Victory Party FAQ

Victory Party in the City Paper

My short story, Victory Party, won First Place in the City Paper Fiction Issue. Since then, a number of friends have asked me about the story. Where did the idea for Victory Party come from? How did I write it? Why did I write it?

Here are answers to Frequently Asked Questions. It’s the story of a story – how Victory Party got made.

Idea

The deadline for the City Paper contest was not long after the election. It was a natural subject. I was not alone in this. According to Mary Kay Zverloff, who judged the competition, the vast majority of story submissions dealt with the election.

I was surprised, like most people, by the depth of Trump’s support. This election was Hillary’s to win – all the polls agreed. But, clearly, there was a secret class of Trump supporter, people in the shadows, who kept their opinions to themselves.

Who were they? What motivated them? Exit the DC bubble and it’s not difficult to find people disgusted with this city and yearning for better lives. As I wrote in Victory Party, these were people who:

voted for the man, out of desperation, a mad hope that someone could change their cursed little town and their cursed little lives.

What would it be like to be a Trump supporter in Washington, where 96% of people voted for Clinton?

Conducting research with The Emperor’s Clothes at McClellan’s Retreat

Setting

There are a lot of bars in my fiction. Write what you know! It’s the default setting for a Joe Flood story. I find bars to be interesting places that bring together all manner of people together. Having talked to a few bartenders, I’m also interested in how bars operate, how a couple dollars worth of booze gets magically transformed into an $18 drink in the right setting.

DC has seen a rise in this “cocktail culture” over the past few years, as the loveable dives of my youth give away to exclusive speakeasies. I decided a ridiculously hipster bar would make a good locale for my story, the better to illustrate the contrast with elite DC and the real world.

I had two sources of inspiration for my setting: Bar Charley and McClellan’s Retreat. I wandered into Bar Charley on election night. It’s a cozy, brick-lined basement much like my bar in Victory Party. And, like in my story, there was a palpable sense of tension there on election night, an expectation of victory tinged with a fear of the unthinkable.

My other inspiration, McClellan’s Retreat, I just love. Quiet, dark and with no TVs, it’s a great place to meet and talk though their Manhattan is $25, which is insane.

Characters

I mock the people of DC in books like Murder on U Street. I think newcomers to the city are naive and clueless. A shiny veneer has been placed over a Washington that still houses many poor and disaffected. It’s a city where anything not locked down will get stolen.

In Victory Party, my bar patrons are sloppy and careless, blithely handing over their credit cards to questionable individuals and willing to get in any car that looks like an Uber.

It’s also a city of winners and losers, in which incumbents take all the benefits for themselves, leaving the rest of us nothing. Homeowners vs Renters. Baby Boomers vs Gen X. Feds vs Contractors.

I illustrated this dichtomy with two characters: Randy and Michael. Randy is an ex-con with $27 in his bank account. Michael owns a bar which serves watered-down drinks – and no one notices. Their view of America is shaped by the opportunities available to them. Crime tempts Randy while Michael is effortlessly rich.

Plot

With a story less than 1000 words, there’s not a lot of room for plot. All I wanted to show was the moment that Trump won, the shock in DC, and one person who was happy about it. Victory Party sketches out its characters and themes and then delivers us to that epiphany.

Writing

I wrote the story over a couple days in November. The first draft was 1300 words. It was called “Her” and was largely about the reaction of Hillary’s supporters to the loss.

As I do, I wrote it in coffee shops. It’s where I can focus. On a MacBook Pro, in Word, in case you were wondering.

After writing the first draft, I let the story sit for a day and then began cutting, to get the tale below 1000 words. I had just finished reading the excellent Hemingway bio,  Ernest Hemingway: A New Life. Following Papa’s advice, I cut out anything resembling exposition, i.e., explaining the characters rather than showing them do stuff. Show, not tell. 

I focused on Randy and his outsider’s view of the speakeasy, letting out just enough exposition for the reader to understand why he would resent a bar full of wealthy, naive Democrats. “Joe Flood masterfully doles out information,” according to Mary Kay Zverloff, a comment which made me happier than anything else.

After getting my story below 1000 words, I picked at it, like a turkey carcass, deleting and rewriting bits and pieces of it.

The ending was a struggle. How much happiness would Randy reveal? I rewrote it several times. In the end, I opted for my main character having a quiet moment of victory, one that he knows won’t last.

I also changed the title, from Her to the more ironic Victory Party. One of my last changes was to go back into the story and make more explicit that the party in the bar was a victory party.

What’s Next

If you liked Victory Party, you’ll love Murder on U Street, a mystery set in DC beyond the monuments. In this novel, someone is killing artists and hipsters. Read this book if you want a wry look at the city’s art scene.

I also have another book in the works – Drone City, a satire in which a drone crashes into the White House, leading to the end of the country as we know it. It’s my attempt to write a Christopher Buckley novel, but one set in the real city. I’m editing it now and looking for agent. Look for it later this year