I found myself at the Canadian National Exhibition this past weekend. It happens. Although it hasn’t happened in over five years, so it was a nice reminder of something that had been part of my life since I was quite young. The funny thing about the CNE is that last year, I wrote a cycle of short stories that take place there, even though I hadn’t been there in years. (Walk-through videos on YouTube helped a lot.) While I was at the Ex, I took photos of some of the places that inspired some of the stories, places like…
The first story in the cycle that I sold was called “Guess This is Your Unlucky Day.” It’s about a guy who runs the booth between the Food Building and the Horse Palace where he guesses your weight and/or age; if he is wrong, you win your choice of prizes. In the story, he takes photos of people (mostly women) who come to the booth. Going through the photos during a break, he notices that one of them has…tentacles. So. Many. Tentacles! This is the booth that inspired that story.
For most of my life, the farm animals were in a building on the other side of the Exhibition, the Better Living Building being primarily to display consumer goods. A few years ago, the animals were moved into it. A couple of years after that, the casino was moved into one half of it. This was the inspiration for the story “Animal Magnetism” (currently not under consideration anywhere). A woman who can talk to animals uses her ability to thwart a potential robbery at the casino.
I like to mix up genres. “Foreign Exchange” is a good example of that. It is essentially a spy story about an agent of the Transdimensional Authority who is supposed to meet a Ventrosian Squiggle scientist who has indicated that it wants to defect to the Squoggle side of the war. They decide to meet at a neutral place (the CNE) at an identifiable landmark (the fountain in the square). This story is under consideration at an anthology; wish me luck!
A lot of the stories in the cycle have scenes set in the Food Building because sooner or later we all have to eat. One set entirely in the Food Building is called “Romancing the Oracle.” A young east Asian woman who runs the counter at The Bug Bistro (an actual food booth for a couple of years, although no longer), is wooed by a long curtain of hair that starts appearing around the edges of her booth. This is undoubtedly the sweetest love story I have written, and it is my favourite story in the CNE cycle; I am chagrinned that it didn’t sell immediately. Still, hope springs eternal: it is on its seventh submission, so fingers crossed!
If I had been on the ball, I would have taken photos of all of the places at the Ex that inspired all of the stories in the cycle. Unfortunately, I only thought of it towards the end of my time there. Still, this should give you an idea of how the stories came together for me.