Here’s the opening from one of the stories I’m going to revise in the next few weeks:

The lakeside painter is lying, but no one seems to care.

It’s a beautiful lie, even Elodie will admit that. There are two lovers on the pier with the painter, sitting for their portrait and she’s honest about the way the light of the setting sun catches their hair, the way the breeze ripples their clothes, how they lean into each other. She gets so many details right that even Elodie doesn’t notice what’s missing at first.

The painter has left the lovers’ faces blank. She’s glossed over the tension in their shoulders. She’s included the families in the distance, trying to have a carefree night by the lake, but she didn’t include the long cracks in the ground.

Or the uprooted plants. Or the fallen lamp posts.