Experimentally Lost

Sometimes, I think it's great to challenge convention. However, sometimes being TOO experimental can fall flat.

The picture from the header is taken from a story I wrote called "Noted (First Draft)." Contrary to the piece's title, the story was completely finished. But it was a story told through a play on using Microsoft Word's editing software (Track Changes). The comments on the side were meant to add an extra layer to the story through having "notes" on the action - so, the notes added for the reader a glimpse into the author's (my) thought processes on the story itself. It was a commentary on a commentary, so to speak.

Fun way to be experimental, right? However, I'm not sure if it's because editors didn't understand what I was trying to do (I didn't offer much of an explanation in my cover letter when sending the submission to magazines) or if they just didn't like it. Or perhaps it's because it would be a pain in the butt to publish it, either print or online (formatting can be a bitch when it comes to experimental writing that strays too far from the norm - I know from my experience in publishing my own magazine). Any of these possibilities could be the reason why my stab at this experimental format fell flat.

After I got my tenth or so rejection letter, I wondered if this tongue-in-cheek humor with the formatting was worth the form rejections. The story itself wasn't funny - it was serious in tone - but the side commentary was meant to add some humor/reflection to the story itself. Perhaps I was trying to do too much with too little (the story is a flash fiction piece, so there wasn't a lot of room to work with).

But I'm not one to ever say that my writing shouldn't be rewritten. I tend to do a LOT of rewriting, especially if I have a "brilliant" new idea that might not be so stellar after all.

So, I decided to rewrite the story and make it more conventional. Perhaps the style of writing was interfering with a reader's enjoyment of the story. Instead of highlighting the themes of the story, perhaps I was overexplaining them with my notes. My intention had been to break the fourth wall, but maybe the wall needed to stay up for this particular tale.

So, I took out the "notes" on the side and instead just sent out the main text of the story without my commentary. I revised it a bit, since the original story was about 400 words (without notes) and the magazine I was sending it to was looking for pieces of 300 words or less. So, in addition to cutting the notes on the side, I had to chop out about 100 words - easy to do in a nice long piece, but harder to do when those 100 words are a quarter of the word count for the whole story.

But you know what? It worked. The next place I submitted to sent me an acceptance letter, and the story ended up getting published in Brilliant Flash Fiction's 2021 anthology Branching Out.

So, my self-editing epiphany was that sometimes I'm too clever for myself. I'm not afraid to experiment, but I'm also not afraid to admit when my experimentation doesn't work on the page how I intended it. I can tell a good story, but challenging the norms isn't always the right way to go - especially in a short piece, where every word counts. Trying to do too much can create a muddle of a good story.

As E.B. White said in his book The Elements of Style, which is a must-read for writers everywhere: “To achieve style, begin by affecting none.”

Here's the final draft of the story that got published:

Going Along

Heidi reaches across the cab and takes Jesse's hand. Knife scars and burns run across her fiancée's arms, creating a mishmash pattern like waffles. When they first met two years ago at Jesse's restaurant, Heidi ran her palms over the map of Jesse's mosaic skin. She asked if a chef was always such a glutton for punishment.

"Just punished by gluttons," the other woman laughed, not noticing Heidi smiling back as if her teeth hurt.

Convenience had followed into a pattern of rendezvous weekends and mid-week date nights. Until a month ago, Jesse dropped to one knee with a black box in her hand. "I don't want a big wedding," she said, her face a shiny red apple in the heat of July.

The answer was expected--hard time for her to say no. So Heidi wrote herself into the happy-ever-after ending with flowers on top, doves winging away into the sky. Hallmark would buy the book, but she had never wanted to read it.

Back in the cab heading to their destination. Heidi looks at the woman she loves because, yes, Heidi does love Jesse, even if sometimes she pictures ten years from now, twenty--salt and pepper underneath the chef's toque, that famous kitchen temper turned away from beating chicken.

Jesse pulls open the door before the cab comes to a complete stop. She passes a fistful of bills to the driver--careless, as always, with such details. Standing on the sidewalk, Jesse holds out a hand. "Come on, babe." Heidi allows herself to be pulled into the hot splash of morning.

"Hurry," says Jesse. "They're expecting us."

Hard time for her to say no. Heidi follows her fiancée into the marriage bureau, smiling like her teeth hurt, dodging the blows of good wishes from friends and family.