EMIL IS MY EDITOR: P.K. Anthony

Look at me, I am your editor now.

Introducing 'EMIL IS MY EDITOR'

THE ANTE

You buy an autopsy. You get in line. You get what you need done up. You get it returned. If you want, it doesn’t get posted. If you do, I post it. You rework what you wanted done up, you post it, I post it, we all boost it, your work gets a signal bump, I get paid, you get a professional editor and an in for any future work with me automatically because you’re helping paying my bills, and I’m hopefully helping you be the best writer you can be.

THE STAKES

This series came about as a way to help me when my family was at our most desperate. It worked. The community helped in a way they didn’t have to. But now the emergency is over. It’s just the horror of capitalism. The stakes are you upping your game as a writer, my professional reputation, and whether or not my bills get paid. And yes, I’m working through a backlog.

THE FUTURE

Once a network is in place, we can do things with it. The community coalesced around me without knowing me well in a time of great need. That garners my support of everyone who helped my family until I get my brains blown out (only a semi-likely scenario) I’m BIG on community building and self organizing support networks. I’ve built a few. I’ve started a few. A rising tide lifts all ships. And maybe we can help get the fiction tab out of the swamp Substack has put us in.

FICTION CREATES CULTURE

therefore

FICTION IS CULTURE

and so

WRITERS CREATE CULTURE

And what are we, but writers of fiction?

Direct action? Buy me a coffee if you get anything out of this. Link below.

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Editorial Inquiries are open. Info at the link. Short stories on simple flat fee basis, and I can squeeze in one more 30-40k word manuscript right now if anyone is in need.

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And if you want 37% off my Substack FOREVER: until May 29th, in honor of my best friend Sarah Sottile, who killed herself two years ago on that date, take advantage of the fact that she’ll never be 40. This isn’t a gimmick. Well, it is, but it’s in memoriam to one of the most dynamic and truly self possessed people I have ever known. We are all worse off for her passing. Check on the people closest to you. (If you think this is tasteless, fuck you, she’d laugh over it. She was a hustler to the bone.)

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Special Thanks

This idea was brought to a slow rolling start from inception by

Tom Schecter, whose debt I wallow in eternally, and organized in full without me even being involved for weeks by him and Zani D, ARC , M.P. Fitzgerald - Graphomania, Nick Winney , E.K. MacPherson (who has sadly disappeared and it still worries me), Simpulacra , World of Warfield, and Zivah Avraham.

Thank you all. I’m deep in your collective debt. And I’ve never not paid a debt and then made more of it.

Cacoethes Scribendi

Nihil Perditi

Love wins/Violence Provides

FUCK IT, WE EDIT

P. K. Anthony

is next in line and has already tacitly endorsed being cut open publicly.

He restacked the original story:

Silhouettes

And included this blurb with it: I had my first suicidal ideation at the age of nine, and those thoughts have never gone away. Over the years I’ve made earnest attempts to die, not-so-earnest attempts, and even indulged in dangerous addictions hoping they might be a slow, enjoyable way to go. I’m in my thirties now, and have made huge strides towards better mental health. I no longer want to die. But as I said, the thoughts never went away, they’ve just become annoying, intrusive guests on the daily. As the state of society for most of us worsens and worsens, the thoughts have only gotten more intrusive, more inviting. In February, I was working through a fresh batch of anxieties spurring new calculus about how bad it would be to die really, and it sparked an idea: What if every time in my life I had made the decision to die, it left an immutable physical trace? What if that were true for everyone? As civilization creeps towards its own destruction, what would the end of the world look like then?

So I wrote this story to try and externalize the feelings that I was (and still am) wrestling with. It was written quickly, and while I was proud to finish it and get the feelings out, it almost certainly needs an edit to improve its prose and depth. That’s why I hired editor extraordinaire Emil Ottoman to take a look at it. He will be performing one of his trademark autopsies on it soon, and I am excited to see what he has to say, as I always learn so much from every autopsy he posts. I’m resharing the story now, as I’ve picked up a fair few more subscribers and followers since posting it who probably haven’t read it. I hope if you’re seeing this you’ll give it a read before my guts are spilled on the table, then tune in to learn a thing or two from my viscera, and then check back in when I repost this story with the edits it deserves. And thank for you indulging me by making it all the way through this note.

It’s worth noting that suicide in the month of May is a very touchy and personal subject for me, as stated above. So there’s a special place in my heart for this story. And as the edit has been under commission for far too long, what better time than now?

P.K. first caught my attention in earnest with a surreal and arresting piece of flash about sleep, or insomnia, or dreaming, or anything you want it to be about really, but the point is, it hit like a hammer. It didn’t only hit like a hammer, it pounded against the walls of form and imagery attempting to break them, a piece of writing on par with any of the strangest moments in Finnegan’s Wake. He’s inherently talented, obviously has his eyes set on the prize, and I believe from everything I’ve read since, he takes writing seriously. We’re here playing chess, not checkers kids.

As such, having read the story several times, this is going to be a technical developmental edit with some less line work than usual. He’s made STRIDES in his fiction since he wrote this, and it’s completely apparent, but now that I know the topology of the story (what if suicide or suicidal thoughts left a real physical shadow, a silhouette, what would that world look like?) I feel like I’m in a better place to parse the story, which is very expressionist in its current form. I believe that Mr. Anthony, scion of a strange new literary vernacular, showing domain mastery over the English language and also showing in later pieces his sterling ability to break literary form to fit want and need, could spit shine this early story into a pearl with a short draft.

So even if this isn’t going to be the most tautological or informative autopsy unless you’re aiming to make coin from the written word, I hope if you’re reading this, you get something out of it. And I also would like to thank P.K. for the support and trust with his work, especially in public. I will do my best to live up to any hype he has thrown in my direction.

Primary text will be formatted as regular, my notes will appear as italicized parentheticals.

THE TEXT

Silhouettes by P.K. Anthony

What is the weight of a decision? Meaning actual physical mass. The space it consumes. Jasmine Walker’s was: (I like this opening. This is a strong start.)

164.7 lbs.

39” at her widest. (One moment of confusion, is this the size of the silhouette? You refer to the silhouette as “it” but if this is the silhouette, for consistency, probably also use “it” as the pronoun. OR, since I just realized this is not the protagonist being described, which is a nice trick, see the second comment below this one.)

5’ 6” tall. (However I would keep this as the open, personally.)

It blocked the egg fridge of a grocery store in Lenox Hill, arm jutted out just right to dissuade shoppers from all but the leftmost cartons. (This is where ideally we get the information as soon as possible, because it’s the core of the concept of the story, as to what these things are. People like mystery, but in a short story getting to the point is usually better if you’re working with something this high concept. The concept underlying the story is NOT the story, it is the framing for the story, so the sooner you introduce the silhouettes for what they are, and concisely explain what they are, ideally using precise details and economy of words, as seems to be the vibe of the style this was written in. You don’t need to go into depth past what they are, a detail about why they’re a nuisance, or how they’ve disrupted society itself, why this in particular is a pain in the ass. And as for how I almost always point out that details don’t need to be excessive, but they must be precise, I’ve found a way of putting this that’s very easy to understand. It also groks with how our brain processes narrative and sensory information. “the miniscule, rust and blue, dying Ford Focus.” Attach it to a verb and you’ve got the sort of detail I’m constantly referring to. This goes for all sensory detail moments. So developmentally here I would suggest considering the actual point of the story, which isn’t the framework, and inspecting your original intentionality vs. what your intentionality may be now, whether it concerns my notes or not. Decent description of the blocking of the eggs, but I always think there’s a better word than “just” Just is imprecise. I would suggest more precision in the description of the blockage. A little here, a few extra words, changing the sentence, could go a LONG way. As it is, it’s not bad though.)

Those (cartons?) only went to the lucky (But why? From Jasmine’s suicide silhouette blocking her? Why would Sophie have issue here?); Sophie Pereira had to contort in mad shapes to reach a deeper one (precision). Broke a pair of buck-fifty eggs (update price! Jesus, I want eggs that cheap. Also, broke by how, squash, drop, hand crush? One detail on how it happened) trying to squeeze it through a narrow door gap (technically this could imply that the door did it, but concise). Ten would have to do. Not worth another attempt. (I like your tempo with the sentence length and variation so far, and your immediate use of the space on the page for describing Jasmine Walker. However, here is where you could put in a physical detail or two about Sophie. Wherever you want or feel appropriate would most likely be appropriate, and a little bit goes a long way with physical description, but if you leave too much to the reader they have no compass. I think Sophie deserves at least some features to act as a guide through the rest of the text. Consider it. You’ve introduced your protagonist, you’re in a cinematic third, and I know more about a dead woman blocking the eggs than I do about Sophie.)

Angelo’s birthday was coming up, that’s four. Cookies for the museum potluck made six. Four left for breakfasts. She could have squeezed a couple more meals out of them with enough milk, but it wasn’t a milk week, and what little they still had was for the birthday cake. (The interiority you move into here is good. You’re showing that the character is in a precarious situation, the way you do it is excellent, but it lacks any signs of texture or personal style. It also lacks a despair and emotional punch I would like it to have as a reader. Consider reworking this to bring some of the emotional interiority besides the calculus of poverty to the forefront, Sophie obviously needed all those eggs, each one had a place, and she was counting on having an egg or two extra as padding, with those gone I’d think she would be pissed. Main issue in first sentence, it’s easy to mistake the number of eggs being counted at first to be used in the cake for the age of Angelo. Tighten this up and you’ll hurt the reader for her pain.)

Guy at the counter rung her up slow. (give him one or two sensory details. I showed how they don’t have to be much. “Paunchy freckled guy with black bags hanging under his eyes rung (possibly change to rang?) her up slow. Etc.) Can’t blame him. Anything to take the mind off one of them looming (looming presumes height, are these all the physical manifestations of suicided basketball players? Tighten this just a little. Always behind, etc. Whatever. And as always, I’m going to harp on economy of words.) over your shoulder. (This is where you introduce the framing device of the story properly, but it’s still vague and obscurantist at this point.) You see it all over the city. (you can comma this, the sentences are getting a little bit choppy, compound some of them. And remember, sentences and punctuation are how you control time in the story.) Superblack void mannequins manning cash registers and never clocking out. (I love this, keep this, but if they are indeed corporeal and physical, make sure to note that this is the issue. Because this sentence is just ambiguous enough for me to wonder whether or not they have physical embodiment, or they’re just specters all over the city) Businesses were obstacle courses for employees and patrons alike. (In spite of this sort of clearing that issue up. It would be better to be made explicit earlier in the story, first page ideally if you ask me, but that’s just my gut. Remember, the story is the story, the events, the characters, this is a thematic and symbolic framing device. Make it mundane and annoying, and like Marquez, no one will question your authority from the first word of the story.)

She offered her usual thanks to God for a (this possibly) grocer on the corner of her block. (I’d suggest one detail about place, just to ground us, or not, your choice) The walks home from work had become so exhausting. (Previous sentence is exposition. Do you want it to stay that way?) It was already an hour each way at the best of times. (At the best of times, at the worst of times, you can write this better. You do such a fantastic job at avoiding cliché phrasing, do that here.) The bobbing and weaving between stopped (I’d suggest finding another word. Wordhippo.com is a lifesaver for most everyone I know) pedestrians was strenuous (Consider mixed show and tell exposition and sensory) now that (there’s almost always a better word. If you can phrase this better, feel free to. (See, the thing is you’ve proven to me already you CAN phrase it better) the number of them (them who? Missing information, the framing of the story needs reinforcement, the more vague you are the less well it reads, unless you’re going for an effect. Which I don’t know, you could be. But as a sentence level writer, it irks me to see other fantastic sentence level writers using cheap shortcuts) steadily (Pronouns are shortcuts and bypasses, there’s a better way to say it) increased by the day. It was ridiculous (Again, this is vague, why was it ridiculous. We all know the trope of the city that never sleeps, but what about the city haunted by physical manifestations of its own suicided citizens?), even for New York. (tighten everything before this comment)

Crossing the Queensboro Bridge wasn't so bad. At least there all the Silhouettes were gathered at the edge, tiptoed on the railing, eternally peering over the fence and pondering how hard the water really is. (Great detailing here. I want to take some sort of issue with “how hard the water really is.” But I think it’s very good. Great tone. This scene is the vibe. But maybe make note, crossing the bridge on foot.)

Sometimes (Sometimes is vague but approximal. Minor nitpickery) the subway was an option, but their (family?) budget considered it a luxury. Except, weren't luxuries supposed to feel luxurious? (Yeah, I’d cut “Except,” and move this sentence after the one directly after this comment, it completes the thought while giving context in the middle, and gives a small, very small punchline in “weren’t luxuries supposed to feel luxurious? And maybe give a very short pointed example of real luxury.) Nothing opulent about it when you had to stand crushed by countless angry elbows (I mean, humans, the dead, both? This sentiment is entirely realistic but also just vague enough in story context to seem distant to the frame of the story). The seats were always taken. (condense this sentence somewhere unless you’re controlling the rhythm through chopped sentence length, but I could detect no real internal syntactical or grammatical construct that you could have been following. Usually I’m good at this, but maybe what you’re doing here went over my head.) Taxes went up every year to buy new, empty train cars. (You can compound these sentences) They'd hit the tracks in January, and be full again by the end of April. (full of what, people, the dead, both? Give us a few concrete details to complete our view of this world.)

Driving was out of the question. A non-starter out the gate, because this was NYC after all (Write this sentence without assumption, and making better point of the why, not everyone is in New York. Fucking New York syndrome. New York and LA, this is endemic to both cities, but it could also just be how you want the story to flow, in situ, of course driving is out of the question. I still think the sentence flops flat, tone is off somehow), but the congestion had gotten staggering. (Give us a timeframe?) Cops had to be hired specifically to guide traffic through stoplights clogged by seated, hovering simulations of former motorists. (simulations or apparitions, actual obstacles? Simulations seems like the wrong word here. Now a question of intent in the text, when does the apparition become tactile, is the silhouette conceived and embodied at the moment of decision, or the moment of terminal action? Because the gap between these two is LARGE) More taxes. More taxes. (I’d repeat it again because I’m big on threes, but that’s personal. I like that the dead are levying a fine on the living. If expanded just a little in the text, it’s a fantastic metaphor for the tax of grief. Hell, if you think for more than the thirty seconds I gave to come up with that, you could expand it a little on all angles because it’s a metaphor for grief and all associated downstream cascade from someone deciding to kill themselves.)

Headed home (vague), she passed a statuesque queue (we officially need to figure out the ratio of living to dead in this piece) looking to pick up the Sunday edition from a newsstand that (that’s probably a word you can rewrite the sentence to avoid needing as clutter) shut down maybe (vague, the narrator is close third but also by just saying maybe you’re creating distance between you and the reader without even realizing it. Can she not remember whether it was two or three months ago?) two or three months ago. The guy (Give me a few details on him, visual, something to work with) who ran it went all street artist (While technically correct “went all street artist” is beneath your current abilities. Rewrite) on the day he bugged out. Took a pile of unsold newspapers and some glue from a toolbox and wallpapered the outside with headlines.

Epidemic! Collapse! The End is Nigh! (You could expand on this to give more context on the situation of the world, or not, but this sounds like the world ending in slow motion)

An arresting piece at a glance and as sensationalist as the news used as a medium. (Rewrite, this sentence is troubled, and yet again, I say beneath your current skill level as a prose stylist. Inspect it, give it thought, and give it attention. This story is very short, in very short stories every sentence is its own little world. People give the minimalists shit for this but you cannot say that Amy Hempel doesn’t know how to write a sentence you want to read more than once. And in a short story, that’s the idea, to create something that is worth reading more than once. If I only read a short story once, I consider it to be failed.) Painted the picture of a rapid, shocking fall from grace. But society limps through all things. No exceptions. (I like these last lines. But I would hit return and make “No Exceptions” a two word one sentence paragraph.)

Shadows cast from rooftop pickets haphazardly cut the sidewalk into mismatched portions.(I really like Pynchon, keep this vibe, but rewrite this for precision and clarity. Especially “mismatched portions” again, work from the vague to the specific. The more precise your wording, the more impact.) Sophie stepped over dark lines to stay in patches of light where no stains marred the pavement. (This is a place where I want more context on the phenomenon. Without more information to go on this style of writing doesn’t read as clever, it reads as amateur pretending at being clever. You’re in your 30s and you’re a better writer than this. Fix yourself.) She waved to Greg, a more permanent fixture on the stoop of her building than he had ever been before. (Because he’s a silhouette, he’s dead, he offed himself, he’s a fucking ectoplasm devil. Again, precision.)

The five flights of stairs drove her to laughter that (That, or every? This couldn’t be the first day it cracked her up in the entire time this was happening.) day. It was totally clear of Silhouettes. She'd been up and down those(dirty warped wooden, cold hard scuffed concrete, cramped, rickety, ugly brown painted wooden, fuck the chicken) steps hundreds of times. Couldn't imagine how, of all things, the trudging never broke at least one person. (Love that. Because fuck a fifth floor walkup)

The first thing she saw when she entered their studio apartment, as every time (deformalize the grammatical structure here, it’s a flat note), was The Escape Artist. Angelo (her fiancé? Husband? Derp?) didn't want to give it a name, didn't want to acknowledge it at all. For her, it was the only one of those (how many of these are clutter words) shades that (and this one too, almost fucking always) she liked. It sat cross-legged on their fire escape just outside the front windows. Presented fire hazard (Something about this sentence, consider it.), but that's (Consider that very few things about safety bother a landlord.) never bothered a landlord before. Didn't bother Sophie either. Not when it meant a few hundred bucks knocked off the rent. (cut “not” compound the sentence “Didn’t bother Sophie either when it meant…” Flows a bit better)

She abandoned the groceries (Did she throw them in the fucking ocean?) to dote on her daughter (Her daughter had a name, and her name was Robert Paulson, and she had at least two visual or other sensory descriptors to go along with her), who was all smiles and happy claps to see (to see is out of place here somehow) mom approach her crib. Sophie (Should probably clean up the action sequence here and have her transition the baby by picking it up) bounded (Don’t know about bounded. Maybe something that sounds more whimsical or loving? Bounding doesn’t sound right…) about (aound maybe) the room (Give us some eyes on the details of their poverty or situation, just a detail or two. Give the reader a hint or two and they’ll fill in how depressing the contrast is between her balleting the baby, and their situation) bouncing the bundle of joy (Kill the cliché) in her arms as Baby Daniela cooed and giggled and tugged at hair. (Definitely decent here.)

"Hello there! How is little Dani? Did you enjoy your time with Daddy today? I bet you did! Yes, you did! And where is Daddy?" (give her some business.)

Angelo rolled into view from the kitchen nursing a freshly poured, half-drunk glass of cachaça. "Hi." (I like this, definitely good. I like him rolling into view, sounds right)

Sophie could have let her expression get the message across, but reading faces wasn’t his nature, and biting tongues wasn’t hers. "Bit early for that." (Like these details, maybe tighten it up, keep the core, there are some junk words laying around)

Baby Dani pawed at her mother's lips, examining why they looked (were?) less fun all of a sudden. (I will fight you over anything all of a sudden…)

"Yeah." Angelo sank into a dining room chair looking straight through his wife and child. (staring maybe, good characterization)

"Spill it."

Why should he? Saying it would make it real. She didn’t want the (can cut the) real. He stared at the ugly gold color of the liquor against the ugly (close echo, choose one ugly or the other) brown of the table sitting on the ugly (I recant to the triplicate, much less vexing) kaleidoscope rug. Ice clinked, idly spun in the tumbler.

"Angelo, talk to me."

"I got laid off today." (Pause before this, give him a moment of some business, hesitation maybe, or was that up in the last para? If so, echo it very shortly maybe. Either way stands well.)

"What?"

He downed (cliché phrasing) the drink, offering the empty glass as an (his, better if he owns the answer) answer, but she needed to hear the words. (Why? Was it not enough, this could go a little emotionally deeper. There’s opportunities to create more tension in this scene I think you’ve missed out on. Do a deep read pass and think about how you can make the scene vibrate a little.)

"Apparently, remote guidance counselor is a dead profession–"

"No, no, no, no…" (The dialogue CAN carry it, but action with words is also an option.)

"Waste of resources, they called it."

"You can't be fired." Sophie paced a rut in the floor. The frenzy agitated Baby Dani (vague description of agitation, baby got stuck in ceiling fan). "What are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know—“

"Did you get severance?"

"Not much—“

"We can't get by on my paycheck."

"I know that—“ (I really love this exchange, good rhythm to it.)

"My hours are getting cut in half. No one is coming to the museum! Nobody wants to look at modern art when it's littering the streets already!" Infantile whines filled the room (Distancing language). Sophie rubbed the baby's back, (pick it up first?) abrasive as sand paper. (Wait, what was abrasive as sandpaper, compound word) "Shh, shh, shh. It's okay. Mommy's okay."

Baby Dani settled, but only just. (But only just no, rewrite, you’re better than this sentence) She fidgeted and squirmed and clocked the lie as well as any adult. (See, the next sentence proves my point.)

"Have you applied to new jobs yet?"

"What, today?"

"Yes, today."

He shook his head. "I just need…" Angelo massaged his temples hard enough to pop eyeballs. (I don’t know how else to say it but this reads wrong.) "Can I have a day to process this?" (Perfect place for him to have some physical business, he’s pleading.)

"No, Angelo! Rent is due in two days! The hospital bill in five! After that we're broke!" (I appreciate that you write dialogue that can carry the scene but I’d also like some business from the characters. Unless you’re doing a David Mamet. In which case, I mean, carry on.)

"I know that!"

The glass careened and shattered against a wall. (Did it just do this on its own?) That’s (You can do better than that) how Angelo had to see it. Not weakness dressed up as indignation, but something outside of himself. (Excellent) Something happening to them. Added to pile of things happening to them to disappear beneath the worst of it. (This is vague, condense these sentences and then think of things that could go wrong, it doesn’t have to be a long list, but a cascade effect would hit hardest. As it is we understand, because we almost all live like this at some point, or all the time, but if you give particulars it drives home. Especially if they’re concise in detail but broad in application, that’s where the gut punch you want lies)

Baby Dani exploded into shrill, heaving wails that split heads and killed souls (Right vibe, starts with a cliché phrasing, moves on to something that in the framing of this story I would reconsider the entire wording of given there are physical wraiths everywhere). The levee had been filling since the conversation started, and now it had (you don’t need this had) broke. For her and Angelo. (By extending the breaking of the glass for so long the punch of the baby screaming and the metaphor of the levee breaking seems back loaded, almost tacked on, maybe foreshadow it, or at least think about this concept.)

“Nice, Ange. Really fucking nice!” (Breaking narrative structure and action sequencing, phrasing makes it seem like she’s saying the previous in an attempt to beg the baby to calm down. Simple syntax error. Simple fix.) Sophie begged the baby to calm down. (She possibly, I get the technique that you’re using here, and I know the places to use it, but this is not the right place for it.) Ricocheted around the apartment bargaining with God to make a teething ring or a pacifier appear. (What of god, when the suicides inherit the earth as living shadows? I’m sorry, invoking God here just opened up like, a whole bowl metaphysics for me.)

Angelo shambled to the window, unblinking eyes fixed on the Escape Artist. (One sensory detail besides unblinking. Passive verbing but it doesn’t really hurt the flow) He hated that its back was turned to him. (If this is a revelatory scene of some kind, you need a longer beat here.) Always looking outward. Toward what? (you got options for expansion here) Were their sad, little lives too boring for it? (for it is vague, I’d go with to watch, some variation thereof) Was it jaded by its glimpse of the beyond? Or enraptured by it? (These are the questions I want to know. Or did it even see the beyond? Or is there a beyond? Or?)

Sophie collapsed on their bed, breathing heavy, listening to Baby Dani sucking quietly on her pacifier. The bedding smelled sour (good sensory detail, make it more precise, or contrast it against what smells sour, if you can bring about the detail of it smelling sour without saying it smells sour, that could be better, but if you want to stay brisk, Just go with sour). The building laundry machines were predictably inaccessible, and laundromats weren’t much better. Barring bedbugs, blankets were low in the priority order. (Is this information important to what is going on in the story, if it is, what is it doing, if it is not cut it, if it has a greater point or you consider it essential, rewrite it but as you write now, not in your underdeveloped voice. You’ve come so far since this story I’m amazed.)

Maybe that was the problem. Clean sheets were a small comfort. So was a deep breath in silence. They’d forgone so many small comforts in the pursuit of security. Death by a thousand cuts. They could change that. There was room for comfort even in this world if they worked at it. (Expand on this. You cut to the heart of the idea, but consider every sentence. Inspect and reflect on your own prose, how it sounds, what it’s saying, and why it’s saying it. If anything sounds too familiar, that’s not your voice, it’s cultural programming, fuck that, your voice is better. Your voice is what people come back for. Rarely your ideas, no matter how good, but your voice, the writing itself, that brings readers back, because they want to experience the moment again.)

Angelo joined his family on the bed. Swallowed them in his arms. Buried his head into his wife’s neck. “I’m sorry. I flew off the handle.” (This is all one sentence)

She ran fingers through his thick, brown hair. Found herself nostalgic for the feeling. Another small comfort denied. Had it really been so long? “I’m sorry too. I should have given you a chance to breathe.” (Sex, they’re talking about sex, just say the quiet part out loud.)

Angelo made a big show of inhaling, a bigger show of exhaling. “There, I’ve breathed.” (Great moment, rewrite it as yourself)

Sophie laughed. Electricity coursed through her skin. (cliché) So much of her laughter was reserved for gallows humor. Detached irony. Denial. (And we’ve had not a single example of these things really. Just something I noticed. Otherwise good shit.) Sincere laughter had become a drug, and she craved to chase the high. (I love this, but the second clause is cliché, rewrite)

“Hey, what if we…went away for a few days? Find somewhere cheap upstate and put it all on the credit card.” (And this is how I lost my mind after my best friend hanged herself and will never own a house!) (But seriously, make it apparent that Angelo is proposing this idea. Also, this is what a psychologist would call hypomanic.)

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“No, but I don’t care. We’ll figure it out later. I think we need it.” (Love this)

Angelo melted her with the coy half-smile she fell in love with. (Do me a solid and rewrite this but better.) “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let’s go upstate.” (And maybe punctuate it with some physical action or business showing her caving)

Their starved lips hungered to bond. (This is the single most awkward sentence in this piece. It is a passive verb construct, their lips aren’t hungry, they are, their lips are just the locus of the hunger, keeping this passive invokes the picture of two hungry sets of lips sitting around waiting to magically bond, it’s just awkward.) Came together for a few moments to make of them one being with strength to rise and rise again. (I like this, keep it) Sophie ached for it to last forever (Sophie ached to not be written so laden with cliches because the author who spun her into existence had grown so much since this story was written, coming into his own power), but rumbling stomachs bid her to end it. (I’m a dork, keep this as the ending. It’s a good line. It sings. The line before does not, but the subordinate clause sings)

“How about I get dinner started, let you and the baby enjoy yourselves for a bit?” (Well this is about to immediately be a mistake.)

She handed Baby Dani to Angelo and skipped to the kitchen (skipped? Really? You chose skipped?). He lifted Dani up into the air, flew her around like an airplane, made noises to sell it. The most beautiful little girl in the world(,)and his to boot. He could hardly believe he was ever worthy to bask in her perfection. (Right vibe, but rewrite it, the sentence is dissonant, and not in a good way. Unless you’re going for dissonance, but it’s completely at odds with the rest of the para. And I don’t mean dissonant in theme, I mean as in asonant and dissonant, it sounds wrong as currently written.)

A trip upstate was the right move. It would be a good reset for the relationship. Their previous (previous is clutter) vacation plan was put on hold last June. The plan the September before that, as well (find the clutter and remember, short stories are a form where economy of word and thought is good, unless you’re a maximalist (you’re not in this story, trust me. Nothing against it, but this whole story would work horribly in a maximalist mode unless you’re maybe Steve Ericksonn or Pynchon). This one would go well, surely. A few days, that’s all they needed. A weekend in a new context to rest and relax. Then they could discuss the future. (The rhythm of this last bit is off. I see what you may have been trying to do, halting phrasing. Surely. (surely get rid of surely Shirley) the idea of hey, maybe this one thing will fix it, but the phrasing and hesitancy of the cadence casts doubt. What I’m saying is you could do this better now if that’s what you’re trying to do. If that’s not what you were trying to do, awkward phrasing, suggest rewrite how you write now.)

Their future.

The world’s future.

Dani’s future. (I like this, but I feel like it’s not creepy enough. We had one moment of foreshadowing, but maybe that’s the point now that I think about it. Because things don’t have to be foreshadowed. They don’t have to be embedded early on. Sometimes people just fucking jump…)

“Hey, I meant to tell you…” Sophie shouted from the kitchen, her hammering knife strokes into the cutting board making a racket. (Ok but like, I thought she was maybe stabbing her own hand, maybe give the action more precision) “Mei tried out that new Indian spot we were talking about. Said it’s fantastic. A bit pricey, but the entrees are big, and they don’t care if you split them. Maybe we could go next week? Add it to the vacation tab? What do you think?” (Great DX throughout. You COULD carry a story on dialogue alone.)

“Honey?”

“Angelo?”

She dropped the knife and went searching for a response she’d never get. (This is where I wouldn’t telegraph, just have her go into the other room.)

Angelo and the baby were gone.

She was all alone. (This would honestly be terrifying in this world.)

But (she looked out the window)

(And froze or something else, but there needs to be one more beat, just trust me.)

(Just “The escape artist was not.” is your last line, trust me. It hits if you set it up, the only problem with this early version of the story is the final line isn’t set up. It should produce a chill.) the Escape Artist was not.

FIN

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My kingdom for the ability to highlight text in posts…

FINAL THOUGHTS AND NOTES

As repeated throughout the editorial pass, this is not representative of your voice and style as a writer now. The concept is compelling, but it is underdeveloped and vague at the thematic level in this draft. Go over it with intention and a fine toothed comb, and bring back something worthy of the gravitas of the subject matter. You could expand it structurally from the lean 1774 words it is right now. It seems like it should be maybe a ten page story if you ask me. I think the setting needs a little more room to breathe, you didn’t fully expand some of the ideas present in the text, leaving them too vague for the reader to care to fill in. The dialogue is all fantastic. The movement of the story is coherent and not confusing, there’s not so much exposition that I feel like a distant god is shitting on me from somewhere in the clouds, but I would stand by all of my line edits.

You are such a better prose stylist now, and on top of that, this subject is one that should knock wind. It smells like speculative psychological horror with supernatural of fabulist elements to me, but you could go a little deeper. As it is the possible depth is glossed, like the opening to the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake after the initial scene, except without The Man Comes Around playing.

You only use passive verb constructs a few times, but you use them at what I would say are the worst possible times in the text as it stands. You could vary the sentence length a little in places. You don’t use many weak adverbs (thank you, oh thank you) There is a lot of excess glue and clutter words in the text, find them and weed them out until you have your vision. (People’s vision I’ve found usually includes an excess of extra conjunctive connectors gumming up their prose)

I’d say you’ve got one draft and maybe a spit shine and this story would cut to the bone.

You know what you want to say, but you need to update it to how you say things NOW. This is just proof of how much one person applying themselves can improve their writing in around 90 days if they make a practice of it and they’re astute. You are very astute. The characters are thin except through how you paint them in dialogue. But the dialogue carries. Your sensory details leave me with very little to go on as for anyone involved, but a few details to set the reader’s mind going is all it ever takes. (No one ever told Bret fucking Ellis this.)

Aside from that, my editorial notes are comprehensive. As the departed would say.

“Choose your own adventure.”

And again, thank you to the public and private Emil is My Editor entries so far. Zivah Avraham, M.P. Fitzgerald, and Nick Winney.

And if you like this story or want to see a fantastic prose stylist coming into their own in real time, please, subscribe to

P. K. Anthony

’s Substack. If you want to read a bona fide head trip proving his growing prowess, start at the piece linked below.

(I)nsomnia

Thank you all for your support.

And, I’ll be your editor any time you want.

But Remember.

Fiction is Culture

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