Everything Matters

image from lynnaustin.org

When you write, everything matters.

I just finished – and that’s the wrong word – three pieces to submit to the RoseState Writing Short Course competition. Dead Birds and Broken Bottles for nonfiction. The Girl in the Reeds for short fiction, and Heroes for flash fiction.

What? No poetry? No. No poetry. My poetry days are past and gone, though I did love it. The flash-bang of the one perfect word. The staccato repetition of a sound. The flood of thought or feeling that can immerse you in a line.

But, like Hemmingway, I still labor over the mot juste. The perfect word.

In Heroes the main character Charlotte has forbidden her daughter to go to a sit-in. The child argues, whines, and wheedles. As children are wont to do. At one point I said Charlotte ‘sighed.’ BUT – as I was getting into bed, I realized ‘sighed’ is the wrong word. It gives the impression, the feeling that she is capitulating to the child which is not what I meant at all. She is NOT capitulating. Indeed, she is actively making a choice to JOIN IN, to support, to participate. Rewrite!

I stopped writing The Girl in the Reeds when I got to the end of the story. This is the first murder mystery short story I’ve ever successfully written. There’ve been many short stories, but never a murder mystery short story. Short stories are by their nature, short. And I never thought I could build a puzzle and solve it in so short a space of time.

(Murder on Ceres was originally intended to be a short story but, like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Topsy, it just “grow’d.” Until now it’s well on its way to being Dead and Gone, the second in a series of novels.)

Even so, with The Girl in the Reeds, I quit too soon. But it was truly a ‘short’ story. The action was over, the story told. All were safe and sound, at least from this mystery. But the ending did not satisfy. Like a wonderful meal. You’ve eaten. The food was good. The service, too. The ambiance pleasant. You could linger for hours, but you’ve got a life and you’ve got to go. Now you’re presented with the bill. And a chocolate covered mint.

I’d left out the after dinner mint. Rewrite!

And Dead Birds? It was the title. Originally I just called the piece Tornado. My editor didn’t like it. Too simple. Won’t catch the reader. Needs to be more.

The only thing bigger and scarier than a tornado would be a hurricane. Right? But my piece of nonfiction is about a tornado. So why would I call it Hurricane? Enough said. She, who wields a red pen as though it were a rapier. Nay! A broad sword. She said, “Think about it.” Rewrite!

And speaking of titles – this blog post is titled “Everything Matters.” Even I can plainly see it should be called “Rewrite!”