WARNING: This LGBTQ-themed story contains scenes of self-harm, bullying, mature language, nudity, and violence. This is the only warning I will provide for the story.
Confession: I'm hooked on the Open Novella Contest (ONC). The 2023 contest was my first, and it was a wild and fantastic ride. The Wattpad community is genuinely alive during ONC. While my entry "Merlin's Curse" didn't place, I was thrilled to make it to the end and receive the Spirit Award. Merlin was the only entry in the Children's category and the only one out of hundreds that used my chosen prompt. Kind of cool.
My ONC 2024 entry is based on an idea I've been forming for several years without the proper spark. Prompt #17 (main prompt: appears in chapter 1) gave my creation life (haha, you'll get that joke when you read the story). As the rules allow, I did make a small change to the prompt without impacting its meaning or intent: No matter how deeply he loved, he was cursed never to be loved or to destroy those who tried. I melded the prompt into my story title: Love & Other Curses, 1985.
Prompt #95 (secondary prompt: appears in chapter 6): I will become as monstrous as I must.
The setting is 1985, a time when the AIDS epidemic was at its peak, and gay people were turned into something to fear, so what better metaphor for my story than Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? None. Exactly. But make no mistake...this is a love story, a dark love story scattered with light, about an innocent Mormon boy who dared to love a monster. Much like Mary Shelley's book, I contrast light vs. dark, isolation vs. companionship, knowledge vs. ignorance, etc., while portraying the overall beauty and ugliness of the 1980s through this story of connection, understanding, and love.
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Love & Other Curses, 1985 | bxb | ONC 2024
RomanceBad boy Adam Lawson is cursed never to know love until he's placed in a Mormon foster home and meets Thomas, an innocent boy who dares to love a monster no matter the cost. [Frankenstein meets 1985, the AIDS epidemic, and a bad boy desperate for lov...
