The Word On The Street is coming up on September 23, with WOTS Plus+ the day before on September 22nd! We sat down with Casey Plett, author of Little Fish<\/i>, who will be joining us at the festival this year!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WOTS: <\/b>Little Fish<\/i><\/b> is your first novel, but you\u2019ve also published a collection of short stories. What was it like, going from short fiction to novels? When do you think a story is ready to be a novel?<\/b><\/p>\n
Casey Plett:<\/b> When I wrote my first book, A Safe Girl to Love<\/i>, the stories just naturally felt like they ended, there was a point in the writing where a pulse in my brain went \u201cOk, nothing happens after this.\u201d All the stories except the longest one, \u201cNot Bleak\u201d which felt like I could\u2019ve just gone on and wrote forever (and two of whose characters show up in Little Fish<\/i>, including the protagonist).<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t make \u201cNot Bleak\u201d into a novel because the rest of Safe Girl<\/i> was already written and I wanted to fit it in there, but when I had the first couple dozen or so pages of Little Fish<\/i>, I had that same feeling, like \u201cI think this is a novel, that\u2019s what this feels like, I\u2019m going to give it a shot.\u201d There was no pulse in my brain that said \u201cNothing happens after this\u201d or even \u201cI think the ending might be coming up soon.\u201d Just like a long blank expanse. It was a cool but scary feeling!<\/p>\n
I have no idea how this process works for other writers, figuring out story vs. novel, but the above is how it happened for me.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WOTS: <\/b>Little Fish <\/i><\/b>explores the intersection of gender and religion through your main character, Wendy. She\u2019s a transgender woman coming from a Mennonite family. Can you tell us more about how this story emerged for you, and what this intersection means to you? How did religion play a role in writing <\/b>Little Fish<\/i><\/b>?<\/b><\/p>\n
CP: <\/b>I am also a transgender woman from a Mennonite family, so lots of how Wendy deals with this just comes from my own fears, wishes, dreams, and experiences about that intersection. When I was younger, I assumed being trans and being Mennonite, both culturally and religiously, were 100% incompatible. That didn\u2019t turn out to be true, though certainly there is enormous transphobia and homophobia among Mennonites. Religion plays a role in Little Fish <\/i>not just through the older devout Mennonites that have surrounded Wendy in her life, but also with Wendy herself.<\/p>\n
She thinks she doesn\u2019t believe. She thinks she abandoned all that stuff a while ago. But there are surprises in store for her.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WOTS: What are your favourite places to write? Any quirky must-haves when it comes to sitting down and building out a story?<\/b><\/p>\n
CP:<\/b> Not really, I generally write in bed or on the couch with terrible posture while putting all sorts of unhealthy materials into my body. I do often have to get out of the house for a change of pace though. It helps to restart my brain. I write in bars and coffee shops a lot.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WOTS: Tell us a bit more about your process. How did you start writing? Do you have any favourite stories about when you were just starting out?<\/b><\/p>\n
CP: <\/b>I always did it since I was a kid, even if it wasn\u2019t like \u201ccreative writing\u201d or whatever. I taught myself to write via LiveJournal in some ways. (The pre-Tumblr)<\/p>\n
I think anytime you\u2019re actually putting words somewhere in a considered way it\u2019s writing practice, even if it\u2019s just a long-ass stupid Facebook comment or something.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WOTS: Reviewers found your dialogue in <\/b>Little Fish<\/i><\/b> to be very realistic and organic. What\u2019s your secret to writing believable dialogue? Do you have any pet peeves when it comes to forced speaking in stories?<\/b><\/p>\n
CP:<\/b> I\u2019m so grateful some people have felt that way! As a reader, I don\u2019t necessarily mind stylized or forced speaking in stories. I like Miranda July and Amy Hempel and their characters don\u2019t sound like they\u2019re having organic conversations but that\u2019s fine because the writing\u2019s so engaging.<\/p>\n
As for how I write dialogue—I mean, no one wants to read a transcript of real people talking, that\u2019d be boring and terrible. What I try to do is start with that though. Write a long convoluted conversation, knowing I\u2019ll cut it and trim it later. The hope being that the parts that remain still then sound like real people speaking. Amy Bloom (who wrote a really awful book about trans people but anyway) once said: \u201cDialogue is not conversation, it is conversation\u2019s greatest hits.\u201d<\/p>\n
I also admire how Miriam Toews does this stuff. Especially in A Complicated Kindness<\/i>, her dialogue is really plain-spoken but there\u2019s a musicality to it that is truly gorgeous.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WOTS: What would you say to a writer who\u2019s just starting out? What one thing do you think it\u2019s crucial to know?<\/b><\/p>\n
CP: <\/b>Here\u2019s a relevant story that I shared in an interview earlier this year<\/a> and that I will share with you now. When I finished my undergrad, I was about to apply to get a teaching certificate. I\u2019d gotten an English degree, I hadn\u2019t written that much, I hadn\u2019t been published anywhere or read in public, except for once, and that once had been an embarrassing shitshow. No one was pushing me to do anything, least of all write.<\/p>\n I still had dreams of being a writer, and I thought maybe I\u2019d do \u201cthe responsible thing\u201d and teach and then write \u201con the side\u201d or at night or something. It was a few weeks until the deadline to apply for the teaching program, and then I realized: \u201cIf I do that, I\u2019m going to end up a person who once dreamed of being a writer.\u201d This isn\u2019t to say that that would\u2019ve happened to everyone! But I know it would\u2019ve happened to me.<\/p>\n I went on to do an MFA, which was a whole different can of worms with lots of benefits along with some drawbacks, but I don\u2019t really view that as the important decision\u2014the important decision was realizing that some people might be able to do X and be a writer, but if I do X that\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n To bring this around and answer your question, I think it\u2019s crucial for writers to figure out what that X is for them. Then make sure that doesn\u2019t happen and go write.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Want to keep up with the WOTS blog? Sign up for our newsletter<\/i> here<\/i><\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Word On The Street is coming up on September 23, with WOTS Plus+ the day before on September 22nd! We sat down with Casey Plett, author of Little Fish, who will be joining us at the festival this year! WOTS: Little Fish is your first novel, but you\u2019ve also published a collection of […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":12006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12005"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12005"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12025,"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12005\/revisions\/12025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}