Natalia Theodoridou On Unraveling A Short Story Into A Novel

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I spent nan amended portion of nan past decade reasoning of myself arsenic “strictly a short communicative writer.” My debut novel, Sour Cherry, started retired arsenic a short story, loosely based connected nan Bluebeard folktale: Cherry Girl lived pinch a man who kept his erstwhile wives’ bodies successful nan small backmost room of his rotting house. There was a Cook, who cared for him. Together, Cook and Cherry Girl picked up aft nan man and nan devastation he created: nan scattered beads, nan crumbling leaves, nan blighted land. I was fortunate to shop nan communicative pinch Karen Joy Fowler—a generous and thoughtful reader. Among nan galore wise things she said successful her feedback, she besides said this: “I want to cognize much astir Cook. There’s thing there.”

What was location turned retired to beryllium an full novel.

Short stories took a agelong clip to hatch successful my caput but past would look almost fully-formed and successful request of minimal editing aliases restructuring. For me, penning was astir decidedly not rewriting. In edits, I usually recovered that nan lace of nan communicative was truthful tightly woven that, if I tried to change thing substantial, nan full building was compromised. I mislaid resonances that seemed to person made it into nan matter without my conscious planning. The acquisition of penning a short communicative felt to maine for illustration a agelong gestation resulting successful thing peculiar that should beryllium nurtured but not disturbed.

By comparison, transforming this worldly into a caller felt for illustration trudging knee-deep into nan courage of thing I had pulled apart, rolling astir successful nan gore trying to reconstruct nan eviscerated point into a caller benignant of monster. There was truthful much space there, now. I could move things astir freely, and, alternatively of having nan building crumble, I discovered caller rooms had germinated spontaneously while I wasn’t looking, past germinated again while I was, for illustration dividing cells, for illustration caller growths. Some of these proved vital; others I later had to lop off, which felt overmuch little painless than I had anticipated. To get from short communicative to novel, I went complete nan worldly tugging connected each thread I came across. Where was Cook earlier she came to unrecorded pinch Cherry Girl and her man? Who was she earlier she mislaid her name? And what astir nan erstwhile wives? What astir nan very first? This didn’t simply widen nan communicative but brought distant what it already contained, for illustration a reverse unravelling.

Before I focused on Sour Cherry, I was besides penning long-form interactive fabrication wherever nan reader, arsenic nan main characteristic of nan story, is perpetually presented pinch choices astir really to proceed, what to say, what to deliberation successful consequence to nan text. At each juncture, I would representation each nan different ways nan characters could move done nan narrative. But successful this non-interactive story, I had to prime conscionable 1 of those options; arsenic if playing my ain book, it was connected maine to take nan champion action connected behalf of readers. All imaginable states successful which nan book existed had to illness into one, arsenic if my occupation was to whittle down nan possibilities until a azygous branch remained, to chisel distant until I recovered nan existent communicative buried underneath. Only nan basal belonged. The process started to consciousness terrifying, nan system of it constricting. What if I made nan incorrect choice?

Fortunately, I was reference Matt Bell’s Refuse to Be Done astatine nan clip and came crossed Jane Smiley’s thought that “every awesome caller offers incomprehensible abundance.” The words rang maine for illustration a bell. What if I could clasp nan consciousness of multiplicity I had recovered successful interactive fiction? What if nan process could beryllium not 1 of regularisation and chiseling but of proliferation and blooming? (What if stories are for illustration houses are for illustration organisms are for illustration lace?) It gave maine support to indulge myself and my characters, to tally aft our fancies and travel nan free-associating thread of our thoughts.

This expanded nan book outwards arsenic good arsenic backwards, allowing maine to motion astatine nan wealthiness of worldly that motivates each azygous prime we make and, successful nan end, props up a life. The linear communicative started to consciousness branchy again, not truthful overmuch successful its attack to crippled arsenic successful its disposition. So overmuch of what I emotion and what interests maine made it into nan novel, not arsenic intrusion but arsenic an uncovering of what had ever been there. For me, intertextuality is not simply a device; it is astatine nan bosom of nan imaginative process (which includes some nan penning and nan reference of nan work). Sour Cherry is, aft all, a retelling of Bluebeard, but what Bluebeard intends to maine is not conscionable nan French folktale; it is besides Béla Bartók and music, it is tanztheater, it is #metoo and each nan individual narratives it voiced.

And from there, each my inheritance arsenic a student of theatre poured into nan book, because each nan world’s a stage, and we study really to beryllium by telling each different stories, and our canons dictate nan breadth of what those stories mightiness be, truthful of people location would beryllium Shakespeare here, too, and Brecht, and Greek calamity haunting maine astatine each turn. The book became genuinely dialogic, successful nan measurement Mikhail Bakhtin understood dialogue: successful penning it, I was conversing pinch nan activity that’s fed me, cataloguing each my debts—because location is nary reasoning “I,” nary penning “I,” isolated from successful relationship.

How fitting, then, that nan starting constituent of this caller was besides a infinitesimal of dialogue, an invitation: “What other is there? Tell maine more.” All I had to do was beryllium unfastened to nan incomprehensible abundance successful response.

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Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou is disposable via Tin House.