Some days it sucks you in, the magic of this writing gig, even when you sit and work in a place patently unsuited to magic. Right now, I’m in the small food court underneath the Queens Plaza mall. It’s not yet ten o’clock and the vendors are still warming up for the day. The girl behind the Red Rooster counter looks bored when I order a coke. The woman at the noodle stand isn’t even at her counter. The whole room is an oval, vendors arrayed around the edge, brightly lit to encourage a swift move through as you circle, looking for something to eat.
There’s two young people the next table over, engaged in an animated discussion about language and syllables and people who do not articulate well. They war Doc Martins, hoodies, glasses. Backpacks in army camouflage colours, trading laughter in a way that makes me wonder if they’re flirting. Or, perhaps, not-yet-flirting, just the nervous feeling-out process where they wonder if there’s something there.
It’s not just the laughter that makes me think this: it’s the leaning, the smiles, the eagerness.
There’s other people working here: a young woman in a nylon sweater, headphones plugged into her laptop; an older guy in glasses and a greying goatee, sipping tea from a cardboard cup as he ponders the screen of his laptop; a woman in black, hair in a bun, writing notes as she flips through pages on her phone and frowns with an intensity.
I write to the sound of muzak, the sizzle of deep fryers and the clack of metal tools getting moved about in kitchens. I write to the burble of the young kids, five tables over, trying to get their mum’s attention as she answers a text on her phone. I pay attention to a woman in black, her white hair permed, her scarf a brilliant streak of scarlet against her thin neck.
You can recite the names of shops like a mantra, or a poem: Soul Origin; Footgear; Get Threaded; Professional Nail.
Or: Noodle Time; Vegeto; The Zeus Street Greek; that empty spot that used to be the Snag place that served obscenely priced hotdogs.
The magic is not that these details exist, nor that I’m sitting here noticing. The magic is in sifting through, discerning what would be included, what would be left out. The magic lies in picking your details, sifting out the unnecessary details and leaving those that build a certain effect. This person, if mentioned, becomes significant. They direct the reader’s attention towards something that matters to the piece. These people who exist in the reality around me–the cluster of guys in hats and fluro shirts, wearing Blundstones and eating burgers; the two young Chinese students eating noodles, wearing glasses—do not exist in the narrative until they are needed for effect.
Everything comes down to effect: what do I want the reader to think? What do I want them to feel? Two things that are forever beyond your control, so you do your best to narrow the field. Focus them on the thing that matter and hope they do the rest themselves, get somewhere close to the point you’re trying to make or the feeling you’re trying to evoke.
Everything comes down to effect, in the end, and the details you choose to evoke it.
The Muzak has shifted, a big brass number. Someone who might be Bublé singing. The young people in Docs and hoodies leave, threading through the tables before climbing aboard the escalator. Their closeness is gone, once they’re on foot. They laugh less, focus on the people around them. Avoiding collisions, dragged back into the world.
They’re leaving the food court behind them.
