An interview with Adrian Graham

In my last blog I asked if flash fiction was a joke. Typical me I was just trying to stir things up and see what everyone thinks. I also sent a copy to a writer who specialises in flash fiction and we had a wee talk about it. (Okay, not so much a talk as a couple of e-mails and a list of questions but let's just pretend).

The writer is Adrian Graham whose blog I stumbled over a few months back. There were a few sample stories which I read, liked, and which prompted me to fork out hard cash for his short story collection, The Revelation and 100 other stories. It came. It sat on a shelf for a while and then I read it.

Well I read a bit of it, quite a bit of it, and then I forced myself to stop and do something else. Because nothing was going in. I hadn't finished one story and then I was onto another: Boom! Boom! Boom!

I stopped because I was going gobbling them up like a box of choccies. And I was beginning to not enjoy them quite so much. That's the thing about choccies, choccies are great but too many can sicken you off chocolate for … oh, a whole couple of days.

So, I put the book aside and restricted myself to one section at each sitting. To my mind the whole thing would have worked better as a three and a half month page-a-day calendar. This is not so much a criticism as an observation as to the nature of flash fiction. I could say much the same about any book of poetry.

The book is divided into seven sections: 'Me and other people we know', 'Night vision', 'Pocket studies', 'Remixes', 'Strangers in our midst', 'Computer games' and – my favourite section – 'The story is the story'. Here's my personal favourite:

Prisoner


Robin Mayor woke up to find himself trapped in a short story.

As soon as the shock passed he realised he had about two hundred and fifty words left, or was that about two hundred and forty words? No, make it about two hundred and thirty.

He ran into the street and screamed, “Help me! Please somebody help me. I’m trapped inside a short story. Let me out!”

No one was listening and he was burning through words so fast it would have been foolish to continue. He could feel the word count mounting. He didn’t have long - a hundred words or so.

He went onto the roof of a large building and decided enough was enough. He didn’t want to linger on knowing his time was running out and there was nothing he could do to change it.

His life would end when this short story ended.

He decided he would do it his way and make it happen as fast as possible. He would control his destiny.

“Get me out of here,” he shouted. “Get me out of here! Get me - ”

Now, this is not the first book of flash fiction I've bought. I have Sherril Jaffe's Scars Make Your Body More Interesting & Other Stories and The Voice Imitator by Thomas Bernhard and I had similar issues with them, the Bernhard especially because his stories have hard centres and take a bit of chewing.

Before we hear what Adrian has to say, let's have a look at another of the stories that we talk about in the 'interview':

[Insert title]

‘random story generator’
insert: {character: situation}
{unexpected event}
factual info for authenticity: {Topic}
‘random story algorithm’
go to: ‘generated results’
insert: ‘random story solution’
go to: ‘outcome’
‘plot twist’: setting “average” believability: “medium”
insert: ‘something unexpected’
‘something more unexpected’
hidden: *marketing tie-in*
‘romantic encounter’
protagonist’s fortune rating: “2”
insert: {element of chance}
{the big comeback}
protagonist’s fortune rating: “9”
satisfying solution: happiness: “7” realism: “4”
hidden: *theme*
add-on: {potential for sequel}
stop/>

1. Adrian, on your own blog you say:

I know people who are eager to dismiss Internet creativity because it doesn't fit into a traditional pattern. It breaks the established notions of how written stories should be created and distributed. I like a good book, like the next person, but the world is changing.

So why bring out a book of flash fiction?

I've always loved creating things. I used to paint a long time ago. I enjoyed the satisfaction of making physical objects. With writing the closest we get to that is the production of a book.

2. In my previous essay I suggested that flash fiction has a lot in common with the common-or-garden gag comprising of a setup and a punch line. Do you think this is a gross oversimplification?

No, I agree with it. I'm sure there are flash fiction writers out there who would disagree though. My writing fits the gag formula, and if it's not a joke then it's a tragi-comedy. I enjoy creating a situation and then subverting it. That’s a standard joke formula. Woody Allen said somewhere that the best way to write a joke is to get the punch line first and work backwards, and that's often how it works for me. Comedy is great because it allows the writer to tackle a serious subject in an approachable way.

3. In 'Detention camp sixteen' a man wakes up in a detention camp where the inmates are forced to write comedy. When he questions the guards the man is beaten senseless. He awakens in his own bed and believes he has just experienced a nightmare. He dozes back off only to awake in the detention camp with a guard beating him and telling him to get writing. This, among other stories, struck me as owing a debt of gratitude to The Twilight Zone, a show that relied heavily on often ironic twists. Was this show a particular influence and, what other influences can you cite?

That's great you've spotted that. I am a fan of The Twilight Zone, especially the famous, 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' episode when a passenger sees a gremlin on an aeroplane wing. In terms of other influences there are James Thurber's, 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' and Roald Dahl's short stories (I enjoyed the television series, Tales of the Unexpected when it aired). Surrealist art is a strong influence as is Philip K Dick’s, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Matt Madden's graphic book, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. I read Dan Rhodes', Anthropology: And a Hundred Other Stories after I'd finished the first collection and dithered for a title so I ‘borrowed’ the title idea from him. To my mind that book is the ultimate flash fiction collection.

4. In the 'Remixes' section of your collection you write a spoof of 'Goldilocks' and a sequel to 'The Hare and the Tortoise' and it's obvious that this format is well suited to lampooning subjects which are familiar to the reader already and have, in effect, done much of the setup for the writer. What do you think about this?

Totally. It's a lot of fun subverting someone else’s hard work! I came to this in the way a DJ might remix music. It's fun playing with the readers assumptions about which reality they're in - an 'enchanted fairyland' or normal contemporary life. I think playfulness and subversion are hallmarks of flash fiction, for me at least.

5. All the stories I've read by you veer towards the short end of the flash fiction spectrum, circa 250 words. Why is this length so attractive and how do you resist the temptation to become formulaic in your stories? I'm thinking here about your short story '[Insert title]'.

250 words are long enough to set the scene, introduce a character, throw in a plot twist and close. Anything less, for me, just feels like there isn't enough space for any development to occur. Any longer and there are too many possibilities and it loses its tightness. The stories revolve around a simple concept and 250 words are enough to convey that. As for maintaining the quality and not being too formulaic I go on gut feeling. If it doesn't hit me then it's destined for the bin, right there. Plus I get bored very easily. By the time I neared the end of the first collection the writing process had become the subject. It was time to stop or I’d end up in some insane loop.

6. How would you defend flash fiction against those who think it's not a serious literary form?

It will take time for some people to understand what flash fiction is about. Eventually they'll get the hang of it. The biggest problem is fear - people are afraid of its brevity. It’s almost threatening. I’d say to them, there’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s only short fiction.

One of the delights of being a flash fiction writer is that it does have a subversive side and you can play that up or down. You can say what you like because you don’t have a ‘literary’ reputation to lose. I’ve always believed exciting fiction needs that critical edge. That’s what keeps it ‘alive’.

7. There are great novelists one could point to, great poets, great story writers … but I can't think of a great flash fiction writer. Do you think the time will come? Or has it come?

I say, 'well done' to any writer who makes it big or is credited with the 'great writer' badge, but the best a flash fiction writer can hope for is being called a 'cult' writer. As for the future, anything can happen.

There's a lot of good work being done right now on the web. This is where flash fiction seems most active. You can’t comfortably read a novel on a computer screen but you can read a flash fiction. If you're after some free flash fiction the bearded lady blog has been posting some great stuff recently and Adam Maxwell has been pushing flash fiction into digital media with his award winning podcasts.

As for defending flash fiction it’s important to remember that most of the practitioners, myself included, write these things at speed. We’re simply not aiming for traditional values of ‘greatness’ otherwise we’d be writing novels in the style of Graham Green.

If you want a music analogy we’re not composing classical music we are pumping out dance or rock music. The whole essence of what we’re going for is radically different from traditional ‘literature’. That’s not to say we don’t believe in quality - we do. But the arbiter of that quality is the excitement and sheer fun of writing and reading flash fiction - not holding the writing up as some artefact of ‘great literature’.

8. Do you work in other formats? If so, can you illustrate?

I've written regular length short stories and two novels. Writing a novel is a bit like constructing an intricate puzzle that unleashes itself on the reader over time. My first novel took five years to complete. The second, three months. I've done some graphical / text stories. That’s an area that interests me. I wanted to do a graphical novella but the artist couldn't give over enough time so we had to cancel the project. I’ve made a few short films. I'm always going back to flash fiction. All you need is a pencil and paper and you can create a billion pounds worth of special effects in the readers head.

9. I know you're preparing a second collection. What can you tell me about it?

The second batch is destined to become a limited edition hardback, something really exquisite. The stories are the same length but more sophisticated, more grown up. The confidence I’ve gained has allowed me to loosen up and be more honest. It was tempting to bring back some of the old characters, but I resisted. Maybe another time!

Thank you.

And I'd like to say thank you too to Adrian for those considered answers, so, thank you.

I think we've raised quite a few interesting points over the last couple of blogs. And, as usual, I don't think we've come up with any great answers. For my own part I think I've developed a bit more of an appreciation for Internet publishing. A lot of sites will present you with a quote or a thought-for-the-day and they're fine in their own way but they're maybe just a little insubstantial, a wafer thin mint compared to the champagne truffle with a velvety smooth, dense ganache centre, rich with whipped Vermont cream and butter, and thinly coated in Belgian chocolate that is a flash fiction.

Let me leave you with one last one to chew on from Adrian's forthcoming collection which is to be called Love Can Find You Digitally.

The Land of First Served


You don’t get second chances in The Land of First Come First Served. That was why I emigrated to No Worries. But they threw me out when I got anxious. They didn’t want people like that.

I ended up in Tough Luck. The people there were all mean and complained they’d been sent there by mistake. Everyone had a story that was worse than everyone else. I spent some time in Rock Bottom. That place was terrible. Then I took a train ride to New Beginning. It seemed like the perfect place for a fresh start. I got a job and met a woman. The whole thing was turning out better than I could have ever expected. I began to get positive about my life. I realised I had the potential to achieve things, to be somebody. I woke up in the morning and couldn’t help smiling. For the first time in ages I knew where I was going.

I got a promotion at work. My manager thanked me for my ‘outstanding contribution’ to the company.

When I got home I could tell from my wife’s eyes that I was the most loved man in the world.

I put in an application for Happy Ending. They sent it back with a rude letter saying it wasn’t over yet.

In the land of First Come First Served you don’t get second chances.