Creating the Story: A 2nd Pass of ‘A Cut in Line Never Saves Time’
So in my other article, “Creating the Story: ‘A Cut in Line Never Saves Time,’” I showed you how I collected my thoughts, experienced something, and penned an outline of a story. After my first pass, I normally go back and build on what I wrote, so I can really complete a rough draft. After the rough draft, I typically share the story with a reader, which has been my partner Jen Safrey—novelist, copy editor, yoga guru—to get her notes on the direction of the story. Maybe I can convince her to read this story and write her notes for me to share.
A story needs to be awesome, and I review the drafts dozens of times. But of course, the opening and closing of any creative work needs to be striking, polished, and resonate. When I listen to music, if you hook me in the first five to ten seconds, I’m out. I’ve never heard someone say, “The first thirty seconds was shit, but the third verse and bridge are memorable.” Movies, artwork, even when shopping, the decor of the store window has to draw me in, so a story must do the same thing.
So I want to look at my first two lines:
And I drop the bottle of pink lemonade for my girlfriend. It is the least I can do for her.
Buffalo was not the part of New York State she wanted to move, but the job opened up and I took it.
I’m already not liking the first two lines. Why is he shopping for her? Men can do the shopping. I do. But in relation to this story, the main character MC reveals he’s busy with work. Also, the statement that his girlfriend is disappointed is quite ordinary. What would make it interesting to you as the reader?
I’m going to think about how to rewrite it.
I don’t know what most writers think about. When I write, I imagine an audience has paid good money to hear my prose spoken. They don’t want to listen to my voice because I’m a mumbly bastard, but more preferably one of the Obamas, Patrick Stewart, or Helen Mirren. I imagine they’ve paid to witness a sublime concert, and just not some piece of social criticism. Okay, maybe a Rage Against the Machine—maybe that’s a bit too strong. More like an “Annoyed by the Bullshit.”
I also try to throw in some reference points, and when I think of someone being annoyed at having to move to Buffalo. I think of a time when I couldn’t have been more than seven, at my dad’s diner in Quincy. He had the jukebox units at every table, but downstairs, in the basement, was the main jukebox. And I’d sneak away, and somehow I’d learned how to finagle it to provide me a free song.
And, of course, I selected Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” Because as he said, If you can live in New York and make it there—Buffalo would be such a disappointment. It’s like dreaming of moving to San Francisco and ending up in San Bernardino. (Seriously needed spell check just for Bernardino.)
Now let’s edit the story.
—
There it is.
The bottle of pink lemonade that my girlfriend asked for. I pick it up and place it in my overflowing shopping cart. It’s the least I can do for her.
Buffalo was not the New York she wanted to move to. It wasn’t the New York Frank Sinatra sang about. It wasn’t the “Empire State of Mind” Jay-Z was in, nor Billy Joel or St. Vincent’s “New York”.
—
Why did they move there? And what does his unnamed girlfriend do that allows her to be flexible with location? It isn’t simply that she has a job from home, but she works remotely. An event planner can work from home but may need to live in the general area of their clients. A statistician or a web developer can do their work remotely. So I modify the following sentence, giving her a name as well.
—
How did we end up here? A job to make a difference opened, and her job at Demetra’s as a software statistician allowed her to plug-in from anywhere.
I check lemonade off of my to-do list. English muffins are the last item. I should’ve remembered it when I was grabbing bread, but my list was so long. It’s back in the first aisle.
—
I note this edit. I’m simplifying, “I look back at my phone. Mark lemonade off my to-do list. English muffins are the last item.”
I try to write timeless pieces and not get bogged down by either technical or historical jargon. Someone reading this in three or thirty years might get distracted by how the list was on a phone app and not implanted in their VR glasses. If this story was written in 2006 or so, and I wrote “checks off task from his Blackberry,” and the day after publication the iPhone is released— In 2016, I Skyped someone. In 2019, I FaceTimed. In 2022, we may use Zoom. Contemporary fiction means writing in the relatively present day, but not dating it. It is a video call and a to-do list. I let the reader decide how this is being done.
—
A woman in a bulky brown overcoat stares off at a selection of almond, oat, and soy milk alternatives. Her cart blocks the rest of the aisle. I lower my music, Phoebe Bridgers, Savior Complex. What if I told you I feel like I know you, but we never met?
“Excuse me,” I say.
“Am I blocking the way?” the woman, with a slight cross eye asks.
I smile. No. You’re taking too long to choose. Vanilla almond milk is the way to go, even though the ecological disaster of almond milk gives me pause. I know literally every choice.
The woman moves out the way, and I proceed up the aisle to the front.
An employee wearing a Monger Matt’s Havana short-sleeve shirt locks eyes with me. It isn’t the first time I’ve noticed an employee looking at me. But the service here is so much better than at Price Chopper.
—
I decided to be specific. In the previous article, I created a fictional name to Trader Joe’s because I don’t want the reader to be distracted. But to offer a reference point, I’m going with a real business. A supermarket he sees in Buffalo but also in his home state. Price Chopper.
—
“I just need to get English muffins before I’m ready to check out,” I say.
I feel like Monger Matt is my family. I’ve been shopping at one since I began shopping for myself as an adult. I discovered it when I was living in Coconut Grove. What was that, about fifteen years ago? So glad they have one in Buffalo. Really, it’s Amherst. I can’t understand why towns around Buffalo have Buffalo ZIP codes. Of course, I’m from New England, where obscure villages have their own post offices.
As I make my way to the bread aisle, I notice two police cars. One is stopped in front of the entrance, lights flashing. I hope everyone is okay and no one is seriously injured.
—
I added that one of the police cars has its lights flashing. This adds detail and foreshadowing that one of the cops is super serious and the other is laid back.
—
I push my heavy cart down the first aisle over the taped arrow, and come back to the breads. I drop the Monger Matt brand of white English muffins on top of the over one-hundred-dollar-plus haul and loop around.
As I approach the front, I notice a lady pointing at me. She’s speaking with the two officers dressed in black.
I smile. Why me? What did I do? I did back up seven feet to get jasmine rice. These two officers approach me. Why?
“Can we talk to you outside?” an officer with his hat brim pulled very low to his head asks.
“Do you mind if I check out first?” It can’t be that serious.
“We received a complaint,” the other officer says. He’s a bit older, with a pinkish hue to his white skin and a body that I could beat in a five-hundred-inch endurance foot race.
—
I added more detail above. He’s a bit older, with a pinkish hue to his white skin. “We received a complaint.” I wanted to add an element of comedy here. A hundred-yard dash is what you’d expect. Five hundred seems like a lot more, yet it is inches. Forty-two feet or 14 yards.
Just below, I cut a line out. It seems redundant to me.
—
“A complaint about what?” I quickly try remembering what it could’ve been. This is the most uneventful day of shopping that I’ve had. I even yielded a very close parking spot to someone earlier.
“You allowed a woman, an Athena,” the younger officer reads off his notepad, struggling with her last name, “Kefata-do-poulos, to cut in front of you.”
She was Greek like me?
“I did,” I say. “The woman had a cane, and was holding onto her companion. They were both teetering.”
“Why don’t you come outside, and we can discuss this?” the older officer asks.
“Okay. What can we do with my things?”
—
I should make a statement about tense. I used to watch a lot of local sports as a kid and teen. I followed the Patriots when they were 1-15. Hockey was another sport. I thought my interest in would get kids to like me. Derek Sanderson was the color commentator for the local Boston Bruins. He always implored the kids to learn from his pointers to improve their hockey skills. It seemed absurd for me, as I couldn’t skate.
Kids, when you’re writing in present tense, there are a couple of challenges that you don’t have to face in past tense. If this story was in past tense, I could bridge the following scene. What to do with the shopping cart? What to do with the exit?
I could write:
The officer found the store manager, who took my belongings to the back of the store, and I followed the other officer outside. [Next paragraph.] “Do you have your ID on you?”
In the present tense, I can’t do this. Every minute, most movements, most silly nuances the character experiences have to be accounted for. A common beginner mistake I made was writing in present tense with bridges. If your scene or book isn’t continuous, present tense doesn’t work. For me, the absurdity of this story lends itself to present tense, so I’ll take the bad with the good.
Also, I’m inverting the following lines from:
“Where’s the store manager?” The officer looks around.
This had to be the dumbest moment in policing, unless they were going to take my information to award me a prize.
to:
This has to be the dumbest moment in policing, unless they are taking my information to award me a prize.
The store manager walks over.
--
This store manager line doesn’t work. I wouldn’t know the store manager if I were the unwilling participant. I personally can’t identify the store managers at any of the Trader Joe’s I shop at, and neither will my character. He will see the store manager’s features first and maybe read her name tag when she is nearby. “Rachel: Store manager.”
—
This has to be the dumbest moment in policing unless they are taking my information to award me a prize.
A woman in a bright red Havana shirt with red hair, a round face, and a thin upper lip walks over. As she approaches, I read her name tag, “Rachel: Crew Chief.”
“Can I help?” she asks.
“We’re going outside,” the older officer says. “Would you be able to look after his cart?”
“Of course,” the crew chief says. “We can take it to the back and keep it together for you.”
The older police officer walks toward the front door, and the one with the lowered brim raises his hand, offering to let me go out next.
I’m being escorted out!
I pass through the sliding glass door a cold that hits my face, as well as my long underwear. It’s like every cell, every atom, is being pierced by Buffalo. I look down the line, which before COVID never existed. The line still wraps around the building. The frozen mist from the breaths rises up more than six feet.
I stand by the police car and wonder what they will ask.
—
This is the problem with present tense. He walks outside. Is confronted by the cold. He’s standing by the police car. I don’t like the wonderment.
—
I’m led to the police car and wonder what they will ask.
“Do you have an ID on you?” the younger officer asks.
“I do.” I fold my arms. “But why do I need it?”
“We received a complaint that you allowed a woman,” the younger officer pulls out his notepad, “Athena Kefta-dopoulos, to cut in front of you. That’s in violation of Erie County Code four eighty-three, O three, clause seventeen ninety-one, which prohibits individuals from allowing other individuals outside their immediate personal party–such as a family member, or someone who you arrived within a vehicle or walked onto the property with—to cut into a line of any establishment needing to maintain a cue to enter because of the COVID-19 epidemic.”
—
I added detail. What it had been was this…
That’s in violation of Erie County Code four eighty three, O three, clause seventeen ninety-one, the law which prohibits individuals for allowing other individuals outside of their personal party to cut the line of any establishment needing to maintain a queue to enter because of the COVID-19 epidemic.”
“She had a cane and couldn’t walk.” I pointed to the line.
—
I also feel like he has to have an aha moment. So let’s do this all again, and you’ll see what I added.
—
“We received a complaint that you allowed a woman,” the younger officer pulls out his notepad, “Athena Kefta-dopoulos, to cut in front of you. That’s in violation of Erie County Code four eighty-three, O three, clause seventeen ninety-one, which prohibits individuals from allowing other individuals outside their immediate personal party–such as a family member, or someone who you arrived within a vehicle or walked onto the property with—to cut into a line of any establishment needing to maintain a queue to enter because of the COVID-19 epidemic.”
That’s what this is all about?
“She had a cane and couldn’t walk.” I point to the line. “Would you let someone with a cane stand out in this cold for fifteen to twenty minutes?”
“What’s your name?” The lower brimmed officer said.
“Anastasy.”
“Anastasy what?”
“Falandros.”
—
In this version of the story, I finally decided to give my character a last name after using a placeholder. I find a lot of my last names on online maps. They are street names or modifications of place names and last names. Being conversational in the Greek language and culture, I can construct names. I have a distant relative Abramopoulos, which is of Peloponnesian origin, and I can make him Cretan, Abramakis; or from Pontus, Abramaides; or Macedonian, Abramas.
I had given the woman a Peloponnesian last name. Keftadopoulos. It’s not a proper last name. It roughly translates to “son of the meatball.”
So when I thought about placing Anastasy’s origin, I leaned away from making his last name from a different area of Greece. For the nerds, I wanted to suggest that he and the old woman weren’t just Greek, but also from the same area of Greece, and they didn’t know each other.
I went to the map. I discovered a village called Falanthos, which sounds like a Greek last name of the area. I made a minor modification to that name. Falandros.
—
“Just as we suspected. Not helping out people, but helping out a fellow Greek.”
“I had no idea she was Greek until you said her name.” I exhale. This is so fucking dumb.
“You ethnic types are always helping each other out and then playing dumb.” The lower-brimmed officer clearly had a pole up his ass. “I bet suddenly you don’t understand English.”
“I still understand English quite well, even though I do have working knowledge of three other languages. The Monger Matt’s employee managing the line thanked me for letting her cut before inviting her to skip the line. The person standing behind me, probably not fucking Greek, thanked me and said had I not, she would’ve.”
“Is that woman here to corroborate your story?” the lower-brimmed officer asks.
Is she? “It’s like I was involved in a car accident and forgot to take witness statements.” I point to the door. “Why did they let me shop if what I did was so criminal?”
“We need your ID,” the lower-brimmed officer said. “Do you want us to take you down to the station? We can add obstruction, disorderly conduct, and resisting-arrest charges if you keep up with this.”
“Are you arresting me for helping some older woman?”
The older officer looks at, the younger officer. “We want to avoid taking you down,” he says and then turns to me. “It wasn’t the store that called. It was someone in line.”
I pull out my Vermont license from my wallet. “Why would someone call the police because of this?” I handed it to him. My fingers are pained from the frigid temps. I shake my head. “I just moved to downtown Buffalo two months ago.”
“Vermont. Did you vote for the socialist?” the younger officer asks. “You have thirty days once you move in state to get your New York driver’s license.”
“I’m working six to seven days a week, coordinating testing sites and vaccine sites.”
“So you think because of your job and that you live in Buffalo, you can just come into Amherst and break our laws,” the lower-brimmed officer says. “We can add failure to obtain a New York driver’s license.”
“Actually, you won’t,” I say. “My colleague, a New York state trooper, says I need ninety days to establish residency, and then the thirty days would take effect. So I have another five weeks or so before I’m actually legally required to get a New York driver’s license.”
—
So another one of my typical mistakes is writing the sentence one way. ‘My colleague on the State Police’ and then editing myself mid-sentence. ‘My colleague on the New York state trooper.’ So I edited it and added his line.
—
“How do you feel when you’re waiting in line on a cold Buffalo day,” a modulated female voice asks, “and someone ahead of you just lets people cut?”
I turn. It’s a woman standing in front of a news camera tripod with the logo. Channel Nine Gawker News. They take sensational bullshit to the max.
“I would love to just issue you a citation and summons, but now,” the older cop says, looking at the media van, “a complaint came through the DA’s office.”
—
I’m breaking the older cop’s statement up.
—
“You cannot,” I said. “I don’t normally do the shopping, but my girlfriend fractured her ankle slipping on ice.”
“We’ll take you down to the station,” The older officer looked at me directly. His eyebrows pulled together. “We’ll issue you a citation, and then someone will return you.”
“I can’t get arrested and end up on the evening news,” I say. “I’m here in Western New York as the public health liaison for the governor’s office, and you know what kind of problems he’s having.”
—
I’ve cleaned up his role. Also added the reference to now-former NY Governor Cuomo’s allegations which, when I had a first pass at this, wasn’t in the news.
—
“You should’ve thought about that before you broke the law,” the lower-brimmed officer said.
“I didn’t know there was a law to be broken,” I say. “I just helped a woman with mobility issues to not have to walk the entire line and wait with able-bodied people. It’s called manners. And I’m going to lose my job.”
The older officer hands the younger officer my ID.
—
I want to add the begrudging cop doesn’t seem fully behind what he has to do.
Below is my ending.
—
The older officer looks away as he hands, the younger officer my ID.
“Anae-Stacey Fail-at-dose…”
“You just heard me say my name. Anastasy Falandros.”“
“You have the right to remain silent.”
“You’d think you could get that right. I let her cut and I’d do it again.”
—
So I want an ending that packs a better punch. I’m adding a description.
—
“Anae-Stacey,” says the younger officer, his eyes bulging “Fail-at-dose…”
“You just heard me say my name. Anastasy Falandros.”
“You have the right—”
“You’d think you could get my name right.”
“You have the right to remain silent.”
“If I’m getting arrested for this, I have no rights,” I said. “I let her cut in, and I’d do it again.”
—
Now that’s really it. I’m going to send this over to my editor Jen Safrey, and when she’d done, I’ll revisit my story.
