Autumn Pop-Up – Prompted Stories
Following the launch of each of our issues, we cajole one or more of the contributors into a mini interview with the Trash Cat.
Here they will reveal some writing wisdom and tell you what trash critter they identify with most. Important stuff like that.
Today, we have Fiona McKay, author of the vivid, visceral flash, Black and Purple, Red and White in our Prompted Stories issue. Read it HERE.
Q: What piece of writing advice/ crafting rule would you trash?
A: I have a love/hate relationship with ‘Show, don’t Tell’. If I read a book which infodumps the entire backstory of the main character in the first three pages, I’m screaming ‘show, don’t tell’ at the book – but sometimes showing EVERYTHING is just too much, and I’m going ‘this scene should have been an email’. It’s about finding balance.
Q: Which writers and magazines do you go to to find treasure to read?
A: There are so many! At any given point, I have up to 200 open browser tabs on my phone, most of which are flash stories I’ve saved to read. Apart from Trash Cat, I love trampset, SmokeLong Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, Fractured Lit… there are so many amazing lit mags out there! I’d love to name them all, and all the fabulous writers I’ve met along the way whose writing I will always read (or save as an open browser tab), but there are just too many!
Q: What trash animal do you most identify with?
A: Is a sloth a trash animal? You know that video of a sloth in a speedboat, trailing a finger in the water? I’m not saying that’s me, but if that sloth had a pair of sunglasses and a gin&tonic…
Q: When your writing mojo is trashed, how do you recharge?
A: Sometimes I flail around, weeping. I might also whine to writer friends about how I’ll Never Write Anything Again. When I’m over that, I remind myself to do a few things that aren’t writing. I love to sew, and always have more fabric and patterns than I have time to make, so I might take on a sewing project and listen to audiobooks while I sew. Then back to writing!
Q: If you could offer three tips to writing short treasures, what would they be?
A:
(1) Start in the middle of the action. Don’t spend three paragraphs building up to what’s happening – jump right in and weave in backstory/set-up as and when you need it.
(2) Use vivid and specific imagery. You could have a lamp, or you could have a yellow lamp with a twisted flex. One of these will make your writing pop!
(3) Nail the ending. If I think ‘this ending/last line will do’, then I can tell you I will be revisiting the piece, because it surely won’t do. Think of it like the dismount/round-off in gymnastics – it has to be clean, tight, and finish off the whole routine perfectly.
Q: What is one thing, if spotted in a crowded thrift store, you would just have to buy?
A: A mirror that shows people their true selves. That would be useful! Or maybe a stuffed zebra…
Fiona McKay is the author of the Novella-in-Flash ‘The Top Road’, AdHoc Fiction (2023), and the Flash Fiction collection ‘Drawn and Quartered’, Alien Buddha Press (2023). She was a SmokeLong Quarterly Emerging Writer Fellow in 2023. Her Flash Fiction is in Bath Flash, Lost Balloon, Gone Lawn, New Flash Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, The Forge, Ghost Parachute, trampset and others. Her work is included in Best Small Fictions 2024.
She lives in Dublin, Ireland with her husband and daughter.
She is on X (formerly Twitter) @fionaemckayryan
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