Okay, you've read The Death Sentence in the British Fantasy and Science Fiction Association's Fission 4, and you want to see behind the curtain. Wait, you haven't read it? Alright, head to this page, purchase the book, read my story, and then come back to this page. Got it? Good!
The Death Sentence is a meta, self-aware tale about two inspectors who must solve a murder, knowing they exist in a 2000-word universe, and this was how it was written:
“They want us to write a ‘behind the story’ excerpt for The Death Sentence,” said the Head Writer’s Assistant, her pen in her mouth again.
“How long?”
“Brief.”
“Brief?” repeated the Head Writer, her shock and confusion lost without the use of the interrobang. “But that could be any length! We live in a universe that’s limited by word count, and all they can tell us is to be brief?”
The Head Writer’s Assistant shrugged, and with a wry smile, she said, “Then, I suppose we’d better get started.”
“Sure... yeah... I mean,” the Head Writer lifted her cup, took a swig, and cringed as though burned by its contents. That’s when The Head Writer’s Assistant noticed the contempt caking her associate’s face. “How are we to work under these conditions?”
“I’m not sure how you mean.”
The Head Writer waved her hand at the scene, offering her associate a look-around-it’s-obvious sort of gesture. “I mean, they want us to be brief, but we’re already in the hole by one-hundred and seventy-two words, and we haven’t even begun the task at hand. What if ‘brief’ means two hundred words? You think we can convey The Death Sentence’s origins in that kind of time?”
“Well—” began the Head Writer’s Assistant before being interrupted.
“You think there’ll be any room left to tell the story behind the story? The Death Sentence was written years ago, and it was rejected so many times that Dresner was ready to throw it away and hang up his pen (so to speak), and that story won’t be told, because whoever’s writing our universe lacks the capacity to be succinct. Case in point: why call you the ‘Head Writer’s Assistant’ when he could’ve just called you Anne? That’s three words lost each time the term is used, if you count the ‘the’.”
“I guess if—”
The Head Writer was in her own world now and had become oblivious to her colleague’s interjections (and yes, we could go down the meta path on how one can be in their own world within a world, within a world… but there simply isn’t time). “All I’m saying is that we can’t write about Dresner’s fascination for the metalingual layers beneath the stories and fairy tales we write if we aren’t given a proper word count to do so.”
The Head Writer’s Assistant… Anne… bobbed her head, waiting to see if the Head Writer was finished ranting. Then, hurriedly, without commas, she said, “J.D. Dresner loves breaking the fourth wall and allowing the story’s meaning to overshadow the story itself to expose our reasons for writing in the first place. The Death Sentence was contrived from a two-thousand-word murder mystery story prompt after Dresner’s inability to be concise had him shouting ‘How in the world am I supposed to create and solve a murder in under two-thousand words?’ and that’s when it clicked.”
With lowered eyebrows, The Head Writer waited a beat before she said, “You finished?”
Anne said, “I have to be. We’re out of time.”
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