An Interview with author Ivy Grimes
We talk about minimalism, dreams as inspiration, and her latest novella, Star Shapes.
A recent novella I read and loved is Star Shapes by Ivy Grimes. The voice of the book was fresh and exciting, the story mysterious and captivating. Ivy was kind enough to answer some questions about her latest release and her approach to writing in general.
What can you tell us about your writing and publishing journey? How long have you been at it? Do you have any formal training?
I’ve written here and there for many years, but I haven’t always done it regularly. I got an MFA in poetry in my early 20s, and it exposed me to some new work and ideas, though overall, I wouldn’t say it was that helpful to me. I feel like the most important training I did was reading widely, which included pushing myself to read some stuff I didn’t initially want to read.
I’ve been submitting stories for about seven years. I’ve learned through trial and error, finding places to publish some of my work by submitting persistently and getting comfortable with rejection.
Is the humor in your stories and writing a conscious decision that you intentionally work at putting in there or just something that is inherent to your style and voice? There is something effortless about it.
Thanks! My favorite part of writing is making myself laugh. It feels like play, and it motivates me to do the work. I know that my sense of humor is not going to register with everyone, of course, and I am curious about how that will affect different people’s reading experiences. Someone whose sense of humor is wildly different from mine is going to be confused about what I’m even trying to do with my stories.
Do you draw from your own experiences when you approach your shorts? Did you ever go to a big family beach house vacation? Have you ever had a weird experience in the produce section at your favorite grocery store?
Sometimes, though more often I’m writing something I’ve dreamed about. Of course, as anyone who knows me can attest, I’ve been known to experience anxiety at places like grocery stores. Anxiety naturally exaggerates situations, which makes it useful in storytelling. Also, anxiety is often funny. It naturally leads to the absurd.
My family beach house story (“The Arcade”) in Grime Time was inspired by a dream, the kind that left me with a wise feeling I couldn’t quite parse. A girl with pink hair told me she loved my aura, and there was an arcade with sand floors, and I never saw the ocean.
In “The Arcade,” the main character is at a massive beach house with everyone in her family, from her great-grandfather to her own granddaughter, so it’s clearly in the realm of the unreal. Ancestry and legacy are both huge burdens, and the more you learn about your family, the more you wonder if you really have free will. Which is very frightening! I don’t blame my main character in “The Arcade” for wanting to avoid thinking about it.
Prior to Star Shapes, you have primarily focused on and published short stories. Can you talk about the conception and development of Star Shapes? Was it a conscious decision to develop something longer?
I’ve actually been writing longer pieces alongside short stories the whole time. I’ve written and trunked several novels over the years because I wasn’t satisfied with them. I haven’t been satisfied with all my short stories either, but they come and go more easily. There are some I still love.
With Star Shapes, I did intentionally set out to write a novella, to allow a little of the meandering quality of a novel into a tight premise. I’d been reading a lot of indie horror novellas, and one I found inspiring was Kelsea Yu’s Bound Feet. She did something I wanted to do, which was to take a fairly ordinary character and put her in a very strange situation that revealed shocking moral complexity on her part. We all tend to think of ourselves as nice people, and I love it when stories explore the limits and uncertainties of niceness. It was a more limited concept than a novel, but I knew it would take more time to explore than a short story.
I know that novels excel in areas that films are unable to, and one of those areas is consciousness. Interiority. The thoughts of our characters. Star Shapes in particular succeeds on the back of the narrator and with all that said, could you see Star Shapes as a movie? I think it could make an excellent film, especially within a reasonable budget. What would you say to a film adaptation?
I never think about visual storytelling when I write, about how it would play as a movie. But yes, it would probably be a fun student film or experimental short film. And you’re right, it could be filmed on a small budget. Any poor film student should feel free to give me a call!
If you’ll allow me to duck down into the muck of some writerly shop talk. I notice a certain type of minimalism in your work. I was curious if this is something you intentionally attempt to cultivate or if it just kind of comes out that way on its own.
Yes, I often write in first-person, where the character narrates the story. In “Pioneer John,” I’m playing with a smart-talking Raymond Chandler kind of character. In “The Swallowed,” the narrator is somewhat more sonorous, or maybe pretentious. In “Hitchcock,” the narrator’s voice attempts to channel Alfred Hitchcock’s (if he entered a dark Purgatory and lost his mind). The voice in Star Shapes comes from a friendly and vain Southern girl. Writing in first-person often leads to a conversational story, though there are many alternatives, from a speaker who is a Frasier Crane type to someone who is more self-consciously writing their story down.
Still, my first-person narrators aren’t so radically different from what I write in third-person. On the scale of minimalism to maximalism, I naturally fall on the minimalist side, the Hemingway and Carver side. To be clear, I love reading styles on all points of the spectrum. Love! I’m not a minimalist chauvinist. However, that’s my home, and it always has been. Although I love all varieties of stylists, I probably vibe with fellow minimalists the best. I connect with your style, too, CB Jones.
What has your experience with beta readers been like with regards to your style of writing? Do you ever have readers suggesting more description? This is something I've encountered, myself, as I try to write some sort of bastardization of minimalism and conversational tone.
Studying poetry only increased my tendency to be sparing with words. The less you say, the more room there can be for readers to fill in gaps, to co-create, and to wonder, and that’s what I’m most interested in as a writer. I also love the clean, stately ba-dum ba-dum of iambs, and I often fall into that rhythm in prose. Again, I love all kinds of writers, including those who explain and describe everything, taking your hand and leading you everywhere they want you to go. That’s actually why I’m a pretty good beta reader for other people—I can put aside my own style and appreciate the work in front of me. Part of the fun of reading fiction (for me) is to experience various styles.
Not all readers feel that way, and I don’t blame them at all! Some readers only like lush descriptions or only like staccato wisecracks, and you have to go with what you like. These different preferences can also lead to wildly different responses from beta readers! Sometimes beta readers do ask me to elaborate, and they’re usually writers who add more flourishes to their own work. I respect them, but I don’t follow their advice. Some aspects of a story are negotiable to me, but not my essential style and vision. If you don’t like those elements, you shouldn’t be reading my stories. Pick up another story, or go for a walk in the woods. I won’t blame you a bit. At the same time, I’m not going to start writing wildly innovative sentences or paragraphs describing the color of someone’s hair. You can’t please everyone.
You can find more information about Ivy and her work at her website:
https://ivyivyivyivy.com/
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