a televised beauty pageant. Now Mike has locked himself in his apartment in an effort to cope and differentiate the real world from the pageant world.
Originally, Mike's story was 100% different. His client was an upper-middle class teenager whose mother forced her (kicking and screaming) into the pageant world. Mike was sarcastic, pessimistic, and the story just wasn't clicking. Then I walked into the library and saw this flier (which I later stole).
And then I had my story.
Tom, my fiction professor, has been amazingly helpful with the development of the story. He has believed in the idea since I first put it up for workshop and has given me some really great compliments. I don't think I've ever been more proud of a story before. There's still a little more work to be done, but I'm excited about the future of "Pageant Work."
