A CULINARY GUIDE TO FICTION

A Literary Menu for Laureates

How to Write a Short Story for Mechanics, Editors, and Critics

Photo by Karina G on Unsplash

The pen snapped under the strain, leaving a greasy blue smudge on the napkin.

The young author wiped his sweaty palms against his jeans and looked out the window. The roadside Texan diner shuddered from the roar of passing semi-trucks, and the air hung heavy with the smell of burnt motor oil and over-fried grease.

Echoing inside his head was the voice of the old man — a writer with three divorces and a liver hardened by battles with cheap bourbon. He had hammered his final piece of advice into the boy’s skull before vanishing into thin air:

“Watch how you structure the menu of your story, boy! Every group of readers eats and drinks differently. If you mess up the mechanics’ order in the introduction, they won’t stick around. They’ll swear at you soundly, and you’ll spend the rest of your life living with your mother, waiting for your grandfather to pay your bills, and trembling in terror over the lease payments on your typewriter!”

According to the old man’s theory, the introduction of any short story was meant for the auto mechanics. Those readers who have no time for prefaces eat their hamburgers on the go and crave crude humor for better digestion.

The author looked at the menu and fell into a dilemma. How exactly was he supposed to grab them by the throat from the very first sentence?

If he chose to act delicately, using just two fingers — aristocratically and snobbishly — he would have to open with a juicy Caesar salad. But were the dressing and the croutons aggressive enough for a man who had just changed a gearbox? Hardly anyone had ever turned blue from choking on a green salad.

For them, a brutal five-finger grip was required — a greasy, double cheeseburger with extra action-sauce, garnished with a handful of crispy french fries made of easily digestible clichés. Something that would satisfy them immediately and compel them to flip to the next page.

The old man would always add with a wheezing laugh:

“Before you serve them the heavy stuff, you need to intoxicate the pretentious readers. The ones with the glasses, who look for a needle in a haystack and call domestic realism a ‘postmodern deconstruction.’ For them, there must be a liquid trap on the menu: three quick shots of aged whiskey, neat. Strong and heavy metaphorical images without a mixer.

The idea was clear — to spin their heads so fast that their intellectual inhibitions would drop. An intoxicated, pretentious reader is a profitable commodity — he will begin to see existential meaning and biblical motifs even in technical typos before he has any clue what the story is actually about.”

The next section — the main course — was for the editors. The most capricious and ruthless customers in the literary restaurant. They loathed fast food. They demanded a perfectly seared Texan steak, served with an artisanal sauce and without an ounce of unnecessary filler in the garnish.

There, the author’s knife had to be razor-sharp, gliding smoothly through the plot, balancing the pressure between three and four fingers so the juices of the intrigue wouldn’t leak out. One wrong move with the knife, one superfluous metaphor, such as overcooked cauliflower, and the meat would turn tough, leaving the editor to hurl the plate straight at the chef.

Finally, when everyone was either full or drunk, it was time for dessert. This was intended entirely for the literary critics. They were never hungry for calories or for an actual story — they hungered for distilled sophistication.

For them, the resolution required a light, parodic cheesecake with wild berries and an unexpected philosophical twist. A final holding of the spoon with just two fingers, designed to knock the wind out of their chests just before they sat behind their typewriters to draft the review for the Nobel Committee.

At that moment, the reality of the diner collided with the young writer’s hunger. His stomach growled like an infuriated critic. A tired waiter in a stained apron approached the table.

“Have you decided, sir?”

The future laureate looked at the blank napkin, then at the menu, took a deep breath, and nodded resolutely.

“Yes. Bring me three shots of metaphorical whiskey to open up my senses. After that, a brutal cheeseburger with a five-finger grip to get me through the introduction. For the main course — a Texan steak with no smoke or filler in the garnish, to appease the editor. And finally — a critical dessert with a dramatic twist to restore my faith in art.”

The waiter raised an eyebrow, writing down the order with a stubby pencil.

“And how will you be paying, sir?”

The author smiled, pressing his sweaty palms against the table.

“Put the bill on the back of the Nobel Prize. And if it runs late… then I’ll wash your dishes with two fingers. Elegantly and aristocratically.”

• ---

• Written in response to the Wordsmiths’ Weekly prompt: “Describe your ultimate sandwich.”

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