It’s important to think about what a reader is really looking for when they search for a book or look for the next short story to read. Their need is the demand that we are looking to supply. If we can align with that in what we write, our stories will always find a home.
Here are a few things I came up with. See if you agree:
1. Surprise: The Unexpected and the Inevitable
David Mamet, the legendary playwright, once said that a great story is “unexpected and inevitable.” That seeming contradiction captures something essential about storytelling. We want to be surprised but in a way that makes perfect sense once it happens. Not random or gimmicky but with a twist that feels like the only possible outcome.
Think of the best stories you’ve read or watched. There’s a moment when the truth snaps into place like a puzzle piece. You didn’t see it coming but you should have. That’s the sweet spot. The Sixth Sense is one that comes to mind for me that did that very well.
Readers crave that moment, not just for the thrill, but because it affirms meaning. Surprise, when done right, is more than a twist. It’s a revelation.
2. Exploration: The Deep Human Need to Discover
We are all explorers. We read to venture into the unfamiliar: new worlds, new minds, new truths about ourselves. That’s why genres like sci-fi and fantasy endure but also why, to Matt Walter’s point in a previous post, that story is an important in nonfiction as well. All generas and types are vehicles for exploration.
3. It Has to Be Interesting
Years ago, a blogger said something that stuck with me: “The only rule to writing is that it has to be interesting.” That has stayed with me and always rung true through the years.
You can break every convention, tense, point of view, structure, grammar, and still succeed, if your writing is interesting. But “interesting” doesn’t just mean flashy or weird. It means engaging and alive. It means giving the reader something to care about and to feel.
Always remember the readers don’t owe us their time; we have to earn it, word by word.
If we can give a reader surprise, exploration and something that is interesting, we will earn that time and it will also be something editors will want to publish.
Let me know in the comments below what you think readers want.
Make Believe comes to us from Kurt Fillmore. It has been [mistakenly] rejected by the following:
The Sun Magazine
The Atlantic
The Boulevard Magazine
Kurt provided the following Bio:
I was born in the central valley of California in 1960. I spent my early youth moving between Fresno, Merced, and Dinuba. After that I did a hitch with the U.S. Navy, reaching Photographer’s Mate 3rd class (E-4), and getting an Honorable Discharge in 1985. Along the way, I was writing. Some short stories, but mostly Motion Picture Screenplays. I never did sell anything, but my skills improved. I bopped from job to job, moving to Sonoma County in Northern California and getting training in Electronics technology. I began work as a Technician testing and repairing board level circuits in 1996. Various economic down turns took their toll and I was again moving from job to job. I’ve been working as a Technical Manager for a family fun center, or arcade, since 2015. After the Screen Writer’s Guild Strike I gave up on my dream of selling a screenplay and moved back to writing stories. In 2025 I made my first sale. ‘Make Believe’ is my second. I will continue writing fiction in various genres, inventing characters and situations that I hope readers will enjoy.I am active on Bluesky – where I follow writers, artists, and filmmakers.
When I asked Kurt what he loves about this story, this was his response:
As to what I love about this story, I think I love the first person immediate way it’s put together. When I wrote it I knew I wanted a back and forth between the director and the producer. Didn’t really have a plan, just let things evolve naturally.
Make Believe, by Kurt Fillmore
Charlie’s got me cornered up on a scaffolding. We’re watching as carpenters tack wood moldings down a length of wall, shots from nail guns sounding all around. Behind Charlie a pair of muscular twins, both union painters, sweep hoses over the facade, spraying brown paint in a mist and breathing through their respirators.
In a few weeks we’ll be filming the big bank robbery scene. I’m directing, from a script that Charlie, the producer, hired a writer to bang out. But Charlie’s been messing with the story, and I’m not happy.
“Two people come out of a building,” he says.
“Yeah, and?”
Charlie toys with the flaked end of his cigar, well chewed, but never lit. “I’m getting to that. It’s raining, see?”
“We’ll have to tent the cameras and bring in a crane,” I say, “spray rigs, hoses.”
Charlie waves off my concerns. “It’s cheap, Maxie owes me.”
About then I hear faint strains of music.
My one, my only prayer, is that someday you’ll care.
Charlie’s watch chimes “It’s Only Make Believe” every hour. On set he bunches up the sleeve of his suit and presses hard against his wrist at 8:59, then at 9:59, 10:59, and so on. I think his wife got him the watch, and some color blind, long-distance trucker turned fashion consultant talked him into that white suit with the wide, cream lapels.
I nod and check my own watch. Just two o’clock.
The craft truck, with treasures of iced bottled water, waits two stories below.
And Charlie stands between me and the ladder.
“The two people walk under a street lamp and we see it’s George and Annabell.”
I groan and look off at the horizon. The edges of Charlie’s mouth move down; the tip of his cigar sags.
“You don’t like her,” Charlie says, “I know.”
“I like her fine, Charlie. It’s a bit role, and what little talent the gal’s got I can work with.”
“A bit role? I’m talking about changing that. Putting more meat into it.”
Yeah, he’s putting the meat in all right, I think to myself.
I lift the screenplay, rolled into a pastel blue baton, and tap a clean spot on the scaffold’s railing.
“The last rewrite you submitted cost us three days. The one before that almost a week.” I smack the rail again, putting a crease into the paper. “No more.”
Charlie stands straighter, takes the cigar out of his mouth and smacks his lips.
“The story’s not done. I’m still exploring options.”
“You’re banging Annabell.”
“So what if I am? She’s talented. More than you with your little Clio’s and your ‘People’s Choice’ pretending to be a feature film, music video shit.”
In this business, scriptwriters get rewritten, temperamental stars get thrown out, and directors get replaced. ‘Creative Differences’ means that somebody somewhere didn’t want to play ball. You never hear of a Producer getting the sack — and I mean never.
“I’ll have to see the pages,” I say. “I probably won’t like ’em.”
“Like, don’t like, whatever, you just set it up and shoot it. That’s your job.”
“You’re trying to inflate her role. For what, a little more sack time?”
“Stick to pointing the camera around. Leave the details to me.”
I swear under my breath and duck under the railing, ever mindful of physics and the pavement below. I shimmy along the outside of the scaffold to the ladder and climb down, half tempted to toss the script.
I hit bottom and march to the craft truck.
Later that evening our little group has a banquet table at Morten’s. Charlie sits next to Annabell, who’s all thin giggles and heavy sighs. I’m across from Dan Arbrist, the money man from the studio.
“Mike, the footage we’re getting looks great,” Dan says.
Charlie leans in, “didn’t I tell you? The kid’s a natural.”
Annabell nips at her lower lip, gives a shoulder-hunching grin of joy. She clings to Charlie’s arm.
George Deveroe and Tischa Berringer sit to my right; the male buddies of our heist picture. George toys with a silver dessert spoon, moving a thin sludge of chocolate around the bottom of a serving dish. He smiles when he catches me watching.
The last man at the table is Achmehem bin Taschem. He’s putting up two thirds of the production money. The studio, via Dan, is putting up the rest. Charlie’s the hub. He purchased the story rights from a second-rate crime novelist eager to push paperback sales.
“There have been many delays,” Taschem says.
“A few things,” Charlie says. “It’s in the budget allowance. Speaking of which, I’ve got a scene to add where George and Annabell come out of the Depository building.”
Dan and Taschem stare at Charlie.
“We need it, hand of God,” Charlie says, raising his own. “Annabell’s the wedge that comes between George and Tischa. We’ve got to show the moment they connect.”
Charlie grabs his cigar, waves it at me. “And if Junior here would pick up the pace, it won’t cost us any extra time.”
Now Dan and Taschem stare at me.
“I’m right on schedule,” I say. “This is my first feature. I don’t need any delays; I want everything to go smoothly.”
Taschem nods. “Of course.”
Tischa pulls a cigarette from a thin, black metal case. He taps the filter hard against the metal, then stops. “Shit, we can’t smoke in here, can we?”
“Let’s go out on the terrace,” Dan suggests.
So out we go.
The heat has mellowed with a soft breeze coming up from the coast. The seven of us make a rough oval; talking shop about the movie and upcoming scenes.
Taschem opens his briefcase and lifts out a box of cigars.
“A gesture, for everyone.” He scoops up several cigars, cuts the ends with a bronze finger tool, and hands them out.
“To our success on this venture,” Taschem says.
Annabell cups her cigar. “Thank you.”
George accepts his, but Tischa declines with a wave of his smoking cigarette.
“Are these Cuban?” Charlie asks. Taschem nods. Charlie throws the worn stub of his previous chew toy off the balcony, bites down on the new one.
“Tischa, lend me your lighter,” I say.
Tischa flips the lid open, spinning the striker and igniting it in one smooth, even motion. He hands it over.
I raise the flame to the end of my cigar, but don’t light it.
“Actually Charlie,” I say, “you’re the man tonight; the reason we’re doing this picture.”
I lean towards him, enjoying his scowl as I raise the lighter.
Charlie glances from face to face, smooths his suit jacket with a free hand. “That’s, well, to say”
Taschem closes his eyes and purses his lips, waves his thick fingers beneath his own nose. “These cigars are the finest available to man. I’m sure you will enjoy their rare qualities. I relish them.”
Annabell’s arm is looped around Charlie’s. He’s stuck and he knows it.
“Charlie?” I ask. I grin, and light his cigar.
Charlie sucks and the flame pulls towards the end. The tobacco smolders, lines of combustion run along the edges of the leaves. Charlie draws in again, and the end starts to glow. Another puff and smoke billows around the corners of Charlie’s mouth.
I draw the lighter back and bring the flame to my own cigar. It’s good, though rather pungent. I lean towards George, Dan, then Taschem, lighting each in turn.
“Charlie, are you okay?” Annabell asks.
A flush of red shows at the hollow of Charlie’s neck. He draws away from Annabell’s grip, touches the tip of his nose with a finger. “Sweetie, I’m just…”
He coughs and a drip of something green flips over his lower lip.
“Excuse me,” Charlie says.
He runs, coughing repeatedly, and drops to grab the rim of a potted palm. He pukes, and up comes seventy-five dollars’ worth of beef, rice pilaf, and Dewar’s Gold Label.
Annabell darts towards him, legs swishing left and right, but Charlie’s already up and running to the rest room.
Taschem tugs the sleeve of Dan’s suit. “Is he all right?”
“I hope so.” Dan frowns, then glances my way, the whites of his eyes giving an angry flash.
I puff my cigar. “The delays we’ve had so far, have been story-related.”
Taschem nods.
“Assuming no more story changes, we should stay on schedule.”
“Very good. We add the Depository scene, and then we are done.”
“Right,” I say, “after that, no more story changes.”
Almost a month later and we’re on the studio back lot, getting pelted by man-made rain.
“And – Cut!”
The first assistant repeats my command and the camera eases to a halt. I give a thumbs up, adjust my poncho, and step away from the dolly.
We’ve been on night shoots now for over a week. George and Tischa have played out their friendship across steel cables, along the edges of buildings, and down service access ways into bank vaults.
“Let’s wrap,” I shout.
“Thank God,” George says. He disengages from Annabell, steps over the chrome track and walks around to the monitor. “Can I see the playback?”
“Sure.”
I tap the Operator on the shoulder and he speaks into his headset mike. A moment later the LCD flat panel comes to life; and there they are, George and Annabell, walking through a backlit cascade of rain. George pulls the monitor closer, extending the rod and swivel.
Annabell glances around, nibbles her lower lip again. Sorry kid, Charlie’s been laying low.
George shifts the monitor to the side and waves Annabell over. She crosses the rails carefully and ducks under the camera tent. We watch the scene play out and Annabell breaks into a huge grin when she and George kiss.
“Nicely done,” I say. “Good job George, Anne.”
Maxie, Charlie’s brother-in-law, steps up beside me. His poncho rustles as he looks around my arm at the monitor. He nods. “Nice. Kill the rain then?”
“Sure Max, kill the rain.”
Max sweeps two fingers past his temple in salute. He raises a walkie-talkie, thumbs the switch, and gives an order. The rain stops and clear blackness tumbles down behind it. Maxie wanders off to see about hoses and other matters.
Everybody removes their rain gear. The grips start tearing down stands and unhooking cables. The Operator and Focus Puller unbolt the camera from the dolly jib, then place it carefully into its aluminum crated foam.
The First Assistant hands me a clip board with tomorrow’s schedule. “Good one Mike,” she says. “Print ’em all?”
“Last three,” I say. Then to George and Annabell, “Call’s at six.”
Annabell shivers as she tugs the soaked coat free from her shoulders. “How many more nights on the schedule?”
I check. “Just two, we’re zooming right along.”
“Now,” George says.
I smile. “Yeah. Now.”
All the details get tidied up and I walk away from the facades, down the pavement and along the back lot buildings towards my car. I hear water trickling from somewhere; maybe a drain. As I walk the sound gets louder, the syllables more distinct.
I look up to the tops of the buildings. Girders and braces form triangles, shoring up what appear to be coarsely grained bricks of Brownstone buildings. An eight inch hose snakes below the truss, black against silver, held up by loops of rope.
There is still the sound of water.
I groan, then shift my shoulders, moving around a frigid drip that’s run down my neck. I look up and spot a stream of water escaping from the hose and arcing over like a crystal geyser into my convertible.
My car is full of water. The body has squashed down over the tires and now rests almost on the rims. Ripples lick over the surface; dart between the headrests. A flotilla of baby ducks could paddle back to front, plunge down, and feed over the floor boards.
Then I hear music, faint but getting closer:
My hopes, my dreams come true, my one and only you.
Charlie and Maxie come around the corner, Charlie’s arm wrapped over Maxie’s shoulders.
“The rain was beautiful, just beautiful,” Charlie says. “We might get an Oscar for cinematography.”
They both stop at the sight of my convertible. Maxie laughs then cuts it short with a hand fastened to his mouth.
“My god Mike, I’m so sorry,” Maxie says. “I thought I was losing water pressure somewhere.”
Charlie chews a new cigar. He looks down at the sheets of water pouring over the door of my car, splashing across the pavement, and puddling at his feet. He smirks at me, lips curling up around those neon white, capped teeth.
“I hope those Clios are water proof,” Charlie chuckles.
“I’ll shut it off at the mains. Right now,” Maxie says.
He and Charlie walk away, but it seems to me that they’re not hurrying much.
I grip the door handle, and open it, letting loose the inevitable flood.
A week later and I’m standing in a Marigold orange vestibule at Casa Charlie. Someone’s hung a neon painting of the Madonna on black velvet in the alcove on the right.
“Mike, I’m so glad you could make it,” Mrs. Charlie says. “Did you get your car fixed up?”
“Yes Ma’am, it’s in the shop.”
“Call me Helen,” says Mrs. Charlie. She’s ten years younger than Charlie, and her arm flesh wobbles a bit beneath several layers of white silk. She toys with a chunk of Tiffany that hangs around her neck.
“I hope it wasn’t expensive.”
“Nothing that a three picture deal won’t fix,” I say.
She laughs. “Come in and join everybody.” She steps towards the living room, then frowns back, eyes narrowed. “Yes?”
I point to the Madonna. “One of yours?”
“God no. Charlie won’t let me take that hideous thing down. I’m tempted to throw a drape over it whenever we entertain.”
I chuckle and follow her.
She gives me the short tour, and along the way I get introduced to society mavens, a few film critics, and one member of the Motion Picture Ratings Board who also attends Mrs. Charlie’s church. The house is open to the gentle night air. Festive lights fill the expansive drawing room, illuminating various groups as they move from the open bar and Hors d’oeuvres table to the Tiki torches outlining the backyard.
Mrs. Charlie drops me off and goes to make sure the ice buckets are full. She never makes it, strutting away instead to answer the jangle of the doorbell.
George, Tischa, and Annabell stand beside Charlie, along with another man I don’t know.
“I’ve thought about it,” Charlie says, “and the only thing that makes sense, is that Annabell’s an FBI agent, undercover.”
“Could be exciting,” the other man says.
Dan the studio rep joins us, a tumbler of golden liquid over ice in his hand.
“FBI?” Dan says.
“You bet,” Charlie says. “If Annabell can get both guys falling in love with her, it throws their game off. And if she’s a fed, then George and Tischa are in huge danger. They could get arrested, they could get shot. It changes everything.”
Dan sips his drink, “I thought we agreed no more changes.”
“The story’s got to have what it needs,” Charlie says. He grins at Annabell and she wrinkles her nose like a pleased little ferret.
“We already have a story, Charlie. You paid for it, remember?” I say.
“That story was shit.”
“But it’s the story we promised the studio,” I say.
The other man’s face pales a bit. “You are gonna to make the release date? Right?”
Ahh- another studio bean counter.
Dan sighs. “Of course we’ll hit the date. Mike’s got thing’s moving pretty well.”
“I don’t want any more story changes Dan,” I say. “I’ll be sweating in post just to get this thing cut the way it is now.”
“Junior’s a little nervous is all,” Charlie says. “A woman brings in the female ticket sales, you know, the love story angle.”
Dan’s eyebrows go up and he nods.
“See?” Charlie says. “Drama. The kid doesn’t know how to make a good story yet, but I’ll teach ‘im.”
I hold back any retort. After all — the producer never gets the sack.
I spend the next hour fuming and drinking. A lady film critic pesters me about our project, asking for “just a few juicy bits, for my readers.”
We’re standing in the backyard. The hot tub is silent. Cupped petals of frosted white plastic hold floating candles that drift across the larger body of the pool. Reflections from the Tiki torches bounce across ripples stirred up by the night winds.
“Sorry,” I say, “the only thing juicy here is you.”
She blushes on que then gives me her business card and pirouettes away. When I glance up from reading her phone number, she’s smiling over her shoulder at me.
I smile back, then wander inside to freshen my vodka.
“You should eat a little something Mike,” George says.
I cap the bottle and glance at the tidbits on the next table. Nothing looks appealing.
“How are the crab cakes?” I ask.
“Not bad. Better than three shots on an empty stomach.”
Annabell has been hovering about the food table. As much as I’ve been drinking, she’s been sneaking bites of cheese, sausages, and crackers. Now she’s grazing towards the spinach dip and pita platter.
“I ate earlier.”
“Don’t like party snacks?”
“Not so much, no. What’s Annabell drinking?”
George looks over. “White Zin, I think.”
I nod, put my own glass down and uncork the bottle. I walk over.
Annabell pokes half a pita chip into her mouth, then swallows quickly and tries to hide it. “Mike. Hi. How are you?”
“I’m doing good Anne.” I raise the bottle and she smiles and holds out her glass.
“I don’t know what year this is, but I like it,” she says.
I fill her glass —
— and slip my present into her handbag.
“So tomorrow we shoot George and Tischa breaking into the vault,” I say.
“Silly boys. They’re hogging all the glory.”
I smile. “The story is about two guys robbing a bank.”
“Charlie says he’s going to schedule some reshoots.”
Something in my face puts her on the defensive. She squirms, knowing that she’s given away some secret.
“Charlie said he wants to focus more on me, on what my character is going through.”
I clear my throat. “Okay,” I say. “If that’s what Charlie wants.”
“Really? You’re all right with that?”
I shrug. “Come the day, we’ll shoot the scenes and see what happens.”
Annabell hugs me, and I nearly drop the wine bottle. I glance around, but nobody notices my shock. She steps back, “I’m gonna have to rethink you, Mike.”
“Rethink?” I say.
“You surprise me,” she says, then scrapes white cream cheese and green spinach onto a cracker.
I cock my head and grin. “Sometimes I surprise myself.”
Later I find Charlie presiding over Dan and the studio bean counter. Dan’s eyes droop, his chin follows, and then he jerks his head upright.
“Not boring you, am I?” Charlie asks.
“It’s getting late,” Dan says. “I should go.”
“You should have Mike drive you,” Charlie says.
The other man grins. “Someone with some sobriety should drive,” he says, and Charlie laughs.
“I’ve got to be going as well,” I say. “Charlie? When were you going to tell these gentlemen about the reshoots?”
Charlie chokes a bit, glances from face to face. Dan is suddenly alert.
“That was just, something I was toying with,” Charlie says.
“Annabell seemed fairly keen on it.”
The other man squints his eyes at Dan. “Missing the release date kills the deal.” He looks at Charlie. “The picture’s already booked. We’ve scheduled advertising, junkets, merchandising plugs. We can’t miss the date.”
“We won’t miss the date,” Charlie says. “Mike’s just got to quit using those fancy camera setups. They take too much time.”
Dan’s jaw flexes. “I think I’m with Mike on this one, Charlie. No more story changes, and reshoots are out of the question.”
“It’s not a reshoot per se,” Charlie says. “Just a few pick-ups. To focus on Annabell’s FBI thing.”
“No,” Dan says. “I can call Taschem to confirm if you want, but I know what he’ll say.”
Charlie goes rigid, then runs his hand over his jaw, behind his ear, and into his hair. He relaxes himself.
“Okay. Like I said, I was just toying with the idea.”
“Fine,” Dan says. He turns and walks towards the front door, not saying goodbye.
The other man follows.
Charlie glares at me as soon as soon as we’re alone. He takes the cigar out of his mouth. “You think you’re smart, huh? You think you can beat me?”
“I don’t want to beat you Charlie,” I say. “I just want to finish the picture. On time. The way it was written.”
Charlie starts to say something but Annabell and Mrs. Charlie walk up, tittering over some girl talk.
“Good night, Charlie,” Annabell says. “Thanks for the lovely time.”
“You should stick around,” Charlie says, “things are just getting interesting.” He gives me a scalding look.
“Early call you know. This film’s very important to me.”
“You’ll have to get used to all this attention,” Mrs. Charlie says. “Once you’re a big star I’ll expect you at all my get-together’s.”
Annabell grins and hunches her shoulders. “Okay. Sure.”
Mrs. Charlie gives her a peck on the cheek.
And then we all hear the music, loud and clear; My only prayer will be, someday you’ll care for me.
Annabell digs a watch out of her handbag. Her face flushes and she gasps, as if fighting for a breath.
“Honey,” Annabell says to Charlie, “you must have left it the last time we …” and she stops, unable to finish. She gives frightened glances at Charlie, then to me, and finally to Mrs. Charlie.
Mrs. Charlie’s eyes go wet. Her lips push tightly together and the corners of her mouth pull down hard.
My stomach clenches and a spasm starts in a muscle towards the back of my thigh. I don’t feel clever anymore. I feel like shit.
“Helen, please,” Charlie says.
Mrs. Charlie bolts for somewhere else, her waving hands leading the way. Charlie goes after her, leaving Annabell reaching for his back. Annabell whirls on me, spots my guilt, and throws the watch at my face.
I spend a rough night, waking up several times with the sheets tangled around my legs; body coated in sweat. At about four, I throw myself into the shower, drag on whatever clothes I find in the closet, and drive my loaner to the studio.
I wander around the bank vault set, downing my second cup of hot coffee, my mood improving.
I stroll behind the riveted steel plates. On this side they’re just plywood sheets, braced with one by six boards held by screws. Thirty feet overhead are the catwalks where Electricians hang lights. Farther up, the roof girders are streaked with rust. Pink fiberglass spills out from torn plastic hung between the beams; reality is dirtier than illusion.
Turn the corner and I’m back in a two story, maximum security bank with motion sensors, cameras, upper balconies, and security terminals to unlock the gleaming, chrome-plated vaults.
But it’s not real. It’s just kids playing ‘make a fort’ with empty cardboard boxes.
Mrs. Charlie’s face comes back to me and my stomach clenches again. I only met her the one time, but I know she’s real. Annabell’s real. Even Charlie, poor pathetic Charlie, is real.
I sigh and drop my chin to my chest, then walk up the stairway grating to the upper balcony. Pretty soon the rest of the crew starts to arrive.
“Do you know what you did?” Charlie says. His voice, full of gravel and venom, carries across the set. Several grips working below set up C-Stands and lights. Electricians lace cables across the floor. Nobody approaches us to ask about the first shot of the day.
“Helen was screaming at me. Screaming.” Charlie raises his arm, pulls back his sleeve, and waves his watch in my face.
“I showed her I still had my watch; God damn it. It took all night to try and convince her it was just a mistake.”
I sigh, then look at Charlie’s face.
“So. Now what?” I say.
“Now what? You’re fired is what,” Charlie says. “You’re so fired. You’re fired back to some ad agency making ice cream commercials.”
“Charlie,” I say, “you win.”
“Oh, I win?”
“Yeah, you win. Anything you want, I’ll do.”
“Oh, now you’ll do what I tell you?” Charlie says. “Like you suddenly got smart and realized who’s in charge around here.”
“Like I got smart and decided what’s important.”
Charlie looks me up and down like he can’t figure out why I’ve changed my mind. The end of his cigar waves in the air as he thinks.
“If you have to get somebody new,” I say, “it’ll just take them more time to finish up.”
Then Charlie bristles and dismisses me with a wave of both hands. “Forget it, you’re fired. You march your ass off MY set. I’ll finish this bitch myself if I have to, but you ain’t here. Not anymore.”
I glance around the upper balcony, from the lights above to the set floor below.
It had been a nice ride.
I shuffle past Charlie towards the stairs. “Try not to ruin the picture, Charlie. It was a pretty good little story.”
“Piss off. You wouldn’t know a story if it landed on you like a bird droppings,” Charlie says. He turns away from me and heads around the balcony.
“Charlie, stop!” I shout.
He flips me off over his shoulder and keeps walking.
I sprint towards him. “Charlie!”
The crew all look at us but nobody can prevent it.
Charlie steps past the secure, braced area of the balcony and onto the fake section.
The balcony splits and balsa gives way, crumbling as Charlie’s bulk plunges through. He gives a surprised shout that separates him from his cigar. There’s a flash of white suit, and Charlie’s gone.
Crew members race across the floor and I see my Second Assistant already on the walkie talkie, calling for paramedics. A Grip pulls back a wall panel, and one of the camera guys helps. Nobody gives a damn about union restrictions in an emergency.
I creep towards the hole in the balcony and peer down to where Charlie lays, his right leg bent out from his body at an unnatural angle.
Then we hear the music:
But it’s onnnnnlllly make – beeeelieve.
We can’t help ourselves. Everybody on the crew checks their watches. It’s a seven a.m. call.
The ambulance finally arrives and they get Charlie hoisted onto a gurney. At the hospital, they take good care of him. The arm break is bad, but manageable. The leg’s worse, but a metal pin and a cast take care of that.
Afterward, we don’t see much of Charlie. He spends the rest of the production at home in bed, his leg in a sling, watched over by the ever-dutiful, and ever-possessive, Mrs. Charlie.
Filming moves forward and something shifts.
We shoot the remaining scenes as written, no delays, no rewrites.
Post goes great; the music and sound effects come together like we’d planned it that way all along.
At the first screening, everyone claps. Some of the crew even cheer. Once the film gets released it brings in solid box office numbers. A weight lifts off my shoulders I didn’t even know I was carrying.
I’m offered another project, and for once, I don’t hesitate. Even the lady film critic calls back.
George and Tischa split off for solo roles, each with nice salaries.
This weeks story comes to us from Y. Len. Y. Len’s spoken English is barbed with foreign accent and imposter words from several other languages. (Y. Len’s words not mine.)
Since 2021, Y Len has had seven short stories appear in magazines and anthologies and one was voted the best horror short story of 2023 by the Critters Annual Readers Poll. In 2025, the first professionally narrated story was featured in the Tall Tale TV podcast.
This story has [mistakenly] been rejected by:
The New Yorker
The Paris Review
The Craft
Here are some of Y Len’s ready-to-read/listen links:
What do you love about this story? This piece began as a dark psychological reflection on aging and grief, but at the time it quickly stalled. I set it aside for more than a year, certain it had reached a dead end. Then, unexpectedly, the story returned to me with a different perspective and a new ending—one that reshaped its entire meaning.
Hope By Y. Len
Hope loads the toaster and asks, without turning her head, “Do you remember the Johnsons invited us…”
She realizes the question implies he might have forgotten. Worse, it suggests she knows he forgets things. In hindsight, You do remember would’ve given the question a gentler spin, but it’s too late now. She bites her lip, bracing for him to cavil.
Her surprise, when he doesn’t, curdles into frustration with forgetting his name. Dan? Ben? Stan? She closes her eyes but sees only a red circle with a blurry-white horizontal bar in the middle. Oh well, does it even matter? After some forty years together, is it so inexcusable to forget seldom used details?
“As people age, they confuse changes in themselves with changes in the world, and changes in the world with moral decline—the illusion of the good old days . . .” drones a voice on the radio.
Hope wants to turn it off, but there comes one of those . . . feelings? For lack of a diagnosis—she’s never seen a doctor about episodes like this—Hope thinks of them as SenSations with two capital Ss. This one makes her feel being behind a glass wall. She stretches her hand toward the radio, and the tips of her press-on nails scrape an invisible obstacle. A cobalt-blue chip breaks off from her index finger and falls to the dirty kitchen floor.
Clop-clop, clop-clop. The upstairs neighbor, Max—a sexagenarian—crosses his kitchen. So it’s seven twenty-five now; she doesn’t need to look at the clock. It’s happened day after day for years. Max’s cane thumps the ceiling like a metronome. Hope counts the beats. Seven. Then he opens a water faucet.
Hope opens the fridge. The cold inside smells of sour milk and something else, something going or already gone bad. Yogurt cups stare at her like regret bottled for later. He used to mock her homemade yogurt. But near the end, there wasn’t much food soft enough for him to swallow.
Of the four eggs left, one is broken, its contents leaking into the carton. The remaining three seem to whisper in protest as she cracks them open. The yolks spread over the pan—wide and glassy—like jaundiced eyes.
“Over easy and crisp bacon! Ready when you are.” Words ricochet from the tiled walls. She lowers her voice to ask: “How’s your stomach?” And bites her lip again. Why ask if she knows the answer? Now he’s going to grumble about the cramps he’s been having all night. Then he’ll say that greasy fried food in the morning is disgusting—which would mean that he’d slept badly or not at all. And how could it be any different? He had four snifters of Jim Beam last night and kept switching TV channels until two in the morning.
Then he’ll slam the hot pan on the table, ignoring the three-legged trivet. Today, the trivet is coated in something dry and reddish. Tomato paste? She doesn’t remember cooking anything with tomatoes or tomato paste, but she hopes anyway.
Then he’ll eat it all except for one piece of toast.
Outside the window, the sky hangs low and the gray morning promises to become a gray Indian summer day. Hope considers taking her coffee mug and the remaining piece of toast out to the garden. She’d have to wade through the hip-high grass by the apple tree, shake off last year’s leaves from the garden table’s cover . . . not just leaves, but also dead bugs, snails, spider sacs . . . and the chair’s arms may be spotted with black mold . . . She hesitates. Still, she could go . . . or not. She could rot there or here—
“What’s wrong with you?” His vowels sag, curling at the edges like old linoleum, and Hope braces for the follow-up: a “bloody this” or a “proper narky that.” None comes.
She turns toward a shriveled ashen face under the remnants of a Mohawk combed and gelled across the balding pate. Ears fuzzed with tufts of gray. Water droplets glistening on salt-and-pepper chest hair.
Wearing briefs, as faded with age as he is, the man whose name escapes her settles at the table. The briefs—living up to their Go Buck Naked brand name—stretch and sag. What better image of withering and decrepitude than a bulge of a man’s scrotum with no sign of that other part the scrotum is supposed to attach to?
Hope’s eyes dart up as she asks, “What’s wrong with you?”
“You know, I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“I know.”
He nods with a faint smile. “You do remember the Johnsons invited us for lunch today?”
“What?” Hope flinches. “I asked you that question just a minute ago.”
“You tried.” He chuckles. “I had a dream,” he says and looks around. “All this was in it. This gray morning, you, me, eggs and bacon, Max at seven twenty-five.” He turns his face toward the ceiling.
You’re a damn clairvoyant now? Hope stifles a laugh and says, as matter-of-factly as possible, “All that happens every—”
“And even”—he stabs the air with his index finger—”I saw your thoughts.”
The sagging skin on his neck shakes. Hope thinks of a turkey, then of their last Thanksgiving and the past in general.
#
In their salad days, Dan had been an arrestingly handsome hunky beefcake—loud-mouthed, tart-tongued, wasteful, affectionate and gentle. His laugh had a rasp to it, like gravel dragged through honey, and when he touched her—casually, possessively, reverently—her breath caught, every time.
He loved women, wine, gambling, and exotic food. In Marrakesh, he’d spent an entire afternoon sweet-talking an old butcher into revealing the secret spice blend for lamb tajine, only to forget half of it after three glasses of arak. He’d wanted to open a restaurant once—“a shack with silver cutlery,” he called it—but Hope knew it was the idea he loved more than the work.
They cooked together, often and loudly. Pilau in a dented cauldron from Istanbul, the kind you had to squat beside on the floor. Ben ate with his hands, scooping up saffron rice and chunks of meat, smearing turmeric and oil across his stubbled cheeks. At first, Hope demurred, brows raised and fork in hand. But after a few weeks—and a few persuasive kisses—she gave in. There was something primal and oddly romantic about plunging fingers into that steaming, fragrant pyramid. Shared mess. Shared pleasure.
He used to lift her easily—just scoop her up in one arm as if she were no heavier than a feather pillow. He’d done it at their wedding, in front of eighty guests, because the floor was too dirty for her heels. She pretended to be annoyed but buried her face in his neck and breathed him in: she adored every sweaty, maddening, impulsive inch of him.
Even when the pounds crept on, when the beefcake turned into a barrel and his knees started cracking, he remained inexplicably magnetic to her. It wasn’t just the physicality. It was the way he looked at her, as if she were still twenty-five and could break his heart with a glance. Even after a fight, even with bills unpaid and dirty dishes stacked to heaven, he’d whisper something obscene and ridiculous and make her laugh into his chest.
By fifty, he weighed over three hundred pounds, and it took effort for him to heave himself up the stairs. He still loved food and wine, but the sparkle in his eye dulled. He stopped gambling, stopped flirting with waitresses. Hope had told herself this was maturity, not surrender.
The first real sign—subtle, unsettling—was when he started losing weight.
No diets, no pep talks. Just clothes hanging a little looser. His belt cinched an extra notch. The creases in his skin stayed even as the flesh beneath them ebbed away.
Then came the silence. Stan, who used to interrupt the television to argue with it, now sat through evenings with his mouth slack and hands in his lap.
Shortly after that, her SenSations began.
#
“In my dream I saw you loading bread into the toas—”
“Oh, please!” Hope stomps her foot. “I do that every morning. I do everything around here. You wouldn’t remember how to turn the damn thing on, would you?”
“Something else happened this morning before I came to the kitchen.” He goes on as if he didn’t hear her. “You were opening a package of bacon and broke your nail.” His brows arch as he jerks his jutted out chin at the blue chip on the floor.
There are two open packages of bacon in the fridge and one of them Hope doesn’t remember. This unwanted bit of knowledge makes her angry at . . . everything. At the world that shifts and gaslights her while pretending it’s solid. At the red circle with a blurry-white horizontal bar in the middle. At the . . . She clenches her jaw and turns to the stove where the cast-iron skillet spits hot bacon fat.
The skillet has a long, handy handle. The old friend has never let her down. All it needs is direction. A little momentum. She places both hands on the warm handle and squares her stance—feet a foot apart, shoulders squared.
In her youth, Hope enjoyed sports. For several months—until her wrist gave out—she’d been practicing Muay Thai. She still remembers the instructions. The power starts in the toes, travels up the calves, coils through the hips … But that’s how you punch someone with your fist. Wrong sport. She squeezes the handle with both hands. I need to shift, turn, and rise.
Her left wrist protests—still tender from helping him out of bed when he couldn’t manage the oxygen tank. She shrugs off the thought like a loose coat and imagines a putting green. The color is a welcome change from the predominant gray of the kitchen. A hole-in-one is coming.
She swings.
The eggs unpeel from the skillet, sailing through the kitchen like little Frisbees. They hit an invisible wall—her glass wall?—and slide down, yolks dragging slow yellow wakes. The bacon confetti rains down.
“With the frying pan, really, honey?” he says, shaking his head. Wrinkles bunch at his eyes like rays of sunshine in a child’s drawing. Then he laughs. Not like a lunatic. Like someone who finds it all hysterical: her thoughts, her rage, the absurdity of it. Even the idea that the things sliding down the wall might have been his brains.
“That’s it!” Hope drops the skillet onto the stovetop with a bang. “Now you’ve done it. Now I need a drink!”
“But honey, how do we get to the Johnsons’? You know I can’t—”
“I know.” Her voice drops flat. You failed the vision test three times.And you gave up.I’m the one who still drags this household forward.
She yanks open the fridge, grabs the half-empty bottle of Pinot Gris and sloshes it into a tall orange juice glass. It froths, pale and wild.
“If you’d just shut up and let me calm down,” she says, swallowing hard, “I might still be able to drive.”
She flumps down onto the stool, wine glass in hand, facing him. “And please, dar—”
The child-like pout of injury on his face, startled and wet, makes her gasp. His eyes flick downward. Her eyes follow.
A bulge pulses from his abdomen, stretching the flesh from within. Then the skin splits open like overripe fruit, leaking pink slurry. From the wound, a glowing jellyfish rises—its tentacles glistening, twisting like a nest of snakes. The smell of rot comes layered with chlorine and latex, like a hospital bathroom after a code blue.
She exhales, eyes squeezed shut. The glass hits her teeth before the wine touches her tongue.
When she opens one eye, the SenSation is gone.
He’s dressed now, stepping in close the way he always did, placing a kiss on her neck with a little sniff and a mock mustache twitch. “You shouldn’t have . . .”
“I know.” Just a drop. Just a drop to take the edge off. I’ll be fine.
#
So what if her favorite glitter knit wrap-style dress is a tad too elegant for lunchtime? The dress suits her mood. Now she needs a necklace to complete the image. Something simple but expressive.
“Can you see my thoughts now?” Her gaze stops at the pearl pendant in the back of her jewelry armoire.
“Not really, honey. Not all your thoughts,” a voice whispers in her head or from someplace behind her. Then continues, louder. “But I know everything you’re going to say. Sometimes I think you don’t exist at all. Not in this world. I made you up! You’re a figment of my imagination!”
She bites back angry laughter. With your imagination of a chicken? No, I take it back. Too insulting for chickens. A vegetable . . . a cabbage would be a better comparison. But she says nothing, for she is in a vulnerable position: he may lambaste her as drunk and therefore hysterical. She puts on the pearl pendant and looks in the mirror.
Every girl needs a “thing.” Long legs, high cheekbones, a dreamy look or sexy voice. Her voice has never been deep or velvety; when she gets angry, she shrieks. Instead, her “thing” is the jugular hollow at the base of her neck. Hindus believe this is where the Vishuddha Chakra is located.
She was eighteen when she visited the Royal Ontario Museum for the first time. “Ouh là là, but how delightful,” the ROM staff lady exhaled in her ear, her accent weaving silk around the consonants. “You move like a poem. Such an expressive neck …”
The old crone rounded her eyes and leaned in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper: “Mon trésor, that, right there”—she brushed the air above Hope’s collarbone with a gloved finger—“is where sex lives.” She exhaled the word—se-exe—and then let it hang in the air like perfume worn with nothing else. A rapid murmur followed. Hope caught a few words—l’extase . . . la gorge . . . le secret féminin—before the woman mimed sewing her mouth shut with invisible thread.
Hope, dazed and delighted, nodded and repeated the motion.
With that deep hollow—and whatever lived in it—Hope had caught her . . . Dan? Ben? Stan?
#
He waves his phone. “Uber?”
“I’ll drive,” Hope says and puts a mint on her tongue. “I had only a drop, and besides . . .”
Not waiting for the “besides” he nods.
The traffic is light. Hope lowers the driver’s side window. It has rained recently, and the smell of wet dust lingers in the air. Silvery droplets hang from the maple trees. The pavement looks young for its years.
Hope notices a coffee stain on the upholstery of the passenger seat and frowns. As with the kitchen floor, she doesn’t remember the last time it was cleaned. “The car needs detailing,” she says. When he doesn’t disagree, she asks him to get an apple from the glove compartment.
“The glove compartment, really, honey?” With two fingers he takes out a green apple and looks at it for a long time as his upper lip creeps up and his nose wrinkles. Then he demands a napkin to wipe off the nonexistent germs. He does this all the time just to annoy her. But Hope likes apples. She takes both hands off the steering wheel and pulls a pack of Bounty napkins from her purse.
“Why don’t you say anything?” Hope asks after finishing the apple and stuffing the core in her purse.
Instead of answering, he smirks and shows her his phone. Scrawled across the screen is: Why aren’t you saying anything? He wipes the screen clean and scribbles something with his index finger.
“So what?” Hope isn’t sure where he’s going with this and keeps a neutral tone.
He shows the phone again with So what? on the screen.
“Are you trying to make me think I’m crazy?”
He flashes the phone with Am I crazy?
She falls silent and looks straight ahead. The light at the intersection changes from red to green just as they approach.
“No,” he says as if talking to the windshield, “you just don’t exist.”
“Yeah, right. And you do?” Hope wants to laugh, but at the same time she can’t help thinking: Do I exist? How do I prove to myself that I am not behind the glass wall?
“You don’t have free will,” he says.
Now that’s something that can be tested. Right now, let’s do it! She sets her jaw and floors the car.
He sighs, and in the tired voice of a kindergarten teacher, asks her to stop being silly.
She squints at the flying buildings and trees and waits for him to beg for mercy. He doesn’t say a word.
The jolt and the thud hit Hope simultaneously.
She hits the brake pedal and turns to face him. As he’s scribbling on his phone, the phone goes limp, melts and slides down over the back of his hand like the egg yolks did earlier. He makes a surprised sound and Hope lifts her gaze, stares into his eyes. The eyes of a dead man.
His face goes limp too. His left ear and cheekbone slide down. The left eye expands and pops out with a gentle “poo-ump” sound. It’s the sound that turns her stomach. Hope gropes between the seats and pulls her open purse up to her mouth.
#
“Are you all right, ma’am?” Someone touches her left shoulder.
Out of the corner of her right eye, Hope sees the coffee stain on the passenger seat and a chunk of half-digested bacon on top of it.
“You passed out for a few minutes.” The voice belongs to a young, round-faced man, almost a boy, wearing the dark blue peaked cap with a red band around. The shield-shaped badge in the center reads Toronto Police.
Hope pulls a napkin from the pack and scoops the bacon. Tucking the napkin into her purse, she stuffs the purse under the seat. Then pushes it even farther back with her foot and sniffs cautiously. Nothing but the fresh air from the outside. “The Johnsons invited us . . .”
“Excuse me?”
“No, nothing,” Hope shakes her head, then asks what happened.
“A dog, ma’am,” the policeman says. “No collar. Apparently, a stray. It’s dead.”
Hope opens her mouth but nothing comes out and she makes passes with her hands, as if using sign language. Images flash in her mind. A man with no name but with familiar funny hair … A melting phone clutched in his hand … The red circle with a blurry-white horizontal bar in the middle.
“All right, ma’am. Judging by the braking distance, you weren’t speeding.” He pauses, but continues to stare. Hope slides her gaze along his . . . he is looking at her bejeweled jugular hollow. My pearl pendant. Simple but expressive. She lifts her chin ever so slightly. It doesn’t look like the cop smelled alcohol or bacon.
The policeman asks her to wait until he’s done with formalities, and Hope gets out of the car. It’s drizzling again and she is given a silvery foil blanket and wraps the shiny cone around her. Everything’s like in the movies: she’s a victim of circumstances, getting well-deserved help.
The corpse has been covered with a blanket, but from where she stands, Hope can see the left side of the distorted face with missing ear and empty eye socket.
#
Hope loads the toaster and says, without turning her head, “The Johnsons invited . . . ” She pauses, mouth open. The pause feels easy, then the right word comes. She closes her mouth and smiles to herself. Well. Just me, I suppose.
The toast pops up with a soft click. The warm and yeasty scent of browning bread fills the kitchen. She butters both golden slices, spreading all the way to the edges, the way he used to complain she never did. “Don’t half-ass the butter, Ho. If you’re gonna do it, do it properly.” The echo still lives in her head but now it doesn’t have a sting.
She places the slices on a plate. One for now, one for later. The second slice had always been his. For months, she’d left it there anyway. This time, she’ll eat it herself.
She pours orange juice into a tall glass. It tastes fresh and bright, like sun pressed into citrus.
Outside the window, the apple tree sways in the breeze. The tall grass is gone. Someone came yesterday—her neighbor’s nephew, maybe. She doesn’t remember asking. He just showed up, cut the grass, cleaned the table and her favorite Adirondack chair. She made lemonade.
Hope slips her feet into her garden clogs. Her glitter knit wrap dress catches the morning light like a wink from the past. She adds a denim jacket over it and doesn’t care if it matches.
She opens the door to the garden and breathes in. The air smells like acceptance. She walks slowly. No one follows.
As she approaches, the apple tree sheds a single leaf. It spins in the air like a slow-mo coin toss and lands near her feet. She pauses. One apple hangs low, red and swollen. She reaches up, plucks it and doesn’t bother to ask if he’d want one too. He didn’t like apples.
She settles into the chair with her plate, her book, her drink. Lets the silence sit beside her. Takes a bite of toast, then another.
The wind flips the book to a page she hasn’t read yet. The words blur a little, but it doesn’t matter. The world feels legible again.
Hope smiles at the bee that floats past. Somewhere beyond the fence, a dog barks, then another dog answers. She sips her orange juice and tastes both pulp and quiet.
He’s gone. She’s still here. She’s real.
When she closes her eyes, the red circle is gone. No blurry bar. Just a soft, steady gray behind her lids. The kind of gray that belongs to morning, not mourning.
Breaking Into The Craft 