Invitation to the Autopsy

A Developmental and Line Editorial Pass on a Flash Fiction from Melissa Smith

(Original still of Tyler Durden’s Gun in Narrator’s Mouth, Fight Club, directed by David Fincher (20th Century Fox, 1999))

Welcome to the Autopsy

Some preface. I’m an editor. I’m bored. I like to share my knowledge and experience. It’s winter. I hate winter. I love reading. I love good writing. I love new voices. And I love to read new work. I also have a thing for seeing things other people haven’t, but it’s just a ME thing, probably.

Every Monday I will make a post in the morning. If you want an editorial pass, notes, a looksie; send me your best, your worst, your problem child, your precious darling, your abused stepchild, at emilottoman@gmail.com.

I will accept emails once a week, on Monday, from 6am CST to 6pm CST US, at that email address. Not in comments, not in DMs, not in any of my other email addresses, but only at emilottoman@gmail.com. Include AUTOPSY (all caps) in the subject line, please. For organization’s sake.

On Following Instructions: And for the love of god and all that is burning in hell please follow instructions. One time I was at a book event for Chuck Palahniuk. We’ve met several times before, but I was with my best friend who at the time was fighting cancer. She was 29 and five foot four, but she looked like she’d just walked off set as an extra in Schindler’s list, she was walking with a cane, and she was bald. Chuck was signing copies of Fight Club 2, the hardback. We chatted while he signed me, my mom, and Stephanie’s copies of the book. In the middle of signing one of our copies of Fight Club two he looked up at me and asked “this is going to make absolutely no sense, but could you do something for me?” I agreed. Chuck said, “could you go and walk outside the bookstore, onto the sidewalk, count to twenty, and then come back inside for me real quick?” At the time, this made perfect sense. No, it made no sense at all. I did it anyway. When I returned Chuck patted me on the head, quite literally, and said “excellent, thank you. Very good, you followed instructions. Remember, it’s always important to follow instructions.” The sarcasm was biting but playful. He then proceeded to take a picture with me where he stood on a chair behind me and lifted all 240 pounds and six feet three inches of me about three inches off the ground in a perfect chokehold for about five seconds. I was terrified. The man is STRONG. Arms just steel cables wrapped in skin. Flash forward six months. While I was out of the bookshop dutifully counting to twenty he was asking my mom and cancer riddled best friend to remind him of some details about me, then handed my mom a sealed manilla envelope. She was to write him a letter about me and Stephanie and the cancer and such, and in return a very large (in the scheme of things) box arrived in late December with a very kind letter, filled with the usual ephemera that Chuck sends people. (Once he sent my moms a glass piece of a chandelier from his childhood home.)

All because I followed simple but confusing directions.

(Also, if you’ve ever had a correspondence with him of any kind beware, he keeps every piece of mail from a fan or colleague. He knew where I’d lived when I sent letters to him AS A TEENAGER nearly two decades ago)

So, follow directions, send me stuff, get an autopsy. If you don’t get chosen for the week, you’ll still get a first pass of initial notes. Promise. Great! Moving on.

This motherfucker is SO going to overrun the email length limit, but whatever. We do what we do for the love of the game.

WARNING INCOMING EXPERIMENT IN FORMAT

I hadn’t thought how I would handle this from a logistical standpoint, as there’s no track changes and no option to highlight and comment on Substack, so we’re going to go with footnotes the first time round, and if that works we’ll keep the format. If it doesn’t, please for the love of god comment about it and tell me how much you absolutely hate me. Thanks in advance.

THE AUTOPSY

I’m praying opening this doesn’t crash Google Docs or Chrome… Thank God, it didn’t. This week’s grand premier editorial autopsy is a piece of flash from

Melissa Smith

clocking in at right under five pages and 1585 words or 1634 words, depending on whether you trust ProWritingAid or Google Docs more.

(Yes, I use ProWritingAid. Use Grammarly? Spellcheck? Ever look up a word? Ok cool, don’t panic. ProWritingAid and various software like it is just another tool in the toolbox. Editing can be drudgery. Are there AI tools in the suite? Yes. Do I pay attention to things they say about a text’s style, et al. No. Should I? No. Never. God, go die in a fire you heathen. You think so poorly of me? I use ProWritingAid for the annoying bean counting I used to brute force by hand. It’s a professional tool. It’s tremendously handy. But the thing it’s best for is taking the tedious bean counting out of the editorial process. You think I LIKE counting -ly adverbs by hand? No one does.)

My editorial style is holistic, and I bring all of my previous experiences to the table in good faith. I’m not proscriptive or prescriptive, I believe in helping the author find their voice, recognizing their personal grammar and syntax (which is more important to outstanding writing in my opinion than perfect or CORRECT all caps, grammar and syntax) questioning their themes, inspecting the text, and amplifying all of the aforementioned to help them rise to the level of their true competence, whatever that may be.

Though I specialize in minimalist fiction that does not mean I want to flatten everything to fit the mold of formal minimalism. My minimalism isn’t even that formal, it’s a hybrid including experimentation and maximalism combined with everything I’ve absorbed from friends, workshops, fiction, too many books about writing fiction, and my own thoughts and feelings about how the best way to edit is to make your contributions invisible while helping the author create the work that they want to see in the world. However I do not mince words, I do not suffer fools, and I can be snarky, familiar, and sometimes a little blunt.

I include this disclaimer because I was once doing inlines on a workshop piece as the hatchet man (plant in the workshop, working with the lead, giving the deep crits that you’d maybe get offended if someone you paid $500 bucks to gave you.) and the author of the piece came in doc while I was working and started to reply to every single, fucking, inline. Mind you, he was a malignant narcissist and couldn’t write for shit, was sure he was a genius, and hadn’t even listened to the workshop lead, the name he wanted to work with, so I got put on him. He found some minimalist prose styled suggestions in my inlines, decided to write me off entirely, commented “fuck that Spanbauer shit” and it turned into 485 inlines on 6700 words including my flat out dissertation about why his work fundamentally failed at the level of being a coherent story. It was an editorial pass that started at 11am and ended at 630am. I was by then a molten ball of rage so we decamped to the front yard to watch the sunrise and chainsmoke.

OK, without more wasted words.

The piece is titled: Acenscionism

As flash, it needs to be tight and hit hard. Economy of language and precision is vital to the writer of flash fiction. I'm very happy having ended up picking this piece for my first weekly autopsy. It's meaty enough to be interesting. Written at an upper intermediate level, a sweet spot I would expect from a budding author putting in their pages and finding their voice. Thank god it's very readable. Thank you for letting me read and give editorial notes on your work Melissa. I am very happy to do so.

Excuse any strangeness in the formatting, I am making editorial comments in a copy I made of the piece in Google docs, and they'll be transferred to the finished post... somehow. I guess if you're reading this, you know how I did it though. I will email you a link to the copy I worked from.

THE TEXT

Short Story

A civilized man castrates himself from his own instinct¹. At 37, when I chose to be neurotic after a lifetime of numbing, I found neurosis to be the self-cure giving me purpose, awakening all my chakras and bullshit like that.² No really³. I swear it worked, and I’m not so crazy that it landed me behind bars or in an asylum or anything⁴, I’m just crazy enough to keep all my wits still mostly about me and be able to traverse living among the sad sacks - instinctless, dickless, and soulless.⁵ I learned it was never complicated, you are who you are.⁶ Don’t keep yourself waiting.⁷ I took my second chance and slayed that bitch.⁸ You can too.⁹ I worry sometimes I’ll unravel out of control, but then I remember that control is a myth.¹⁰ We’ll never obtain it, control that is.¹¹ Anything that feels like control is a grand illusion, so I diverge here, because down is up and up is crazy, got it?¹²

“How many times Marlo?¹³ How many times are we going to have this same fight about the swords. The damn swords. You agree to my face but behind my back, another sword.”¹⁴ Kaley had a point about my broken promises.¹⁵

“Can’t I have this one thing? If you’d let me get a he-shed like I asked you wouldn’t have to ever see a sword again.”¹⁶ I already knew why she wouldn’t let me get one but this was us grasping at eroding straws that barely held our paper thin relationship in place. Never make your foundation on straw or sand, I know, but neither of us could afford the good stuff.¹⁷

“I’d let you if we had money. Get a real job, a good paying job, and then you can collect the stupid swords Marlo! We’re going to live under a bridge because of you, lose our home. We will work until we drop dead. Never have savings.”¹⁸

It was right after one of these usual spats which always left me feeling pathetically low that I realized my greatest error underpinning everything.¹⁹ The swords weren’t the problem, obviously I‘d been obsessively drawn to them for good reason, even if a mystery to me at the time, no, the problem was my lack of structure and use of those resplendently seraphic tools.²⁰ I’d been looking at everything all wrong ever since I purchased that first breathtaking sword.²¹ I fell in love with that²² first sword and consequently swords of all kinds (pretty non discriminatory over here, although I do have my favorites)²³, and so²⁴ a pattern of search-admiration-purchase display naturally formed.²⁵ How small minded, but we all start somewhere.²⁶ I was merely acting as a hobbyist collector for the last three years but I began noticing unusual, undeniable synchronicities ramping up.²⁷

The swords came to me in dreams, in wakeful visions, in ads - a beautiful plague haunting my hours with a call only I could recognize as fate.²⁸ The swords wanted more from me, more of me, with them.²⁹ It wasn’t enough to just oogle them and research or invent their lurid backstories as some detached collector, I needed to become the swordsman for them, for me.³⁰ Whenever Kaley was out, I’d started to take them out of there casings, close my eyes, and move with them.³¹ The movements were contained and stiff at first, I always kept my eyes closed because I knew it’d be best to let the spirit of that sword just guide me you know?³² I don’t have a fucking clue about how to hold or swing a sword and I couldn’t afford no lessons, and I had no patience to learn on YouTube.³³ Somehow I knew if the more I leaned into trusting the swords, the better I’d get.³⁴

It was a disaster at first, mostly.³⁵ But then I’d be surprised by own skillful moves quietly mixed into those blundering movements³⁶ - a promise that I was on the right track here.³⁷ I just hadn’t been able to figure out how to fully flow yet, how to 100% trust.³⁸ The furniture started to get ripped up in some spots, and I’d break a couple porcelain coffee cups Kaley loved, shattering them from the force of the hit.³⁹ I didn’t mean to, I should have put it away before startin’, but I’d get hit into a trance soon as she left the house.⁴⁰ New fights about the mess and missing cups ensued.⁴¹

I didn’t give up, nothing could stop me as I was pumped up full of purpose and endorphins from the swordwork.⁴² I leveled up like nothing - really, I did, within a couple weeks there was no more damaged furniture or anything and I was making all kinds of moves I don’t know the names of but they’d have been named for how bad ass they were.⁴³ It’s crazy but what isn’t crazy?⁴⁴

You know whats crazier?⁴⁵ The fact that we don’t have swordman anymore.⁴⁶ I know, obviously, we got guns and instant-everything now, but in our human history swords were the forefront of skill, mastery, art, and strength.⁴⁷ Swords packed in every important value that we should pay attention to⁴⁸ and the warriors who mastered swords were god-like.⁴⁹

[Ancient Greek Mycenaean Warriors were men of the sword who evolved into Greek infantry soldiers called Hoplite, with spears and swords fighting in phalanx formations. Then the Persian Immortal elite soldiers reinforced their empire’s incredible might through their unmatched swordsmanship skills. The Romans’ Legionary thrust the gladius sword, spawning Gladiators who fought for survival and showmanship. The Viking Warriors explored and raided with the skill of the Ulfberht sword and axes. Knights, being Medieval European warriors serving feudal lords, were known for their code of chivalry and skill with longswords. Saracen Warriors mastered agile use of curved scimitar swords during the Crusades. Japan’s warrior class, the Samurai, practiced martial arts and bushido with a focus on swords like the katana. Mongol Warriors used saber swords for close combat as skilled horsemen. Landsknecht were German mercenaries skilled with large two-handed swords, the zweihanders, during the Renaissance.

Musketeers trained in musketry and swordsmanship. Swashbucklers were all the rage as brave adventurers and duelists with rapier-style swords and flamboyant combat techniques during the Renaissance and Baroque European era. Pirates raided seafarers with short and broad swords in close combat. Cossack Eastern European horsemen used sabers in addition to firearms with renowned speed and ferocity. Shashka Fighters, known for using the shashka saber-like sword during horseback or foot combat, were warriors of the Caucasus region. And at our last stop of sword history, we have modern fencers who practice safe, regulated duels in a dying sport.]⁵⁰

Swords are now decoration that make women lose their minds and ask for divorce.⁵¹

It was sad when Kaley moved out, it really was, in theory that is.⁵² I couldn’t feel or think of anything outside of mastering the swords. Ironically enough⁵³, I stopped buying new swords, the source of our marital woes⁵⁴, but it was after the fact and the damage was done and all.⁵⁵ I had an epiphany after all our fighting, as stated earlier, and the conclusion I came to was to live by the swords in my possession.⁵⁶ To harness their energies and learn how to wield them like the masters of the past. To let the swords guide shape me into a pinnacle of martial discipline, chivalric justice, and elite honorability.⁵⁷

I was meant to be a swordsman, and not only that, to erect the ghost of true honorability in a society of numb-nuts.⁵⁸

Those minutes after the last of Kaley’s stuff had been cleared out and I was left there alone with my sword collection, giddiness saturated me.⁵⁹ Closing my eyes, I gripped my Windlass Greek Hoplite Sword and let myself lean full in, 100% fully in, as I took a swing.⁶⁰ When⁶¹ I opened my eyes back up, I’ll admit⁶² the scene stirred⁶³ up a bit of shock and horror in me, but that was quickly quieted away as a synchronicity, Source-message, floated into my periphery.⁶⁴ I waded past the tufts of sliced up couch and shreds of unopened mail and torn sagging wallpaper to get a closer look.⁶⁵ Kaley had left behind one of her god-awful wall art pieces, if you can even call it art, of the ‘live, laugh, love’ variety. Our specific eye-sore was a 40 inch tall, 30 inch wide ‘12 Rules For Living’ canvas with all words scratched to oblivion except for the following:⁶⁶

“Live” “Outside” “Nature” “Is” “Your” “Path” “to” “Honor”.⁶⁷

In that order.⁶⁸

I knew what I had to do.⁶⁹ That night, I slept in my backyard with only my swords to keep me comfort.⁷⁰ All day the next day⁷¹ I got in and out of flow, practicing my sword work, breaking to grab a quick bite from inside the house.⁷² After a couple days like this passed, my skills elevated exponentially because every moment I held a sword I did so with the utmost trust and devotion.⁷³ I started to fling my sword into our mango tree and perfectly skewer those suckers.⁷⁴ That’s when I knew I was ready. After practicing with every single one of my 113 swords, my Claymore seemed to glow and twinkle⁷⁵ with promise of fierce loyalty and legendary adventure.⁷⁶

With my Claymore in hand, I would never look back or back down. I took up my mantle and walked out of the house and into a new life with my sword.⁷⁷

Final Thoughts

I very much enjoyed this piece. I love that it’s raw. I love that it dealt with a wide variety of human experience in such a short span. I love that it’s flash, and flash is HARD, even up to 1500-2k words.

In your email it’s obvious that you’re already active writing non fiction, producing content, creating and informing, now welcome to fiction! Learn all the rules and best practices, then heap them on your lawn and set them on fire. Read widely and constantly. Write. Good artists borrow, great artists steal (someone fight me over this, I dare you.) You’re already creative, but moving into this endeavor, writing fiction, it’s a long game, there’s little money in it if you care about the artistry of storytelling and prose, how they interact and reinforce each other. 100 years from now today’s biggest sellers will be a footnote, but there will probably be academic books written about people like Blake Butler and Elle Nash (sorry, I tend to use people I know as examples!) There’s already Palahniuk scholarship, an area of study devoted entirely to Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, but these are outliers, (especially Palahniuk, Jesus.) I’m an archivist and historian of minimalist writing. I can tell you this, the thing people are saying on this platform about the brittle nature of the big five publishing model, they’re true.

And it’s pumping out shit.

And eventually it will fall.

And then something new will happen.

And in the long run, the art gets called out from the commercial. Sometimes the two intersect, but those are rare in the current environment.

Do you think they’ll be studying Janet Evanovich or Michael Crichton a hundred years from now? No.

Don’t expect big returns unless you get lucky or you somehow catch on merit. So, write for art. And write for yourself and one other person, one theoretical reader, whatever, first and foremost.

Some nuts and bolts and bean counting: The most overused word in your story was know/knew with ten instances of one of the variants. This is far above average for published work of this length, suggest cutting at least half of them unless their existence is justified. You have 20 adverbs outside of dialogue, which is above average per page, and none in dialogue, which is good. Your dialogue is on its way to being excellent if you study how to make writing seem like real speech. (it’s all smoke and mirrors) If it looks like a cliche or questionable, beware, avoid. That is not your voice.

You have several redundancies (outside of, opened my eyes back up) but these can be justified by POV voice if used well.

There are 52 close echoes (two word repeats close together) in the piece. I'm agnostic about this. Some editors would pillory me for saying that, but the only people who give a shit about close echoes unless they're GLARING, are publishers, editors, and fuckin' nerds like me.

Be careful, you’re heavy on vague and abstract words in this piece.

The primary sensory mode in the text is visual with more than twice as many visual sensory words as all other senses combined.

Denouement: I hate “-ly” adverbs. There is almost ALWAYS a better way. They do have their place in certain styles of writing, I do not believe from my close reading of your work that they are the vibe for THIS piece written in the first person past tense mode of retelling something that has happened to the protagonist, of enlightenment. Of the ones you do have I suggest cutting a few (unless you decide to make this a tick of the voice you're going for, in which case I would say keep on, it still reads and you're creating a distinct voice, distinct voices have flaws, all writing should not be optimized and flattened. In fact, as an editor, I'd never try to kill a voice or style in favor of prescriptive grammar, syntax, or linguistics. My substack is named Burnt Tongue. Burnt tongue is a device in minimalism where you intentionally say something wrong to either add characterization, make a point, or create a moment where the reader pauses. It's incerdibly effective manipulation. Take it to the extreme and you have Chuck Palahniuk, who literally collects typos.)

You’re creating a grammar for the piece. Find it and make it consistent along with the voice. It doesn’t have to be proper grammar, but it DOES need to be internally self consistent to its own grammar or else it falls apart. This is where knowing the rules allows you to break them. As it is, you’re on your way to it.

The only other issues I would stand on a hill about are there are a lot of glue words in the piece. So as to be thorough I am going to assume for the sake of this email that you may not know what glue words are in an editorial sense or as an editorial term in fiction. Glue words are most often subordinate conjunctions used in complex sentences. They're mostly short, functional, common. Some editors and writers call them junk words, clutter words, et al. Think prepositions like in, at, by, of, to, about, etc. (I think there's somewhere around 150 of them and they're the biggest bugaboos); conjunctions like but, and, yet, so, or etc; articles, just three, a, an, the.; pronouns like this, that, it, he, she, we etc; and auxiliary verbs like am, were, was, has, have, can, do, is, are. If a majority of the words in a sentence are glue words makes the sentence sticky. Your piece only had like, one sticky sentence and I assume it would die on the next draft. Even if you're developing a voice, your writing will have a better sound and contour if you eliminate a bunch of the glue. (Glue words because, in general, they're what holds a sentence together. Ironic, wanting to get rid of having too much of what makes the language work, but there you have it.)

I have a personal list of words I always check for in my work for pub and try to eliminate (the list is from Dreyer's English, Dreyer being the head copyeditor of Penguin Randomhouse for.... fucking ever.)

1. very

2. rather

3. really

4. quite

5. in fact

6. just

7. so

8. pretty (as in tedious)

9. of course, surely, that said (a triple threat)

10. Actually

I also do find and replace on "like", "that", and "then." but most often when I'm writing fiction. Still, decent praxis.

Melissa Smith

, I’ll send along an email with an essay that is not strictly public knowledge on the misconception that there is such a thing as passive vs. active voice. here isn’t such a thing. There are only passive verbs and passive verb constructs. This doesn’t add up to “voice.”

I hope you don’t find this an overly harsh editorial pass. I am very thorough. I’ve given you nothing less than I give a paying client on a first pass. I take my work seriously. If you have any serious questions or issues with the editorial pass, feel free to email me.

In the meantime, thank you for allowing me to publicly pull back the curtain on a much confused and maligned part of the writing process that most people don’t really understand. Everything that went into my editorial pass is a product of thousands of hours and hundreds of people and sources, multiple literary lineages, and a bit of my own personal voodoo.

I really expect that you’re going to find your voice and style for fiction, and I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.

Good luck and Godspeed,

-Emil

THE END. GO HOME

But come back next week and we can do it again everyone! Thanks!

1. OK, I'm paying attention. Fantastic opening line. Where are we going.

2. From a professional standpoint you earned at least five sentences with your opening line. You've either been studying or you have consumed enough story by proxy to understand there must be a promise made at the beginning of a story. The promise is most often tied to the conflict, the conflict and the promise intertwine with each other. In order for a story to work, both should be resolved in SOME way. (I would never dictate exactly how, I would never proscribe it, and if you're good enough, you can subvert this general heuristic, but know that subverting story form, not formula, not structure, but form, is one of the first things that upcoming writers rush into before they've put in their time mining shit.)

Voice: since this is a first person narrative, it's important to establish authority. There are MANY ways to do it. There are a million tricks, but once you have established the narrator's authority, you can do whatever you want. The voice so far is a mixed bag. I would suggest developing it more, especially for such a short piece.

Style: In flash, especially in flash, the greater the concision of detail, the more evocative of a reaction in the reader you're likely to create. "numbing" We have a general understanding of this, but if you want it to slap, add one or two very pointed examples. Think about them. Is the numbing sensory? Is it psychological? Is it societal? Is there a way that you can add one perfect detail to make this something the reader reads and feels. Some people pack on too much detail. But trust me, one or two, if applied well, is almost always more than enough.

3. Comma between no and really, new sentence, unless this is a direct stylistic choice. Also, remember, controlling sentence length is controlling time, punctuation is controlling time, impact, emotion. Use all your tools.

4. Refine the voice, I can see what you're going for here, and it's good, but economy of language. Also, when developing a voice, a little bit goes a long way.

"that" This is the single most innocent looking but vile clutter word (glue word in editing speak) in the English language. Do a word search. You'll most likely be shocked at how many times it shows up (21 instances in 4 pages). Eliminate as many of them as you can.

5. Good sentence, inconsistent voice, tighten it up. consider replacing "just" even given the voice of the protagonist (a little goes a long way. And his lexicon so far is low brow with minor high notes, so it would fit.)

I would also cut the "and" before soulless. It lands better as a comma splice. (I'm not the editor to come to if you're looking for copyediting unless you give me a style guide. And I'll gladly tell you when it's perfectly fine to break a rule if you want. Eventually you get an ear for it.)

6. Good sentence. Sometimes simple is good. In a piece of flash like this declaratives are good when used well.

7. However imperatives should carry weight. Shorten. If you can say something with more punch in less than these six syllables, do it. This man has found enlightenment. His message is urgent, right? He's also a little slow and weird, but has an odd eloquence. possible examples: "Don't wait. Do it." "Do it, you'll see." et al.

8. He's selling something. The I isn't needed. Submerge it. Suggested cut. "Took my second chance and slayed that bitch" This is one place I'd allow a "that' to stay and not froth at the mouth.

9. Suggested move to imperative for authority, "You should too" We're in content creator copywriter territory here almost.

10. Abrupt change of course. Suggest rearranging placement. Voice would be more consistent with "sometimes I worry" even though that's a passive verb construct, following it up with the subordinate clause "I'll unravel out of control" is fine. I would suggest considering the voice of the character. Eliminate the "that" in the second connected clause.

There's a very effective trick to gain authority. don't couch what you're saying. What the character is saying. A declarative here would be "Remember, control is a myth."

In minimalism this is called big voice. It is used to state something in the text directly to the reader as fact to establish authority. And once you have asserted authority, you can do whatever you want with your reader. See what I'm getting at.

(Yes, this is directly out of Chuck, Spanbauer, and Lish's playbook, but it works.)

11. It actually works better considering the sentence that follows.

12. Please cut the "that"

a grand illusion is good, but could it be better? Just consider. The grandest illusion. You can make it AS BIG a statement as you want. How crazy is the protagonist and what are you saying through him. What is this illuminating or playing with that people will care about.

Suggest end sentence after crazy, new sentence. "Got it?" Variances like this control the flow but also by contorting your pov narrator's grammar, you can create depth alone. Statement followed by question. Leave the comma on the MFA workshop floor with all the other nerds who write bland shit.

13. Love the name.

14. Good dialogue. does the job. Only consider changing if you want to or your whims feel like diddling with it.

15. Good use of free indirect discourse in first person narrative. Avoiding dialogue tags like this is an art that I appreciate. And well done here. Keep it up. Dialogue tags are explicitly mostly either subvocalized, clutter, or at worst, abused out of not knowing any better way to put something you want to say at the time.

16. Love he-shed, as a compound word and literati asshole I'd drop the hyphen. As my friend Will Christopher Baer said "fuck that hypen, just compound the word" It looks better on the page. Don't ask me why. Unless you want to be more formal.

Maybe trim the dialogue a little though. Take a tick or two and bring forward the voice you want, and cut the rest of the fat.

17. Cut “already”. Assume it exists, it'll subvocalize anyway if you leave it there. To keep authority, unless it's stylistic, I will always say things like, "just have them say it, don't bother telegraphing the point, especially in flash."

Suggest something like cutting the but, new sentence, "We were grasping" retain authority. You have full interiority, every time you add a layer with a glue word like "but" you're distancing yourself from the character you're inhabiting.

The metaphor works but tighten it up. I can tell you can say it better. It's not that it's bad at all. It's that it sounds tin eared.

enough of "that"

(I get more conversational as I go, please don’t take offense, my snark is meant in good fun. If I didn’t like the piece, I’d not be doing this.)

I like "good stuff" a lot. The niggling idiot inside of me wants an actual substance, but that's a style concern for you.

18. Refine and rewrite this para. It does the job but again, it has a bit of a tin ear. We're aiming at a verisimilitudinous stylized imitation of how people talk. In flash, less is more. "If we had money. If you had a real job." (examples) Familiarity with spouse, consider something like cutting down to "then collect your stupid swords Marlo!" you cut a lot talking to the people you're closest to. Suggest something to the effect of "We'll end up under a bridge because of you, lose our house, work until we drop dead, never have a cent saved." (example, there's always a million ways to write the same thing.) Suggest house for home because I smell lower middle class off of the characters.. suggest cut "we will"

Yeah, dialogue is a motherfucker. I believe in you though. And it's got good bones. Great start. But raise to the level you want to be at.

(I have a friend who is a perfectionist, apocrypha, he wrote 40+? drafts of his first novel, I believe one was nothing but dialogue, and one was nothing but action, to see if you removed one component, it still read. Now, his book is an amazing cult classic, but that's just an example of the lengths you can go to.)

(Thought from the day after, you could go deeper, even with the constrained word length, into the relational dynamic. I want to know more about these two. Some details. I have questions. What are they like outside of the context of his sword satori?)

19. Rewrite, tighten up, give me sensory detail or embody on pathetically and cut pathetically, that's reportage.

Enough of that.

(Side note, when did he castrate himself, or was that metaphor? Why is it never mentioned again?)

20. Good. Trim some fat and tighten up. Keep the voice consistent. A little goes a long way. I like resplendently but Seraphic literally means resembling a seraphim... Rethink this word choice. It sounds good but it's not fitting. You're a better writer.

(Past the email limit now. If you see a lot of repetition, it’s because I’m making a point and I want you to see where you could do something, make a change, make a choice, refine, tinker, experiment, or take a step back and look at the story from a wider angle critically. Repetition is the mother of all knowledge, as my little Russian teacher Miss Golynskaya used to say.)

21. Tell me about the sword. I want more than reportage, otherwise good.

22. no sprays with spray bottle full of water

23. Expand, but be concise, I still want to know details on the first sword. Details on any sword. I have something coming up about this in fact. But for now my biggest issue is this parenthetical is out of place. Mostly because it's sudden and out of voice, adds a layer of barrier between the interiority and authority you’ve gained.

24. For some reason this seems out of place and bugs me. I think it's the "and so" don't see it all that often.

25. I like this.

26. He's retelling a story, you have interiority, you should have authority, so something here rings weird. I would suggest a rewrite in the declarative or the reminiscent. "I was small minded, but you have to start somewhere" (example) In these instances, with interiority and authority, big voice is effective as a tool to keep them in thrall. Speaking directly to the reader is what you're already doing with the protagonist. It can be this explicit, and often it's very effective.

27. Rewrite, cut “merely”, voice is stuttering between low middle and high. I want a zoom in on some of the synchronicities. Synchronicities here acts as reportage without details. What are the synchronicities? Is this a delusion of his?

28. Too florid for the voice, is what I want to say. Dumb it down a bit for Marlo. Maybe keep a tiny bit of the flowers. But cut most of them.

29. Nearly erotic.

30. Trim and tighten, no matter what don't remove "I needed to become the swordsman for them, for me." It just sounds right for the voice.

31. Trim. Economy of words. How could you say "whenever Kaley was out" better? Because I think you could. Keep verb constructs active here "I took them out of their cases and scabbards." Also, their/there/they're issue.

32. Love this. Bring it interior to him. My movements. Have the character own his doings.

33. Cut “about”. cut “and”. cut “and”. Condense.

34. Passive verb construct. Move to active. Have the character with the interiority own his actions directly as he is retelling them. "Somehow I know if I leaned more into trusting the swords, I'd get better" (example, again, a million ways to fuck a chicken)

35. Suggest changing it to I and removing mostly.

36. surprised rings generic. wordhippo it. own is unnecessary here because it's assumed since he's the referent.

37. Cut here, tense conflict. Unless style or voice. The caveat to all of these, is "unless style or voice" always. But mind the inspection and questions I’m asking. That is the heart of developmental and line editing.

The other caveat is the word "stet" Stet is archaic for "let it stand" A stet was a direct disagreement with the editor, a fuck you it stays. (Nabokov famously would not be edited, but he was Nabokov. I wish we were all Nabokov. Fucker with his butterflys.)

Sometimes a back and forth ensued, sometimes the piece was dropped (just try to stet Gordon Lish, Jesus, I think he would have stabbed you.) Sometimes the stet stood but the editor sent it back for another round of edits. (attrition)

I like to give out little nuggets while I'm doing this, I hope you don't mind.

38. Move to active "wasn't" cut "been" you're giving up interiority when you do this. In flash it hurts economy of words, precision, and authority. You want to dog walk the reader through the story.

39. Move to active verb constructs. Ripped or slashed? Add a sensory detail or two here. Sound works for cups, visual like stuffing from furniture works, but others would work too.

40. "hit into a trance" unless character's voice, sounds.... wrong.... I cannot elaborate aside from "my ghost tingles wrong when I read that" But if you're going for dissonance cool.

41. tighten, consider rewrite and small expansion to bring the point home, cut ensued, it sounds out of char voice. Stay active with your verb structures.

42. Cut "as" either comma or new sentence. Love it otherwise. If something sounds generic though, "purpose, endorphins" a sensory detail well placed always brings texture to the work. With full POV interiority you have all the senses to work with.

43. I'd drop him trying to convince the reader. He's enlightened as per page one. So “really I did”, stands out. "After a couple a weeks" or something like it would sound more in voice. I love everything after "And I was making all kinds of moves" (Admission, I read it in the voice of Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.)

44. Feel free to ask the reader questions too. There is an assumed person the story is being relayed to in first person narrative of this nature. "But you tell me what isn't crazy?" "It's crazy, but name something what isn't." "It's crazy. You tell me something ain't though." (examples, fucking chickens)

45. Good.

46. Move to declarative, don't couch, retain his authority and by extension, yours. "We don't have swordsmen anymore."

47. I like this, but I'd take it to a more conversational mode. "We got guns and instant everything now" is a great line. I'd suggest making the second half of the sentence more absolutist. Think sword as ultimate. Make it gospel. Convince me this is a revelation worth throwing away your marriage for, worth castrating yourself for.

48. I would ask for clarification and explanation on this sentence. As is it reads flat and broke tone when I was reading it.

49. Superlatives, use superlatives. Why godlike? Why couldn't they just be Gods? Food to chew on.

50. WOOP. Words out of place. I love this because I love facts. HOWEVER, this is out of place as a block of text. unless it is a very, very unique stylistic choice. It cuts the story in twain. It’s blank facts.

These are all what effective big voice and authority are made of.

They can't act as a chorus, but they add authority. The master is telling the story of his enlightenment, but when he is telling the story he is no longer a dilletant. Cut all of these up, put them in places you think they seem appropriate throughout the entire rest of the text. They act as anything from breakwaters to pauses to points that add texture, authority, or even emotionality. Consider which one of these would fit after he fights with his wife to make a subtextual point. After he first starts his flow. After he begins his mastery. The research is great, but I would consider adding more details or counter points.

Now I'm going to be a dork. Swashbucklers were just as likely to use sabers or basket hilt swords as rapiers as this would have been around the same time as pirates. Mongols used bladed weapons as an absolute final measure as because of their religion they were absolutely horrified of blood. Thus the short recurve bow. Katanas developed the way they did because Japan is full of shitty steel. It had to be refined so much because it wasn't pure enough to be spring steel, which was common in Western Europe. And they had a tendency to shatter. The Katana was the last thing a Samurai learned how to use, they started with the asymmetrical bow and moved from longest distance to closest as they were trained. Look up when the last actual fencing duel happened, it was in the very early 1900s in France, and there's film of it on Youtube (no one died, it's actually silly.) You could also add details of the counters to swords. The golden age of the sword in Europe ended with the advent of full plate armor, which brought about a whole new style of fighting in man to man combat that usually ended with a dagger, and at that, the most dangerous person on a medieval battlefield was either an English Longbowman, or a pike or polearm man. You can move it up to modern times past the denuding of swords and make it grotesque even, because Saudi Arabia carries out public beheadings, quick and brutal, a bright whipping flash, what appears to be a flick of the wrist from a man in shining white, and a head rolls. The possibilities for upping your theme game and authority here are quite literally endless and much better than a blank text block, unless that is explicitly what you want. I'm just giving my professional opinion. I respect the concept, I just don't think this is a story for this sort of interlude. It separates us completely from the interiority you've built up until this point. The rest of the story could be perfect, if I’m reading slush or doing inquiry and I get here, I feel tricked and you get a rejection on face, possibly a note to 86 any future submissions, because you’ve tricked me in a way that I don’t like for no reason I can see aside from to show off. List writing is bad, blank list writing out of greater context is worse.

But also, fantastic research. Now research more.

51. I love this line. You could fiddle with it but it's great how it is. (However it uses Germanic grammatical conjugation, I just noticed.)

52. condense and tighten.

53. cut. Leave this a mystery to him, yeah, but don't make it ironically.

54. cliche phrasing.

55. This is a lovely line.

56. Bring us closer, and bring the verb structure to active. "Like I said, I had this epiphany." Rewrite. million ways to fuck a chicken. I think you're playing down. Play up next draft.

57. Active verb structure. But yes, perfect thought, this is what we've been moving to. Consider tinkering with the sentence structure and his voice here though. Sometimes your words are coming out of his mouth, is what I’ve noticed. Don’t worry, we all do this, it happens. But it’s best to rephrase it in voice.

58. Add context to society of numb nuts, one or two details and you've got it nailed. Also consider what clutter words or words you could change to hit with greater impact in this sentence from the perspective of authority and interiority.

59. Active, your character is still layered behind one level of very thin abstraction via grammatical structure and syntax.

60. Sentence structure is backwards. This grammatical structure is common of ESL speakers, and also common in German. It front loads the ancillary verb to the front of the sentence for no real reason and makes it sound awkward. Rewrite with that in mind. Keep it tight, it's a great sentence aside from grammatical order.

61. Cut. Vague approximal time markers are out this year. Don't telegraph, get to the point, cut to the heart.

62. Does he need to admit? Is he unsure? He’s enlightened. He’s authoritative, you explicitly make that clear very well at the start of the story, keep it that way unless the character, his voice, something is obviously degrading. Inspect why you chose this word here.

63. suggest using a different word unless this is a stylistic choice. It doesn't exactly get at the vibe of shock and horror. Stirring up a bit of shock and horror. I'd suggest going all in.

64. Replace “quickly”. What's the synchronicity? I need this answered. Unless he's delulu.

65. Good sensory details, now refine them until they're so sharp they will cut god.

66. I love this whole vibe, the section, the idea of it, the reveal (consider couching something creepy before it, the scratched out words come from nowhere, abruptly. You don’t have to explain, but some foreshadowing of something MUCH larger being off maybe. Subtle, this would be where you go back and use a light touch.) but the grammatical structure and wording is beneath you. Simplify it. This can be a better reveal. I'd cut if you can call it art and state plainly that it isn't. If you want the voice to go gruff frag a sentence. "It was Live Laugh Love bullshit, a 40 inch tall 30 inch wide" etc. Again, million ways to fuck a chicken.

Love scratched to oblivion or scratched into oblivion.

67. Love it. Perfect moment. This is why the build up and tension to the reveal is so important, this is basically the start of the climax of this story.

68. Assume the order, it needs no restating. You're in full control now on the next draft. There's a better, more powerful moment here as an end cap, you just have to find it.

69. I'd restructure this simpler and more definitively.

70. I'd not argue over this "that" But I think you can say this better and closer.

71. clunker with an echo. "The whole next day." Fuck the chicken different.

72. keep the verb constructs active. I'll email you an essay about this. "Practiced", "Broke and grabbed a bite" They're more authoritative. Your style doesn't vibe with passive verb structures is what I'm feeling. But you just may not have written enough fiction to know when or how to wield them. They do have a place, I just don't think it's this story.

73. Love it, rewrite it more religiously and more precise, keep in mind economy of words.

74. Excellent.

75. Don't have it seem to glow, just make it glow, more powerful. Feel free to just embody things like that, this is your boat, you are the captain of his pain. RE: “After practicing with all 113 of my swords” goddamn, sweat, blood tears? Transcendent mastery.

76. This is an entirely cliche driven sentence. Rewrite.

77. I would rewrite this but only for verb structure and to tinker with a more grandiose and epiphanic ending, otherwise it is great.

Now go back over the text. What did you not answer, did you make any promises not kept by the end of the story, are there any loose threads from the first page left unresolved by the end of the last word? Always look for these. Now I send you off on a treasure hunt. Thank you for the privilege of working with you. I’ve enjoyed this thoroughly.