Hello Readers,
Back at the beginning of October, I posted about a piece of flash-fiction, titled Author of Destiny, that had been published in the September issue of SciFanSat. I mentioned at the time that I had some thoughts to mull over about the writing process for this piece, due to the nature of editing for word count when your draft has run… a little long.
While SciFanSat does not request any exclusivity rights, out of professional courtesy, I wanted to wait to put the text of this story up here until at least their subsequent issue had dropped. Rather than sharing the story as it was published though, I thought it would be more interesting to offer you the difference between editing for content, and editing for word length.
So, keep reading for the ‘full version’ of this story, followed by a brief discussion of my thoughts on the process. Thanks for reading,
–KTL
Author of Destiny
Behind her serene features, Cela fidgeted and struggled for some modicum of comfort in the midday heat. Her dress of finest Velisian wool clung to her clammy skin and itched at every seam. Beads of sweat trickled down the small of her back beneath her shift, and her cheeks had fallen numb from the stone bench beneath them—but worst was this damnable corset, trying to mash the perfectly reasonable flesh of her waistline upward into a mockery of a chest far larger than she possessed.
She closed her eyes and drew in as deep a breath as her imprisoned lungs could manage. Just a few more hours. You can do this. Then she exhaled and fixed her demure half-smile as yet another scion of nobility approached the dais in the middle of the cathedral hall. The jewels of her gaudy necklace bounced and jangled across her manufactured cleavage like bells on a mare’s bridle as she turned her head to watch him.
The boy produced a low hum and a hint of a luminescent aura, but of course failed to open the Archmagister’s Reliquary.
The polite susurrus of the gathered nobility died out as the next aspirant entered the cathedral: Prince Heron of the Autumn Isles, barely a week past his sixteenth birthday. He struck a regal figure in his spidersilk cotehardie as he strode to the dais, his posture erect, eyes unwavering. He pulled off his cream-white gloves and tossed them to the valet trailing at his heels.
The moment that would pen Cela’s future had arrived. Her family leaned forward to improve their view—two sisters seated to her right, and her father, his wife, and Cela’s two half-sisters to her left. She closed her eyes.
Heron grasped the handle of the reliquary chest, and an ethereal, dulcet chord rang through the air. She peeked through one cracked eyelid. Veils of shimmering light cascaded around the prince in vibrant hues reserved for the sunset skies, erupting into sparks about his feet as they hit the surface of the dais. He bent his knees, set his back, and pulled.
The lid did not move.
Heron threw one leg over the reliquary and reset his grip, careful never to let go with both hands at once. The veins on his neck bulged out as his turnshoes skittered against the marble pavers. Her youngest half-sister stifled a giggle. Cela might have laughed too at the ridiculous display, had she not been praying with her whole heart that Prince Heron would succeed.
Finally, the prince released the reliquary and sprang away, his chest heaving. The waterfall of light and the heavenly chord dispersed. His valet held forward the prince’s gloves as he turned. With an animalistic snarl, Heron shoved the boy down the stairs, then stormed away down the aisle.
Fingernails biting the insides of her fists, she stifled a sob attempting to escape her chest. The assembled nobility of the kingdom broke into muted whispers and appraising nods, and Cela’s skin burned as hundreds of eyes fell on her.
She could almost hear the furious scribbling as the next chapter of her life was written.
An angry howl jolted Cela out of her fugue some time and several aspirants later. The current scion upon the dais looked to be Sir Pel of Harborock, a massive boy with the broad shoulders of a man twice his age. Few sons of the kingdom achieved knighthood before they made their attempt at the reliquary, but Pel stood out among his peers. Her father had spoken highly of him at table—how he had made a name for himself on the tournament circuit by unhorsing the king’s own champion.
A three-note chord hung in the air. Cela winced as its second note warbled with a slight dissonance. Violet sparks spewed from beneath Sir Pel’s grip on the reliquary’s delicate handle as he heaved and strained. It was a respectably insufficient showing from the young knight. With this, alongside his tournament prowess, his father would be able to negotiate quite a favorable match for him.
Uncomfortable murmurs stirred among the crowd of nobles as Pel roared again, ignoring the reliquary’s clear refusal to open. At a nod from Grand Magister Vero, seated in the chancel, two magisters of the honor guard came forward to extricate the boy. He quieted as they gently laid hands on his shoulders, still gripping the handle. One of the guards leaned in and whispered something in his ear. Sir Pel’s massive shoulders slumped as the other guard patted him on the back. He released the handle and let them turn him and guide him down the steps from the dais.
Cela considered the young knight, robbed of what he so clearly felt he deserved. His face was flushed purple, a vein bulging prominently across his forehead. And then his expression shifted to the kind of obstinate look the boys in the training yard back home tended to get just before they did something monumentally stupid.
In one fluid motion, Sir Pel slipped free of the two magisters’ guiding hands and leapt back to the top of the dais.
Lord Harborock sprang from his seat across the aisle. “No, don’t—” he cried, but it was too late. Sir Pel’s hand fell on the reliquary, and a discordant shriek filled the air. Cela flinched away from the glare as a brilliant halo of light engulfed the dais. When it died down, only a pile of ash and scattered fragments of charred bone remained where Pel had stood.
“Damn fool,” Cela’s father muttered next to her. “At least now the next few generations will believe us when we say they only get one attempt.”
Cela lay in bed until the breathing of her sisters had slowed and evened out into slumber, then she rose and tiptoed to her trundle chest. Its leather hinges creaked softly as she lifted the lid. She pulled a linen riding dress over her shift, and tied it off with a woven belt. Moving to the window, Cela hopped up onto the sill, swung her legs out into the open air, and dropped to the grassy courtyard ten feet below.
She kept to the shadows at the base of the curtain wall as she skulked around the courtyard, freezing at one point behind a topiary bush to let a sentry with a dull lantern amble past on the path. Eventually she arrived at the cathedral, and let herself into the ante-chamber through one of the small side doors. She slipped past the guard dozing at his station and entered the vaulted hall where she’d spent the day in abject misery.
There it stood atop its marble dais: the reliquary chest of Archmagister Hawthorne. Her soft leather shoes whispered across the stone floor.
“Who’s there?”
Cela froze. Her heart pounded in her throat as a gaunt figure emerged from a shadowed alcove of the chancel.
“Lady Celandine, is that you?”
“Magister Vero! I—my apologies. I could hardly see past Lady Fairfax’s braids this afternoon, I so desperately wanted to see it a little closer,” she turned to the reliquary. “It’s so beautiful.”
He glided up beside her. The shadows playing across his long, crooked features rendered them unreadable. Sweat formed on her palms in the looming silence between them. “Indeed it is.”
Cela slowly let out the breath she’d been holding.
“What do you think is inside?”
“A great boon, most assuredly: ‘To undo my lock requires nobility of soul and spirit. Test your scions against it, for its undoing shall usher in an era of prosperity.’ These were the Archmagister’s words when he founded our order.”
“Yes, but… what is it?”
He glared down at her with a furrowed brow. “I believe you’re missing the point.”
“My apologies, it is late, I am not thinking right. I should return to bed.”
“Indeed.” He turned his eyes back to the reliquary. Cela backed away a step.
“Allow me to offer my congratulations on your betrothal. Prince Heron is a fine young man.”
Cela paused. “Nothing is official yet.”
He waved a limp hand through the air.
“I was there, you know, when your father made his attempt. House Calex was a barely-recognizable name, until he came closer to opening the reliquary than any man in four centuries. By our calculations, it was clear his son would almost certainly be the one to succeed.” He offered her a placating smile, “Were he to produce one, that is.”
“Yes, of course,” Cela bit back her ire.
“Until the prince’s attempt today, no other soul has come as close. A proud and glorious future has been written for you, Lady Calex. Coupled with Heron, you will bear the son to open the reliquary. I only pray I persist these seventeen years, to witness the deed in my lifetime.”
Cela’s fingernails reopened the cuts in her palms, but she hardly noticed the pain. Caught in her skulking, she’d been ready to tuck her tail between her legs and give up. But this… this casual humiliation…
No. She hadn’t come only to look. She’d come with purpose, and only one chance remained before the ink dried on her future.
“Magister, what is the meaning of this relief?” She pointed across the hall.
“Oh?” he turned. “That depicts the sealing of the reliquary, and its delivery to—what are you doing, girl!”
Three leaping strides brought her to top of the dais.
“Get down from there at once!”
“I will be the author of my own destiny, thank you very much.” Cela reached out for the reliquary’s handle.
“Ah… at long last,” it whispered, and she opened the lid.
-The Difference-
The submission guidelines for this piece were simple and straightforward: 1000 words maximum, and the word “Author” must comprise the story’s central theme.
The story above is 1609 words long.
The biggest piece that could be sliced off was of course Sir Pel’s ill-advised tantrum, which didn’t actually make it into my first draft: I realized one paragraph into it that I would never make it under 1000, and I cut the scene – 425 words – entirely, with a note left to finish it later for the full version. This lowered the stakes a bit, shifting the tone of the story to one a little less serious, but it was clear at least that the story wouldn’t fall utterly apart without it.
Running the math, you’ll find the discrepancy here, and the crux of this exercise: 1609 less 425 is still 1184 words – and that was after trimming the most obvious fat, as my first draft without Pel had actually been 1281 words in total. Much of what I cut for the flash fiction piece is still cut in this full version, because it made the story better: tighter, streamlined, lacking superfluous fluff. This is the goal, and the beauty, of writing with a word constraint.
But after shearing off this fluff, I was still left with nearly 200 words – a sixth of the story in total – that needed to be cut somehow.
Where do you take it from?
You can’t cut plot, or the story falls apart. In a fantasy piece, like this, it’s risky to cut setting, because the setting tends to be necessary to frame the plot. You’ve already stretched grammar to its limits, and replaced every two-word descriptor you can find with a one-word synonym…
All that’s left is characterization.
So that’s what I cut: 185 words of characterization, mostly of our protagonist, Lady Celandine Calex. And while I do like the flash-fiction version of this piece, and appreciated the process of editing down to submission length, I like the Cela who inhabits the full version more. She feels more real, more human. I’m more willing to connect with her, and I’m more invested in her struggle against the life that has been laid out before her. I hope you feel the same way.
Have you read both versions? Let me know which you think is better!
Until next time, Readers,
-KTL
Featured Image generated at Hotpot.ai
The Literary Diversions of K.T. Lazarus 
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