Tag Archives: writing tips

Interview with Sarah Mackey, BSSA 2017, third prize winner

Sarah reading at the BSSA 2017 anthology launch in November 2017

 

For those of you who have made New Year’s resolutions to write short stories for competitions or for other reasons, we decided it was fitting to start the New Year with this interview with our third prize winner from BSSA 2017, Sarah Mackey, who began her story, Forget Me Not, which  judge Euan Thorneycroft described as ‘A beautiful, sad study of a family buckling under the weight of memory loss,’ a year ago, in January 2017. It’s inspiring to know what can be achieved in just a few months. You can read it in in our 2017 anthology, available on this website and from Amazon. 

Interview

Jude: Can you tell us how your third prize-winning story, Forget Me Not came into being?

Sarah:I started writing Forget Me Not in January 2017 as a piece for National Memory Day. Initially I had just wanted a prompt and a deadline to get me writing after a prolonged Christmas break but I was instantly drawn to Virginia and her garden and what began as an exercise soon became a ‘proper’ story. It didn’t fit the word limit for NMD so I put the first draft aside for a couple of months before revising it.

Sarah with her sister and Jude at the BSSA launch at Mr B’s Bookshop, Bath

We’ve all known people who can get confused or unfocused on day-to-day matters but who are razor sharp when talking about their passions and areas of expertise – the things that underpin their identity. Forget Me Not picks up Virginia’s story at the point where age and illness first start to attack that core part of her life. I wanted to show the impact that this had on Virginia and the people around her and how both fear and love drive us to try and mend things that are ultimately outside our control.

I stole slivers of story from various sources – the plants from my mother’s garden, the names of friends – but the majority of it just came from the characters of Henry and Virginia. Someone has since told me that some undertakers send Myosotis seeds to bereaved partners after a funeral, which seems very fitting.

Jude:In your bio, you said that this is the first story you have had published and I think you have recently given up another job to concentrate on your writing. Can you tell us more about your writing life at the moment and any writing projects you currently  have on the go?

Sarah: I decided to take a year off work to allow myself to reconnect with all the things that I never seemed to have enough time for: writing, taking classes, culture, visiting new places, seeing more of family and friends and getting involved in local initiatives. Several people told me that I was ‘very brave’, which I think was shorthand for ‘crazy’. It’s been enormously rewarding and I’m so pleased I did it. My working life has always involved writing for business and I wanted to concentrate on purely creative projects for a change.

The Bath Short Story Award was my first placement in a competition. I have since won the Ilkley Festival Short Story prize and a couple of my shorter pieces were selected for City Lit’s 2017 anthology, Between the Lines. I love writing short stories and have got several on the go in various stages of development. There’s also a character currently occupying many pages of notebooks who may have a longer story to tell…

I’ve gone way over my allotted time off now so my objective for 2018 is to find a job that pays the mortgage and allows me the time and mental space to continue writing. I can’t imagine stopping now.

Jude: When did you first become interested in writing?

Sarah:I’ve always been interested in writing. I wrote a couple of (unpublished) novels for older children in the distant past but for many years my main outlet has been writing for business. It can be a good discipline – writing for different audiences, finding hooks to engage the reader, using narrative arcs – but unfortunately you have to stick to the truth, which can be very limiting.

Jude: You studied at the City Lit in London recently. How has that helped your writing?

Sarah:At the start it was just helpful to have assignments and deadlines, and to give some routine to my life when I stepped out of the work environment. Also to build up a number of short pieces that might get ultimately be developed into longer stories. Later it occurred to me that I ought to learn something of the theory behind writing short stories, so that I would at least know the rules before I broke them. However, that’s all stuff I could have achieved on my own. The big value came from exposure to other people, other writing, other ideas. It was a great forum to test out work and to meet fellow writers. I am now in two writing groups with people I met in City Lit classes. I don’t act on every piece of feedback I receive, but I do make sure I think it through. Generally when I take a draft to a writing class or group I then put it aside for a while before revising. Then I can come back to both the piece and the feedback with more objectivity.

Jude:Who are the short story writers you admire, and what do you like about their writing?

So many! I came to short stories via contemporary writers — Alice Munro, Tessa Hadley, Stella Duffy, George Saunders. One of my recent reads is Mark Haddon’s ‘The Pier Falls’. I loved the whole collection but that title story in particular. It is almost journalistic in style, telling a shocking story in a very matter of fact way.

I’m currently reading Claire Keegan’s ‘Walk the Blue Fields’ collection, which is beautiful and sad. Her insight into human nature is incredible and she has the ability to switch the tone of a story when you are least expecting it. All using very simple prose.

The writer I have been reading for the longest period of time is Helen Simpson. I’ve read each of her collections since the 1990s, during which time her subject matter has progressed from dating to marriage to motherhood to ageing. I feel I’ve grown older with her work so each collection has struck a chord.

Jude: Can you give us a tip for those who might want to write a story for our next Award, ending in April, 2018?

Sarah:The time spent not writing your story is an important part of the writing process. Get at least one round of feedback on your story but don’t act on it immediately. Never submit anything that you have only just finished. Always leave time to come back at it afresh. Even if it’s only a few days.

Time is running out

We close at midnight Monday 1st  May. Give yourself the chance of hitting the bull’s eye and winning £1000 first prize, second prize of £200, third prize of £100, £50 prize for an unpublished writer or  £50 local prize by checking —

  • The rules — there are  always a number of writers who  submit stories way over the word limit of 2200 words. Or put their names on stories.  Don’t risk getting disqualified for those reasons.
  •  Give our readers a pleasant reading experience by writing in a clear font. Bold fonts are not easy.  Or any fancy italics or Comic Sans. Times New Roman is a safe bet.
  • If you are entering online, please be sure to  send your stories and paypal receipts to the correct email address which is on the entry page.
  • Put the correct postage on your hard copy stories.

Finally give your story a final once over for typos etc. We’re not too strict here, but a beautifully presented story, is a bonus. Zap a few adjectives and adverbs maybe,. Check the beginning paragraph. Does it hook the reader in? Check the final paragraph. Does it feel satisfying, not too cosy, not too obscure? What about the title? Does it add something to the story

Good luck!  Our readers are already on the case and results will be out in mid or late July.

Jude,

BSSA team April 28th.

 

 

 

 

INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP HENSHER

 

Philip Hensher

Photograph by Eamonn McCabe

Philip Hensher is a man who likes lists and appears on many. These  include the 2003 Granta’s 20 Best Young British Novelists; the 2008 Man Booker and 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize shortlists for The Northern Clemency, his ‘shameless page-turner ‘ of a novel, which also won Best Book in the CWP’s Eurasia Region; the IoS Pink List of the most influential LBGT people.

Influential. He’s certainly that. The current Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University (previously, he taught at the University of Exeter) describes himself as a novelist and journalist. As a journalist, writing for the Independent, Mail on Sunday, Spectator, Telegraph and Guardian, his articles have explored a wealth of political, historical and, as one would expect, cultural subjects. In 2007 he won the Stonewall Prize for Journalist of the Year. As a critic, reviewer and Booker judge in 2001, his thoughts, at times controversial, on a range of literary and philosophical issues, have established him as a Big Name.  His nine novels have garnered literary prizes including the Somerset Maugham Award (Kitchen Venom) and the Oondatje Prize (Scenes from an Early Life  which was also shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize).  His entertaining book The Missing Ink  postulates the case of pen v. keyboard while the libretto for Thomas Adès opera is another of his accomplishments.

And then there are the short stories. I met Philip Hensher at ‘The Importance of the Short Story’, a Bath Literature Festival event chaired by Alex Clark, where he, Clark and Georgina Hammick spent a comfortable hour on the podium sharing revelations,  juicy anecdotes about the genre and writing in general  – and a passion for lists. He’s just edited the mammoth two-volume Penguin History of the British Short Story, starting with Defoe (Vol.1) and ending with Zadie Smith (Vol 2). This was a two-year project and, although the final result is highly acclaimed, the choices have attracted controversy.  But, with 20,000 stories to consider for circa 100 places and 160 authors culled to 70, it’s obvious some firm favourites would be omitted.  I’ve not seen the first volume but I do have the second which does have an eclectic flavour:  canonical greats such as Graham Greene and Zadie Smith share spine space with Adam Marek and Jack Common, an author I’d never heard of.  In fact, there were several writers I first experienced through the anthology, which was Hensher’s intent. He deliberately chose to focus on the writing itself, so that a single wonderful story, even if it was the sole representation of the author, took precedence over  the search for the best story written by an acclaimed writer, hence no Hilary Mantel . Rather than working his way through collections and anthologies, Hensher’s reference point was the medium in which each story first appeared and, for the earlier stories, this was the magazine, periodical or journal.  Much of the excellent introduction highlights the glorious past of the short story writer who could make a decent living from the genre.  The Strand was especially generous, paying W.W. Jacobs £350 for one story in 1914 which would be c. £36,000 in today’s money according to an historic inflation calculator – just topping the EFG Sunday Times Award, self-proclaimed as the world’s richest story prize. For Hensher that’s the problem and his exasperation is evident when he argues the prestigious £30,000 prize could be better used to develop the talents of many more writers.

At the Bath Literature Festival event Hensher claimed he began his massive undertaking from a ‘position of not knowing short stories.’ It’s true that novels constitute the main body of his work but it’s evident he has an attraction to and considerable talent for the short story form. ‘Dead Languages’ from his 1999 collection The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife was selected by A. S. Byatt for The Oxford Book of English Short Stories while The Emperor’s Waltz, his novel from 2014, follows in the tradition of  Gaskell and Faulkner in its structure of unconnected or parallel narratives but is, in many ways, a series of inter-woven stories  – or so it appeared to me. The writing emerges from wry observation with an opening line: ‘You will have brought your own towels, and bed linen,’ Frau Scherbatsky said in her lowered, attractive, half humming voice, ‘as I instructed, as I suggested, Herr Vogt, in my telegram’, echoing the rhythms and syntax not just of Weimar Germany  but of the country I know today. So, it’s not surprising that with several years of flirting with the form he has returned to short stories and now has a collection to tempt, tease and entice. Tales of Persuasion will be out on April 21st.

Interview by Jane, April 18th, 2016

  • Published 21st April

    The blurb for ‘Tales of Persuasion’  reads, ‘Backdrops vary …from turmoil in Sudan following the death of a politician in a plane crash, to southern India where a Soho hedonist starts to envisage the crump and soar of munitions’.  Is this, in some way, a connection to the short stories of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries that were written as an immediate response to current events? Please would you tell us more about ‘Tales of Persuasion’, how it came about and your thoughts on the collection?

 I write short stories as they occur to me, so occasionally, intermittently, and set off by some particular idea. Sometimes I see somebody in the street, and wonder about their life – a pair of people who probably didn’t belong together, for instance, set off the story “Under the Canopy” about a seriously ill man and his irresponsible carer. Sometimes a piece of interesting information will come my way. When I discovered that Silvio Berlusconi was serving out some community service working in a home for Alzheimer’s patients, I wondered about how one of the patients might regard the interesting fact that the Prime Minister was now looking after her – “A Lemon Tree”. Or sometimes I wanted to perform a variation on a classic short story, bringing my experience of a first day at work to meet a short story on a similar theme by the great Malachi Whitaker (“A Change in the Weather”). I didn’t have a plan for the collection – it was written here and there over 17 years, but at the end I brought all the short stories I could find together and chose the ones I thought worked, and worked together. (I dropped about 7 that would have looked odd, or that I didn’t much like any more – one of those, embarrassingly, is the story about Sudan which was published a few years ago). In the end I was struck by how many of the stories were about somebody changing, or being changed by influences or by things going on around them. So there did seem to be an idea about persuasion. I chose the cover. It’s sometimes hard to work out whether the one doing the persuading is being met by strong resistance, and is carrying on anyway.

  • You’ve been quoted as saying that the short story is in a state of crisis. This is contrary to perceived opinion that the genre is enjoying something of a renaissance. Please could you expand on this.

Well, I don’t know what the renaissance is, considering that it’s almost impossible to get anyone to pay you to write a short story. The outlets that used to exist, even twenty years ago when I was starting out, have more or less disappeared. They’ve been replaced by short story competitions. Competitions are fine, so long as they come along with a marketplace. If that’s all there is – no. For me, literary competitions are the equivalent of overseas aid. They act as a paternalistic view by outsiders of what the target ought to be doing, rather than where the real opportunities lie. They encourage corruption, in the sense that they direct writers to choose a particular sort of subject rather than another. No-one serious about winning a short story would indulge in broad comedy or irresponsible violence (two of the strengths of the British short story in the past). And they drive out ordinary market forces. A newspaper which is paying a large sum to reward a short story, once a year, doesn’t see any reason to encourage the publication of short stories as an ordinary part of its endeavour. I know people say that the short story is undergoing a renaissance. Most of these people are the people who run short story competitions.

  • Do we value the great stories of 50 years ago or do they seem old-fashioned?  Please would you talk about the cultural and stylistic shifts of the short story?

 Durr. Literature isn’t old-fashioned. Literature is a living thing and goes on being a living thing. Is Homer old-fashioned? The crappy short stories of 50 years ago are old-fashioned – I would name H.E.Bates. The great ones, like V.S. Pritchett or Elizabeth Taylor, are never going to seem quaint. I think one stylistic shift of the short story has been an unfortunate one. The great short stories of the past are really interested in the connections between people and can be pretty crowded with characters. A very peculiar notion that’s sprung up recently is that the short story is predominantly about a single person’s reflections. I judged a short story competition recently and about 90% of the entrants were mostly about someone on their own, walking down a street or sitting in a room, thinking about the past. Every single one of them was terrible. If they’d been told to write a short story about seven women on a bus having an argument or a fight in a pub, they might have got somewhere.

  • Stories written in the first person, present tense – your reaction?

 Some are fine and some are not very good. It’s a fashion which arrived fifteen years ago. It rules out any kind of action, because of course it’s idiotic to write, “I am getting up out of the chair. A madman is running at me! He has a knife! I am holding up that place mat of Whitstable as a temporary shield! Oh no! It is falling to pieces!” I think it’s popular because it’s the easiest way to write. Everyone knows how to talk in the first person. So it serves the inexperienced author, who has forgotten that the thing is to please a reader. Lots of readers can’t stand it. I think if I ever met a reader who claimed that they couldn’t stand the third person past tense, I would wonder about them – well, let’s face it, it never happens.

  • At the Bath Lit Fest event you talked about your fondness for the ghost story and indicated that as most authors write them, you probably could have filled ‘The Penguin Book of the British Short Story’ just with ghost stories. What is about the ghost story that lends itself to the genre?

 The ghost story works best when it hints at stuff, when the implications are still resonating when the story ends. It’s a great opportunity for the short story – a novel is going to have to go into detail. Many of the best and most terrifying of M.R.James’s short stories finish with the narrator saying that he can’t go on telling what he knows, since it’s too horrible to recount.

  • At the same event you and Georgie Hammick shared an enthusiasm for lists in fiction.  Lists are often seen as unimaginative, ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing’ and possibly a bit of a ‘cop out’ – how would you counter this perception?

I think you mean “showing” rather than “telling”. Lists of objects are brilliant in suggesting the world around a character – we shape the world in our own image, and if you could look inside a stranger’s handbag or on their bedside table, you could make a neutral list of what you found and still have a pretty good idea of what sort of person they were. One of the errors of beginning writers is often to think that you need to set out the emotions of characters, to explore the inside of their heads, and only to talk about the solid facts of the world when emotions happen to play upon them. I don’t know why you would think it’s a cop-out – I think the patient collection of physical facts is exhausting labour. Anyone can go on about Oh God I Feel Terrible I Want To Die. It takes some investment to write a list which accounts for everything in the fridge of a seriously depressive individual. (Three bottles of milk, half finished, one clotted with mould, seven bars of chocolate, three different ready-meal lasagnes, three left-over spoonfuls of a lamb curry on a plate, insulin, a bottle of vodka and a jar of foie gras that somebody gave as a present last Christmas, eight months ago).

  • You have received many awards and honours. Which gave you the most joy and why?

I think perhaps the award of an honorary doctorate by Sheffield University in 2015. It was such a joy because it was so unexpected.  I had no idea they held me in any esteem, or knew who I was. I grew up in Sheffield, and the university was a wonderful presence, a place of thought and inquiry that I could sneak into from the age of 14 onwards – the library, the concert hall, the drama studio, even the swimming pool and the Students’ Union bar…I don’t know what people do who grow up miles from a good university, but Sheffield University made me realize very early on that there was such a thing as being serious and thinking independently. I went somewhere else to do my degree, but Sheffield University did the spadework. So it was really nice of them to give me anything at all. Prizes are nice and they come or mostly they don’t come and you never give them a moment’s thought, but the honorary degree made me almost tearful with gratitude.

  • You’ve been nominated for a Booker and, in 2001, were on the judging panel for the prize where there was a very strong shortlist and longlist. How difficult was it to reach a consensus and, in your view, did the best novel win?

Yes, we did a good job, I reckon, in identifying the talent. Some years the Booker panel has done a totally lamentable job and shortlisted people who haven’t done anything good and who aren’t going to do anything. But the novelists we shortlisted either had a substantial reputation and had done something excellent – Peter Carey and Ian McEwan – or were at the beginning of what would be a stellar career – Ali Smith with her first novel, David Mitchell with his second, Andrew Miller with his third. I actually don’t think the winner of these prizes matters all that much – it’s the longlist and (especially) the shortlist that matters and that writers can take advantage of. I was pretty pleased to give the prize to Peter Carey’s Kelly Gang – it’s an astonishing novel. We didn’t reach a consensus, we reached a point of pleasant disagreement and produced a winner. I hold much the same view about consensus that Mrs Thatcher did, that it tends to reward everyone’s second or third choice.

  • What is the most useful piece of advice you would give a novice writer hoping to be published?

Write about the world and not about the inside of people’s heads, and don’t let your characters be alone for more than three lines. Scenes with three characters are easier and more productive than scenes with two characters. Something should always follow from the end of each scene. Remember what Browning said – we are interested in the dangerous edge of things, the honest thief, the tender murderer, the superstitious atheist. No-one cares about a dishonest City banker who loves money more than his wife and children.

  • Which 3 pieces of reading material would you take to Radio 4’s Desert Island?

Buddenbrooks, Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” and Proust. I love the way that after a while you can play with all the minor characters, even the ones (like Johnson’s friend Edwards) who come in for a moment and go out again, never to be seen again. (Edwards is the one who said to Johnson that he tried philosophy when he was young, but he always found cheerfulness coming in).

  • What do you think is the best short story ever written?

Ha ha ha. Unanswerable question. One I absolutely love is Chekhov’s “Ionitch”, which is basically the same events happening twice, first hilariously and then heartbreakingly. Or Thomas Mann’s “First Love and Other Sorrows”. Or John Cheever’s “The Day the Pig Fell Down the Well”. Or Elizabeth Taylor’s “A Dedicated Man”. Or V.S.Pritchett’s “The Day My Girl Came Home”. Or Conrad’s “Typhoon” – I can’t think of any more shattering stretch of prose than the approach to the climax in that. Or Tolstoy’s “How Much Land Does A Man Need.” Or Katherine Mansfield’s “Daughters of the Late Colonel”. It’s a bit like asking who the best human being who ever lived was, different answers on different days.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us and Happy Publication Day for ‘Tales of Persuasion‘ on Apriil 21st.

Interview by Jane Riekemann

Follow Philip Hensher on Twitter @PhilipHensher 

 

A Compilation of Writing Advice

It’s five weeks today until our 2021 Award closes on Monday April 19th, 2021

To help you edit and shape your short story before submitting it, we’ve compiled a selection of tips from some writers we’ve interviewed over the years. We first posted this advice back in 2016 and there’s some really useful comments on beginnings, endings, themes, creating a stand-out story, titles and that all-important fine-editing.

On Beginnings,Paul McVeigh says:

  • Beginnings are very important. Talking specifically from the point of view of judging competitions and reading stories in an endless feast with a view of festivals etc., I find beginnings are crucial to keep me reading. For these platforms (which I don’t think have to apply to stories in a collection), one way to get my attention is to see the first page as pulling the ring from the grenade. I will read to see if it goes off – I assume it will and cause the maximum amount of damage possible. If that grenade doesn’t go off and you’ve written an end I believe in and welcome, then I will tip my hat to you. I will also be a bit jealous.

In 2014, we interviewed Colin Barrett, winner of the Guardian First Book prize 2014  for his brilliant short story collection, Young Skins. He has more to say about beginnings-

  • Try to make something interesting happen as near to the opening as you can. Now this doesn’t have to be some showy eruption of plot or an aphoristic nugget of an opening line, though it may well be; it might just be the deployment of an unobvious adjective or unexpected detail seamed somewhere into your opening paragraphs. A nuanced little observation or moment, carefully placed. If you can get a small moment right near the start it sends a signal to the reader that you can trust me, you can keep reading. There’s nowhere to hide with short stories, if its five or ten pages long it’s got to start well, do well in the middle, and end well. No point saying it gets good half way through.

Short story writer and novelist Annemarie Neary adds this:

  • Delete that first paragraph (probably). In any case, take us right into your world before we have a chance to back out. And voice your story. Breathe it. Make sure you’ve read it aloud before submitting.

On Standing out from the crowd Vanessa Gebbie has this to say:

  • All a writer can really do is learn the craft well, then forget it, and just tell a brilliant story. It does not have to be the ‘bells and whistles’ sort – quiet will do – but write your heart out onto the page, write the story you can’t not write – and keep your fingers crossed. And if, as happened to mine many times, your stories don’t make it – roll with the punches. Writing is not an exact science. Learn to accept the knocks along the way, and never, ever give up.Having given a sermon – for this reader,  a distinctive voice combined with great characterisation makes a piece stand out fast.

Novelist and short story writer, A L Kennedy, who we interviewed in 2013, adds this

  • Just try to say something you really care about as well as possible – as if you were writing for someone you love and respect. That will help.

Novelist, short story writer and poet Gerard Woodward says:

  • Make use of the limitations the form imposes on you. You can’t get everything into a short story, so don’t try to.

Second-prize winner BSSA 2015 Dan Powell has this to say:

  • Read the very best examples of the short story you can get your hands on. Look closely at how good stories work. Then write the story only you can write. Write the story you want to read that no one else is writing. Make it a bold and unique vision which can’t help but stand out when the judges make their selections.

On themes and subject matter:

Short story writer and poet Tania Hershman has this to say:

  • When I’ve judged competitions in the past we’ve seen certain topics that tend to be popular – elderly parents with dementia is one, for example. I’m not saying avoid these, but do think about whether you have something new to say about it, a different take. I think anything can be a great story, it can be a moment in time or a whole life in a few pages. A short story competition can only be won by one person, but if the deadline has inspired you to write something new, then you’re already a winner. Being longlisted and shortlisted are huge achievements, it means your story stood out to the judges and it should give you a real boost.

On endings, acclaimed short story writer Danielle McGaughlin says this:

  • As for endings: stop in the right place. Easier said than done, I know, but a short story can be ruined if the writer insists on carrying on past the ending. “… already in that space the light begins to fade into the calm gray even light of the novelist.”That quote is from a paragraph in The Lonely Voice where Frank O’ Connor is discussing an aspect of the work of Mary Lavin, and whether or not you agree with his assessment of Lavin’s work, I think the analogy of the fading of light is a good way of explaining the loss of intensity, the loss of explosiveness, that can occur when a short story continues on further than it should.

On editing, Antony Doerr says this:

  • Reward the generosity of your reader!  Try to examine every single word in your story and ask yourself: Is it a lazy choice?  Does this adjective/article/noun/verb absolutely need to be there?  If someone is nice enough to spend a half-hour reading something you’ve written, try to make your prose absolutely worthy of his or her time.  Make the dream that unfolds inside your sentences so persuasive, seamless and compelling, that your reader won’t put it down.

And our first prize winner BSSA 2015,, Safia Moore adds this:

  • There is no such thing as too much editing – you must be prepared to constantly read your own work, re-read it, make changes every time, cut anything that adds nothing to the storyline or characterisation, tighten up dialogue and enhance your descriptions with details that sound fresh, not clichéd.

Novelist, short story writer and winner of our second prize in 2014, Kit de Waal comments:

  • If you’re entering something for a competition, work it and then pull back. By that I mean, work over every line, work the tale, work the character, work the paragraph, work the ending and beginning, work the jokes and then look at what you can edit to leave only the essence. I suppose it would be like Coco Chanel says about getting dressed. She said that you should get all dressed up and then just before you leave the house take one thing off. Less is more.

On finding the right title

Short story writer and poet, Tania Hershman has this important advice on titles:

You want your work to stand out from the beginning in the huge pile that the judge has in front of him or her, and a good title will do that better than a quirky font or odd layout (avoid those). If a judge has ten stories called “The Visit” or “The Day it All Changed”, he or she might be rather jaded by the time it comes to the 10th. But don’t make your title too interesting or creative if your story can’t live up to it – make sure it does!

And finally, we love this comment by Tessa Hadley who we interviewed in 2013 –

 A title clinches something, it crisps the story up and seals it like a top on a bottle.

Interview with Paul McVeigh

Paul McVeigh

Photo by Roelof Bakker.

We originally published Jane’s interview with Paul in March 2015 and have now updated and reposted it this year for more of you to read and learn from before submitting stories for our 2016 Award. Since our interview, Paul’s debut novel The Good Son has achieved massive success, has been translated into French and German and chosen for Brighton City Reads 2016. We’re excited that an audio book of the novel, narrated by Paul, is now available. Paul is a brilliant reader. The Good Son is also up for another award – The People’s Book Prize  so if you’ve read it and loved it, do vote for Paul. Voting ends in May. If you haven’t read the book yet, buy it, read, then vote. We guarantee you’ll  fall in love with Mickey Donnelly the ten-year old protagonist.

Jane’s updated interview

About Paul

Google Paul McVeigh and a canary shirted 1st Division footballer pops up and you think, are there no limits to this man’s talents? No it’s not the same Paul – but writer, blogger, playwright, teacher and festival director Paul McVeigh has created such a powerful presence on the literary and, especially, short story scene it seems he’s everywhere . His Twitter account @paul_mc_veigh has over 10,000 followers and his blog, which has had over 1 million hits, is one of the best sources of reference for any writer

Paul’s a Belfast boy and The Troubles in 80s Northern Ireland create a dramatic context for his debut novel The Good Son (Salt) which was published in April 2015, is now in its second edition, is currently nominated for The People’s Book Prize It was also shortlisted in The Guardian’s ‘Not The Booker’ Prize, 2015 Longlisted: Waverton Good Read Award.ELLE Magazine Best Books of 2015.The Irish Independent Top Reads of 2015.One of The Reading Agency Staff Picks Best of 2015.Wales Arts Review – Fiction of the Year.Number 1 Beach Read The PoolA Gransnet Best Christmas Read for 2015. Savidge Reads and Pam Reader Blogs Books of the Year

Paul’s also a playwright and co-founded the Armada Theatre Festival and Scarecrow Theatre Company. His plays have toured the UK and Ireland, been nominated for a BBC Entertainment and Media award and his comedy shows performed in London’s West End. His masterclasses on a range of subjects from writing to social media sell out and create an enthusiastic buzz on Twitter and Facebook from London to Melbourne. He ran a very successful workshop for us in Bath last autumn and entertained us, along with novelists Sarah Hilary and Rachel Heath at a wonderful evening of readings afterwards

Paul was the co-founder and Director of the highly successful London Short Story Festival, is Associate Director of short story salon The Word Factory and has had short stories published in Flash Flood Journal, New Century New Writing, Rattle Tales 2, Harrington’s Fiction Journal, Unbraiding the Short Story,The Stinging Fly and upcoming The London Magazine. Listen to his story Tickles, originally broadcast on Radio 4

Interview with Jane Riekemann,

  • You are such a presence in many areas of the literary world with your blog, masterclasses, multi-festival involvement etc. so when and how do you find the time and impetus to write? Can you jump in where you left off or do you need space for ideas and stories to develop? Do you have a routine –a special place to write? And what about journals etc.?

When I am writing I find I work on a short story in my head for a long time, sometimes years, then when I sit down to write it comes out pretty much fully formed. I tend to leave that first draft for a few months between edits. At the next stage I can nibble at time and tinker with the text. With the novel I needed long stretches. I had to read the novel from the beginning to get into the flow and be in the moment of where I’d started back. The Good Son is written in the voice of a little boy and I needed to get into character, like an actor, then I could just play. Now I can get there really easily with him. If you asked what would happen if Mickey went to the cinema, I could write a chapter in an afternoon. Such a pity you have to leave a character when they are finally alive and part of you.

I keep a journal when I travel. When I kept one in the routine of my life I found I bored myself senseless. It became like a schoolboy’s homework project. Lists of things I did that day or had to remember. When travelling, the stimulus seems to shake my brain, I become detached from my world and new connections are made. I become inspired to explore and what I find internally and externally I record.

  • Tania Hershman, in a guest post for Aerogramme Writers’ Studio, says: ‘writing has no borders, that good stories are good stories’, adding, ‘I don’t need to write “like an American” for an American reader to connect with my work…’. Any thoughts on this?

I agree. I also think the more you reduce a story, an action, an intention, down to its basic human driving force the more universal the story becomes. I haven’t read the article but there is this outside pressure when considering publication, markets and readership and it can play with your mind.

When I write, it comes from the desire to get into an emotional need or truth and I connect with that via some other place, without considering the market for the work. In fact, I think that is why I have become stuck with my writing. Having dealt with the business of getting my novel published, the compromises and the worry of ‘will anyone publish this after years of work?’ have made me shy of starting something new. This is turning into a therapy session. Do you charge?

  • What is the essence of a brilliant short story?

I’m still relatively new to short stories. I don’t feel in any position to say what that essence is. As a reader, there are certain types of story I’m more likely to connect with, that will stay with me, and others that don’t engage me. I can tell you how things work for me as a reader. I like to be moved. I like to laugh. I like to come away enriched from the experience. If I think about brilliance I think about the author’s voice. And their eyes. What is it they see? How do they turn the world on its axis so the sun hits it at a new angle and things that were in the shadows become exposed and things I thought I knew now look different? I love it when a story makes the ideas I have about the world become more three dimensional.

  • Beginnings and endings – how important are they to a short story? Does the title really matter?

Beginnings are very important. Talking specifically from the point of view of judging competitions and reading stories in an endless feast with a view of festivals etc., I find beginnings are crucial to keep me reading. For these platforms (which I don’t think have to apply to stories in a collection), one way to get my attention is to see the first page as pulling the ring from the grenade. I will read to see if it goes off – I will assume it will and cause the maximum amount of damage possible. If that grenade doesn’t go off and you’ve written an end I believe in and welcome, then I will tip my hat to you. I will also be a bit jealous.

The great Australian short story writer Cate Kennedy said to me recently that at the beginning of a short story the writer makes a promise to the reader and that promise has to be fulfilled or the reader will feel cheated. Endings can be neat but they can also be open, more symbolic, a space for the reader to take a breath so that the story is still alive afterwards and not shut down.

Titles tend to have an after-effect with me. I don’t often remember the title of a story, perhaps because I’m reading a lot. However, I think a good title enters my head subliminally, like someone hitting a tuning fork before the music begins: it sets the key, the tone. It can also resonate for a while after. With stories I love, I go back, look at the title and think about it. A title can be a Rosetta Stone, unlocking the author’s intention.

  • Word limits? How short can a short story be? Your thoughts on flash fiction, prose poetry or any of the new trends?

I have written some ‘shorter than short story’ pieces and felt they were as complete as any longer story I’ve written. So, as a writer, I say write what you want and let it finish when you/it’s done. For competitions and journals the word limits seem to be getting shorter, averaging around 3,000 (not in the USA). Around 2,000 for radio and live readings (if you want to read a complete story). As a reader I prefer around 3,000 words but will happily read more if the writing carries me.

  • Do you have any advice for new writers finding their way? The best ways to access a wider readership?

Dig deep. Ask yourself why you are writing? What do you want to say? If your foundations are strong then you’ll endure the inevitable knocks a writer can’t avoid. Social media can be useful in getting people interested in you and your work, building a readership as you grow.

  • Your debut novel The Good Son, published by Salt, was out last April, 2015. What have you been up to since?

It’s been a wild year. I’ve been to Mexico and Turkey with The British Council. I met inspiring writers and seen wonderful places. It’s been fascinating to look at wildly different cultures and see similarities, especially coming from Northern Ireland, I found deep stirrings in the history and current dilemmas these countries find themselves in. The London Short Story had an amazing second year and Word Factory continues to regularly hit that level of quality that if you look over is history, is pretty mind boggling.

The novel has kept me busy; launches, festivals, interviews, promotion… it’s a part time job. I’ve been writing some essays, tinkering with some stories and dancing around a novel.

  • Which writers have influenced and inspired you the most? And which short story collections would you take to BBC Radio 4’s desert island?

It’s hard to say who have influenced me the most. When I first fell in love with writing it was with Hemingway, Henry Miller, Carson McCullers, Anaїs Nin, James Baldwin, Tennessee Willliams, Maya Angelou, Gabriel Garcia Marquez… I’m not sure who has replaced them. I read so much for work now, that reading hasn’t brought as much joy as it used to. Some switch clicks in my head and activates the technical part of my brain and that gets in the way of inspiration. The same happened to me in theatre after a few years. My mind would pick apart the mechanics of the production rather than the flow of the words accessing something deeper.

I’d take George Saunders’ Tenth of December to laugh, and marvel at his imagination and the brilliance of his ideas. Anything by Claire Keegan for nourishment of the soul.

Thank you so much Paul for sharing your thoughts with us.

Jane Riekemann, (orginal interview, March 2015)

More about Paul, his writing, interviews and the courses he teaches here