First written for the ArtyFacts newsletter. To find out more email: [email protected]
Novelist, short story writer and academic mentor Maxine Alterio believes that a writer should always “write the story that demands to be written”.
The judge of the 2020 Queenstown Short Story Competition says ideas for stories can come from anywhere – it just takes hard work to craft them into a beautiful short story.
“I love how a short story can come out of anywhere. It can happen as a gift – it can come out of nowhere. I remember sitting in the staff room at work one day and a few of the ladies were talking about Weight Watchers and into my mind popped this idea of what would happen if a woman tried to fatten up her husband so that his lover would leave him? So, I wrote a short story about that.”
Maxine’s first novel, Ribbons of Grace, is set in Arrowtown and the idea came from a conversation she overheard when she was about 11 or 12 years old.
“It was two men having a conversation about Chinese miners and one said to the other ‘Of course, when they laid him out, they found that he was a she.’ That one sentence stayed with me for forty years before I wrote the novel. The mind takes in all of these ideas and memories and then it composts it until they’re ready to flourish.”
Maxine adds that Arrowtown is where she feels most creative. Originally from southern New Zealand, she’s holidayed in the region since she was a young child and owned a place on Kent Street for twenty years.
“You know that lovely river walk? I love walking along there by myself and stories will just ‘ping’ into my mind. I’ll note them down on the note-taking facility on my phone, then they’re there when I have time to work on them.”
Many of the ideas for stories in her collection Live News and Other Stories were ignited in Arrowtown and her latest novel, The Gulf Between (2019, Penguin Books), is partly set in Queenstown.
Tips for writing short stories
Maxine’s first tip for anyone who is serious about writing is to read.
“I think reading is crucial. I’m always surprised when I hear that people want to be a writer but they don’t read. I’d say that reading and writing goes hand in hand. I’ve always got a book on the go and all the serious writers I know do too.”
On her current reading list is The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers and favourite short story writers closer to home include Patricia Grace, Vincent O’Sullivan and Dame Fiona Kidman.
“One of the things I love the most about short stories is that each stands alone (unless they’re connected in a collection like Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout). […] There has to be a beginning, a middle and an end. And the end has to stand out as plausible, or magical or entertaining or poignant… there has to be something there which leaves you thinking ‘Ohhh, yes!’”
Imagination, creativity and a well-developed idea are other key factors.
“There has to be an idea that is well-developed and characters that seem real, well rounded, not just cardboard – even in a very short story. […] But not too many characters, that can be difficult to follow in a short story. It has to all come together and I have to feel a sense of satisfaction at the end.
“A story that really works for me I think about for a very long time afterwards.
“For example, in a Billy O’Callaghan story, I’m loving the language. I’m liking the way the plot or the situation unfolds, it’s mesmerising. Then the ending just feels right. You know the character so well that you think about them for a long time afterwards. And that’s the ultimate test for me.”
Give it time
Maxine says new writers should take time writing their stories: put the story away “for a wee while” and come back to it.
“When we look back at a story, we realise we could have done a lot more.
“Some writers have a way of a way of presenting a story as though it has come to them as a gift but I know, as a short story writer myself, you can work for many weeks, and months – years, sometimes – to write a short story. You’ve got to work on it and put it away, then bring it out later for another look.”
– Interview by Bethany G. Rogers. Photo by James Allan Photography
