Flash Fiction #5: Behind Closed Curtains
One photograph - three stories. On editing, and on how your writing changes with you.
Behind Closed Curtains
Sedoux sat at the window of the Parisian café, practicing the same culture-based sport as millions of other law-abiding Frenchmen.
Yet his thoughts weren’t focused on the 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘱𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘹 𝘰𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘴 in front of him.
Even as the wafting steam tickled his tongue and the inside of his cheeks from afar with its sweets and its sours, his mind was barely conscious of it.
As he looked over the yellow curtain, doves occasionally flew above Notre Dame. And as they did, his thoughts migrated towards Marguerite.
Even 5,838 kilometres away, her perfume lingered in his memories.
He sat transfixed; he considered the dictatorship of time and the smallness of human legs. He thought about the freedom that comes with commitment. He remembered her fingers running through his unruly hair; the way she helped him trim his beard just right.
Without her, he’d be OK.
But being OK is 5,838 kilometres away from happy.
And if he closed his eyes in just the right way, with the right amount of force, with just the right amount of wrinkles… he could almost feel her beyond the curtain.
His lips curled at the tips ever so slightly.
Almost.
On Editing
I know we’ve just read this story, so you might want to take some minutes (or days) between continuing on here. You might want to keep it pristine, for some reason. I do like this story.
It’s just that now (and naturally) we’re going to look into this story; how it’s been written; and try and dissect what went into this in editing from (what I thought was) Version One to the text you’ve read above (new and improved Version Two).
This isn’t meant to be exhaustive: this is merely one way of analysing the story. Believe me, it had (and has) many more things worthy of revision than these.
During this update, I noticed that while having the narrator express himself in the past tense added to the ambience of a memory (which agrees with the fact that I wrote this text out of this photograph), it also made the reading lose a bit of a punch. Looking into the past always does: how much more interesting than the present (for the character and ourselves) can it actually be?
I also noticed that the intro didn’t add much weight, much shape to the world. “Sat in the Parisian café” is blank space; what exactly are you drawing in your head? Perhaps a façade and a colourful entryway?
It wasn’t good. There wasn’t anything grounding us in space - a visual cue for the reader to hold on to. But of course, I have the perfect element through which I can increase mine and the reader’s connection with the place and piece. “The window” is the first reference to something the reader has just seen: the photograph and everything in it. We’re gently pulling him into piecing the place in his mind - we gave him the idea, but the reader himself is building around the story as we go. Dominic Cobb would be proud.
V.1 Like doves floating above Notre Damme, his thoughts flew towards Marguerite.
V.2.5 Doves occasionally flew above Notre Dame, and his thoughts migrated towards Marguerite already.
V. 3. As doves flew above Notre Damme, his thoughts migrated towards Marguerite.
The above is simply to show how sometimes, writing is iteration. I write with the intent of discovering what is exactly the right word to describe what I see; the word that resonates with me, that “feels right”. This varies according to context, its meaning (and layers of meaning), and the trending understanding and application of the word.
Iteration just means running through examples that you think may be the right words, but that you then discover (on re-read) actually aren’t.
V. 4. As he looked over the curtain, doves occasionally flew above Notre Dame. And as they did, his thoughts migrated towards Marguerite.
V.4. is the version that introduces grounding. It also makes the connection between doves and Marguerite less clunky.
V. 5. As he looked over the yellow curtain, doves occasionally flew above Notre Dame. And as they did, his thoughts migrated towards Marguerite.
Final version.
From V.4, I noticed I hadn’t grounded the reader in the space of the curtain before within the text, and I felt I needed a stronger connection with the visuals of the photograph. I think the addition of yellow by itself is enough for the reader’s eyes to flit up to the photograph again (considering spacing and shortness of text).
I do this again when I reference the man in the text as “having a beard", which in this context I feel finally weaves it into the text: it confirms to the reader that yes, this character is a fictitious projection of the man you see in the photograph: this is one of his possible selves.
One way to add intensity is to increase the resolution at which we’re looking at something: to delve into its properties in a manner that suits the story. Additional references (in this case, compounding the visual reference with the photograph by writing both curtain and yellow) should always increase our understanding of the nature of what we’re actually trying to describe.
But are these the correct references? Should I have referred to inanimate objects like the curtain and the window, or should I have grounded the reader on Sedoux from the beginning? Was there a way I could have written this so that readers got to learn something about him instead?
As you see, editing. It is what it is.
In the end, I may have cheated: especially in flash fiction, rhythm matters, and there’s a hard limit to the number of words we can put to paper. This is true of any form of writing; even the longest descriptions of objects and people and their properties and relationships have to end, at some point.
Like poetry, flash fiction makes it so that the space to write is smaller. And if the space is smaller, and we want to make it as interesting as what something big can say (like a novel or a script for yet another short-lived television series), then we have to say something that’s in some way more intense.
And one proven way of making something more important (more intense) is to remove what is less important. To cut: to relentlessly cut words away until only what counts remains. Increase the resolution: increase intensity.
Editing is change
It feels important to address that whether or not stories improve through successive rewrites depends on context.
Editing has this way of pulling us into a story written by an old version of us: it’s a bit like time-traveling. We go in, we see what the old us messed up in (or at least some of it), and we see opportunities to add meaning to our words. There’s a danger to that, as Marvel movies will tell you: universe-ending paradoxes and the like. Except here, there are risks that our revisions ruin whatever it was (and I truly mean whatever it was) that made our previous version tick.
But then, the new version of us can see things we didn’t. Whether from having taken our eyes away from the writing for five minutes, three hours, seventeen days or even years, we see things differently; we have different emotions and sensations, wisdom and memories. Our internal map of the world changes - for better and sometimes for worse. And some of that reflects on our writing.
Like everything, editing and writing about editing (even if only at surface-level), has its risks. But it also does have its rewards.
So I’d like to ask: where do you stand on editing - at which point do you know it’s over? Does an ending to edits come naturally for you, or do you have to set yourself a publishing-ready final edit in some way, shape or form? I’m intrigued, as always.
Keep being curious, keep thinking - keep being human. Won’t you?
Best,
Francisco
P.S.: 5,838 km is the distance between Paris and New York.
The originally-published version (V.1) of Behind Closed Curtains follows:
Sedoux sat in the Parisian café, practicing the same culture-based sport as millions of other Parisians.
Yet his thoughts weren’t focused on the 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘱𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘹 𝘰𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘴 in front of him.
In fact, his mind was just barely conscious of the wafting steam and mouth-watering scent of it.
Like doves floating above Notre Damme, his thoughts flew towards Marguerite.
Even 5,837 km away, her perfume lingered in his memories.
He sat transfixed, considering the dictatorship of time and distance. He thought about the freedom that comes with commitment. He remembered her fingers running through his unruly hair; the way she helped him trim his beard just right.
Without her, he’d be OK.
But being OK is 5,837 km away from happy.
And if he closed his eyes in just the right way, with the right amount of force, with just the right amount of wrinkles… he could almost feel her beyond the curtain.
His lips curled at the tips ever so slightly.
Almost.