Genre: Short Story – Fiction, slice-of-life
Author: Zenith Gamble
Methods: Developmental editing, proofreading, line editing, beta reading.
Techniques: Developmental editing and beta reading, including detailed line edits that provide both commentary as a reader and suggestions for improved story flow as an editor.
Outcomes: Provided detailed suggestions on how to polish current draft into a final, publishable piece.
Timeline: Edit was a single day project, allowing for author to dive back into the work almost immediately.
Software: The original manuscript and the edit were developed in Microsoft Word, with changes tracked and highlighted comments for additional notes in Google Docs.

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His hands were always comfortably warm, even on days when my shop was so stiflingly hot that I thought all my candles would melt into colorful, fragrant puddles. The creases were deep, easy to read, and held evidence of the gardening he once mentioned he did: rich, dark soil and stubborn green stains in the warmer months; tiny cracks and cuts when it turned cold¹. I wanted to tell him to take better care of his hands, but it wasn’t my place². I was hired to read the stories his palms told, not to recommend gloves or lotions.

The first time he came to me, he hadn’t even known³ what he wanted. I offered him a reading through cards, tea leaves, twigs, incense, and even bones before he settled on palmistry. His hands hadn’t had anything particularly unusual to say, but he stood out to me nonetheless; never before had the simple act of reading someone’s palms made me feel so… so much.

When he visited the second time, a month later, he requested a palm reading without any hesitation. I tried to keep my composure as I told him that, in all likelihood, his hands would have the exact same things to say. I offered him another type of reading, but he was insistent.

“There’s more to read, isn’t there? You didn’t tell me about this line, did you?”

So I told him, not about his head line or heart line, but about his sun line and the mound of Apollo. Then I taught him about the topology of his hands, and which hills and plains corresponded to which planets.

The next month, I told him what his marriage line told me. After he left, I looked at my own, in a moment of mindlessness, and tried not to compare his steady future relationships with my own⁴ uncertain ones⁵.

The month after that, we discussed palm shapes, and he compared his to mine. (He had long fingers with a short palm, and I had long fingers with a long palm, but his hands were still larger than mine, all told.)⁶ When he placed his palm against my own and lined our fingers up, I could hardly breathe. I nearly curled my fingers between his. Nearly, but not quite.

Over the months, I found that he was particularly interested in whatever features of his hands had to do with relationships. “How will I meet my true love?” (He seemed to really believe in such a thing happening outside of stories.) “How long will we be together?” “How big will our family be?” “Will we be happy⁷?”

I hgave honest, but half-hearted, answers.

I knew better than to give myself readings about things I was personally invested in. So, I sought out readings from my fellow fortune tellers. My mentor, my friends, even my rival in town. None of them had anything especially encouraging to say.

“You need to trust in yourself and do what you know is right,” said the cards.
“Independence and prudence,” said the tea leaves.

“The cycle turns,” said the smoke. “Let it.”

I gave up. He would only ever be a client. But that was better than nothing, right?
“What if I became your apprentice?” he asked one day when the first blossoms were opening on the trees. “Think I could be a fortune teller?”

I ghave him a noncommittal but encouraging answer⁸. The kind I gave strangers when they asked what the stars had to say about something the stars would never care about.

“I doubt I could ever be as good as you, though,” he said. “Look at you: you have a regular!”

His laugh made me crave. Yearn. Wish. But it wasn’t to be. Nothing in the smoke or the cards or the stars or the grooves of our hands said that we would be good together. That we would be together at all. And those who knowingly went against fate brought their consequences upon themselves.

I often wondered if we could be happy together despite the consequences.

“You don’t like giving people love readings, do you?” he asked one day. “That’s fine; there’s plenty else to read.”

It wasn’t that I disliked giving people love readings, but thinking about him with someone else twisted my stomach.

I had no right to jealousy; he was nothing more than a client. So I kept it as buried as I could.

One sweltering summer month, when he came to visit me, he took the seat I usually sat in. When I took his seat, he reached out, our eyes connecting across my table, and he took my hands, instead of giving me his. “I could probably give you a reading now, with everything you’ve taught me,” he said. “Mind if I try⁹?”

I already knew what my hands had to say. I felt strange, taking payment from him to allow him to practice on me, but I could feel his determination in the way his warm fingers gripped mine, soft despite the rough, scarred skin.

I gave in easily, and I could swear his joy and nervousness lit up my small, smoky room.

“This line… is the love line?” I confirmed his statement as he traced a fingertip lightly over it. “So yours goes over here… which means…” He placed his own palm beside mine so the lines met up where our hands touched. “Just as I thought. See that? A perfect match.”

I looked up at him, and I could tell that my eyes were wide, but I couldn’t do anything to change that fact.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Do you agree?”

I was speechless. I took his hand in mine and brought it to my lips, kissing the places my fingertips had traced so many times¹⁰.

“Is that a yes?” he asked hopefully, a hint of a smile softening the handsome features I had studied almost as much as I had studied his hands.
I looked up at him, smiling as well, and leaned forward to share a kiss with him. So what if I’m not part of his fate. Even a fortune teller knows, sometimes you have to make your own destiny¹¹.

Final thoughts:

Overall, a fantastic short story. I like the focus on the main character’s desire for romantic connection.

I’m quite curious as to why you choose to have your main character never speak. Is it to allow for the reader to self-insert? Throughout most of the story it doesn’t feel unnatural, but in the final scene it feels stronger and kind of pulls the reader out of the action.

I’d love to see a bit more characterization throughout. We know only a couple small tidbits about either character, and we don’t really get much in the way of motivation for our fortune teller. Why do they like this gardener so much, and why are they so scared to go against what they think their palms say?

Another small note: later in the story, the fortune teller goes to their peers for readings, because they shouldn’t give their own. But at the beginning, they compare their palm with the gardener.

1. Such a fantastic and evocative sentence. ↩︎
2. A great initial moment of emotional investment from the main character to the subject of their attraction ↩︎
3. “he didn’t even know what he wanted” would be more technically correct, though I think “he hadn’t even known” is completely fine as well. I’d say go with what feels best for your character. ↩︎
4. you already use “my own” in this sentence, so just cut it to “my” here to avoid repetition ↩︎
5. Such a great way to build your main character as well as the romance aspect of the story ↩︎
6. I like the detail, but the important part is the next sentence. This is just weighing the emotional part down unnecessarily ↩︎
7. So I want to shift these all into their own paragraphs. Technically speaking, that’s the right way to do it, but I like the way you have it set like this. I think I’ll leave it, but it might be something to consider revising. (depending purely on future goals of publication) ↩︎
8. So this sentence structure is good, but its different enough that it stands out. That isn’t bad, but it does mean that you should pick using it here or a little bit earlier when you say “I gave honest, but half-hearted, answers.” I’d keep the structure in one instance and rework the other. ↩︎
9. I know nothing about this guy except that he gardens and believes in love like in fairy tales and yet this makes him so attractive to the reader. ↩︎
10. While I like this, I feel like you’ve built your character to have so much doubt and apprehension, I don’t see them jumping so quickly. If you really want to have them do so, perhaps expand this section a bit to show more of the emotion overriding their concerns. (as it is, it just feels out of character) ↩︎
11. A fantastic ending line ↩︎