700 Words

I was sorting through my documents (cleaning out the folder of unnecessary stuff) and came across this. Back a couple months ago when I was still in school, I had gotten bored and decided to see if I could sum up Pride and Prejudice in under 800 words. As I wrote it, I found I was doing better than expected, so I changed it to 700 words. I hit the mark exactly. Anyways, as I read it I was highly amused and entertained by how I had to phrase things in order to make it short enough, so I just had to share it with you.

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“There’s a rich single man moving in to the big house in our neighborhood,” Mrs. Bennet tells her husband, “I believe he’s destined to marry one of our daughters.” The Bennets have five daughters, but you’ll mostly only hear about the second one, Elizabeth, and a little of the eldest and youngest, not much of the others.

The Bennets meet said rich single man, Mr. Bingley, at a public ball. Mr. Bingley asks the eldest, Jane, to dance and they really hit it off. Then there’s Bingley’s tall, dark, and handsome friend, Mr. Darcy who’s even richer than him. He doesn’t like anybody at this ball. He just stands in the corner, brooding. Finally, Bingley approaches him, “Come on, you should get out there and dance.”

“No. I don’t like it here. I don’t want to dance with anybody here. I don’t even like dancing anyway.”
Bingley-- Mr. approve-of-everything-- comments on how pretty the girls are and Darcy says that Jane is the only pretty girl in the room. Bingley tries to vouch for Elizabeth who, unbeknownst to them, is listening nearby.

“She’s not pretty enough for me,” Darcy declares.

However, shortly after making this comment, Darcy soon finds himself drawn to Elizabeth at different social events. The more he is attracted to her, the more she comes to despise him. They even have to stay under the same roof for several days when Jane gets sick while on a visit to Bingley’s sisters and Elizabeth comes to take care of her.

Two new men enter the picture: Mr. Collins and Mr. Wickham. Mr. Collins is ridiculous and clumsily attempts to court Elizabeth while Mr. Wickham just charms the pants off everybody. Wickham tells a pack full of lies about Darcy, but Elizabeth believes them because he’s a hunky piece of man-cake with a pity story, plus she already hates Darcy.

Then there’s another ball where almost every single one of the Bennets embarrass themselves greatly. Also, Darcy asks Elizabeth to dance. It doesn’t quite go as he planned since she starts talking about Wickham.

Shortly after, Elizabeth turns down a proposal from Mr. Collins.

He rebounds and marries Elizabeth’s friend Charlotte.

Bingley and company suddenly leave. Jane is sad, so practically everyone else is sad too.

Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr. Collins. Collins’s patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s nephew is there. Guess what? It’s Darcy! His cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam is also there and he inadvertently tells Elizabeth that Darcy broke up Bingley and Jane.

Darcy chooses a very inopportune moment after she just found out this information to propose marriage. Of course she says no. “You are a big fat jerk for what you did to Jane and Wickham! Even if you were the last man on earth, I still wouldn’t marry you!”

Darcy straightens things out in a letter. He says he thought Jane didn’t like Bingley like that and then he exposes Wickham as a liar and seducer/fortune hunter. Then he leaves.

Luckily for all romance lovers, this is not the last time those two meet. If it weren’t for Elizabeth’s meddling aunt and uncle who pressured her into visiting Darcy’s estate. Darcy wasn’t meant to be there, but showed up out of no where, surprising everyone.

Elizabeth meets Darcy’s sister and starts to see a different side of Darcy. Maybe he’s not so bad after all.

But fate steps in and Elizabeth learns that her youngest sister, Lydia, ran away with Wickham. She happens to tell Darcy who just leaves her in despair.

The runaway couple are eventually found and married. While visiting, Lydia accidentally tells Elizabeth that it was Darcy who found them and paid for their marriage. “Lydia say what now?”

Bingley comes back and proposes to Jane.

Lady Catherine suddenly shows up and is all “Don’t you dare think about marrying my nephew!” to Elizabeth.

“I do what I want, fool!”

On Bingley’s next visit, Darcy comes and everyone goes out walking. Elizabeth and Darcy discuss recent events which leads to Darcy finally asking, “Do you love me or not? Because I’m still madly in love with you.”

Hooray! Another engagement!

Mr. Bennet gives his consent.

Happily ever after.