“Three thousand and one.”
Anna sighed; computers had no compassion. If “wordcount” said three thousand and one, then that’s what it was.
And the word limit for the short story competition was three thousand. It wasn’t the first time; as assistant editor she’d checked hundreds of manuscripts, and pleaded with her editor several times. ‘It’s only ten words over, and such a good story.’
But Mr Mgowan was relentless. ‘If they can’t be bothered to check, they don’t deserve to win. Three thousand, or it’s out.’
Anna tried now not to read the stories until she’d checked. It was so disheartening. She stirred her coffee, sipped it carefully and put the cup back into its saucer. It landed slightly askew, slopping a few drops over the edge onto her mouse mat. She pulled a tissue from the box nearby, rolled the mouse to one side and dried the mat carefully, watching the brown stain spread across, pressing it flat with the palm of her hand while her eyes drifted back to the computer screen in front of her.
“Wendy crouched forward in the saddle, her muscles melding with the horse’s will as she focussed her fury on the fearsome fence ahead.”
Anna had been given a pony as a child and had loved horses ever since. She read the sentence again, whispering the words “fearsome fence” to herself while realising, at the same time, that they were about to be responsible for the author’s exclusion from the monthly short story competition. Anna removed the tissue and ran her mouse over its mat again. It moved smoothly, the cursor following her every step across the page, line by line, towards the adjective “fearsome…”.
Anna highlighted it with the mouse, and paused, her finger over the delete key.
A story about horses. A story with a great opening sentence, just one word over the limit. From an unknown, struggling author who’d just forgotten to check. Anna pressed “Delete”, took another careful sip of her coffee, and settled down to read the rest. Mr Mgowan always took a long lunch break on Fridays.
~
“Paul Matrish”. The name jumped out at her from the CD. Anna put the package carefully on the top of the pile, wondering whether he’d written about her favourite animals again, and whether he had counted his words this month. She hoped so; his last story hadn’t been that good, but she’d so enjoyed his descriptions of the horses and the way that the hero rode that she’d ignored the poorly developed characters, and even risen above the hopeless plot. She put the kettle on, brewed herself a fresh cup of coffee, and slid the CD into her computer, pausing with her mouse over “wordcount”. Anna looked at the title, “Final Fence”, and decided to read it first, reasoning that if she knew it was too long, she’d be trying to decide which words to cut out, rather than just enjoying it. She sipped her coffee and clicked “open file”.
~
‘How many entries?’ Her editor, back from lunch, smelt strongly but not unpleasantly of gin.
She forced herself to look up from the penultimate paragraph. ‘Twenty….four.’
‘Send ‘em on.’ He gestured extravagantly towards his office. ‘I’ll read them this afternoon.’
‘Not this one you won’t,’ Anna thought to herself. ‘The closing date’s not till Monday. You can read the twenty fifth when you’re sober. And after I’ve finished with it.’
For Paul, she felt, had erred the other way. A better story, although still weak by competition standards, but this time too fast, just a little too bare. She felt cheated of the atmosphere, starved of the wonderful adjectives he’d peppered his descriptions with last month and she wondered why he’d changed his style. Perhaps he’d been short of time? Perhaps he had a nagging wife or noisy children? Whatever the reason, several perfect additions had occurred to her while she’d been reading and, as Paul was no fewer than twenty five words under the limit this month, it seemed only sensible to put them in for him.
It was a forlorn hope now. Two months later, Anna sat at her desk, opening the post on the closing date for this month’s competition, looking for the name Matrish. There’d been nothing from him last month. Maybe he’d given up, disillusioned after two successive rejections. But perhaps he was just taking his time, spending those extra four weeks polishing his quite exceptional talent for description. Anna, wishing she could meet him, rifled carefully through the envelopes and smiled. There it was, right at the bottom, a small, CD sized envelope with the handwriting that she now recognised. Anna extracted the disc and fed it into her computer with a pleasant feeling of anticipation.
~
‘Short story entries, Anna? I need them this afternoon.’ Mr Mgowan swayed slightly on his way through the office.
‘Certainly, Mr Mgowan. I’ll print them out for you.’ Her editor never read from a computer screen. ‘Just as soon as I’ve finished the layout for the gardening competition.’
Mr Mgowan nodded approvingly and lurched into his office, slamming the door through lack of control, she thought, rather than abundance of sentiment.
Anna looked back to her computer, guilty of the tiny lie she’d just told; she’d finished the gardening layout days ago. She was playing for time. Time to finish Paul’s latest story for him.
This one, she thought, wasn’t actually too bad. Drippy characters still, but a half-decent plot, and once again, gloriously about horses and eventing. It was just the ending that didn’t quite work. A much better one had popped into Anna’s head as she read it, a twist which, she was sure, need not add more than thirty five words, as long as she rewrote the last couple of paragraphs….
~
‘What do you think?’
‘Very nice, Mr McGowan.’ Anna answered automatically, her eyes fixed in horror on the proofs of the latest issue.
He looked over her shoulder. ‘You like horses don’t you?’
Anna nodded silently.
‘Thought so. So you like our winner then? Weak characters, but a good plot. And such a brilliant ending. I had no choice!’
Mr McGowan disappeared into his office and Anna shook herself into action. She needed Paul Matrish’s phone number, fast.
~~~
This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 30 November, 1999.