Five Questions with Andrew Wickenden
Will McCarry: In your piece “Why Angela Reed Believed We Were Soulmates But Could Not, for Practical Reasons, Ever Really Be Together,” Angela and the narrator are told conflicting versions of their future together by a book that Angela refers to as the “Bible of Destiny.” Do you believe we all are destined toward self-fulfilling prophecies?
Andrew Wickenden: Not as much as I believe in habit and our human propensity toward it, which I suppose is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: I get up each morning and have a cup of coffee, therefore I am a habitual coffee drinker, therefore I will get up tomorrow and have a cup of coffee. Habits, good and bad, can be avoided, as can self-fulfilling prophecies, but it seems to me like the tendency is, at some point, to fall back into habit. When we feel disappointed or guilty or ashamed, it can be comforting and, at times, easy to and look back and say, “Well of course I’m here—it’s destiny—I’m just following the path and so I’ll continue on my way.”
WM: As mentioned, Angela Reed and her would-be-lover are at odds in the piece over their destiny together. This, of course, leads to a discussion in which both are characterized in subtle and intricate ways. A good example of which would be the line, “I remember laughing at the book’s freakish accuracy and Angela, misunderstanding, gave me a mean look.” What advice can you give prospective flash writers about preserving good characterization in a very limited space?
AW: I took a workshop with Stuart Dybek in which he mentioned, off-handedly, that anecdote is often the quickest way to get to know a character. That stuck with me. Characterization is often talked about in terms of what a character wants, which is no doubt important to the overall thrust of a character-based literary story, but when I sit down to the page, I feel overwhelmed by that question of what the character wants, because characters often want a lot of things at once. For me, an anecdote will often establish what’s important to the character and ignite the story’s momentum without forcing me to think so abstractly. Anecdotes often blend narration and dramatic scene—part of where the pithiness and punchiness comes from in a good anecdote. For a piece of flash fiction, an anecdotal tone might serve that purpose, giving the narrator license to make big, quick leaps in space and time and subject matter.
WM: Your piece has an excellent title that really contributes to my overall enjoyment of the piece. How important do you think a good title is in a flash fiction piece?
AW: In flash fiction, where formal constraints force us to make certain “moves” and not others—how heavily to characterize, how vividly to establish setting, how fully to conceive a plot—I think the title can take some pressure off the story, bear some of the story’s weight, make a “move” that the body of the story itself might not be making. Then again, that’s not exclusive to flash fiction.
WM: Who are the writers (flash fiction or otherwise) that you most admire?
AW: Flash or otherwise, the writers who immediately come to mind (and/or whose books are looking at me right now): Stuart Dybek, Alice Munro, Michael Martone, Isaac Babel, Leonard Michaels, Peter Orner, Philip Roth, Mary Gaitskill.
WM: Given the nature of your piece, it seems prudent to ask: What has the universe destined for Andrew Wickenden? What are you working on now?
AW: I’m working on a collection, tentatively titled “Everyone’s Always Glad to Get Everything.” More specifically, I’m working on a story from that collection, told from multiple perspectives, that is as of yet untitled, whose first sentence reads, “Here in the Michigan woods, almost ten years ago, Curtis and Maryann and their college friends hired a squirrely divorced hunting guide named Mike Lynch.”
Listen to Andrew’s story from NANO Fiction 6.2 below. Purchase a copy here.