Interviewed by Forrest Anderson
Thomas Cooper lives in Florida, where he writes and teaches. His stories have previously appeared in New Orleans Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Night Train, Quick Fiction, Opium, and elsewhere.
Cooper’s debut flash fiction collection, Phantasmagoria, was selected by Michael Martone as the winner of Keyhole Books 2008 Fiction Chapbook Contest.
Q: What drew you to start writing flash fiction? Did you make any promises or set any goals to write a certain number a year?
A: I was drawn to flash fiction, honestly, out of frustration and impatience. At the time, most of my longer stories had turned out crappy, and just about everyone rejected the few I considered decent. They wrote notes like, “Why is this so long? What’s your problem?” So I figured I’d spend more time concentrating on smaller things, if only to reign in some of my prolix tendencies.
I always have goals, but I hardly ever reach them, because they’re usually absurd. “I’m going to write five pages a day, starting now, right this second, until I die.” Then I end up in a bowling alley or on a Ferris wheel an hour later. Still, the goals keep me much more productive than I’d be otherwise.
Q: In an interview with SmokeLong Quarterly, an online flash journal who published “Ghost Bike” and “Bluegills,” two stories that didn’t appear in your debut chapbook, Phantasmagoria, you said that you found flash fiction “elastic and liberating.” How so?
A: I think readers are much more inclined to play along with flash fiction, to suspend their expectations. They’ll see a thirty-page story that begins, “Yesterday morning, an elf capered out of my wife’s rose garden and blah blah blah…,” and they may think, “fuck this,” and throw the magazine across the room. Whereas with a two-page story, they might think, “Why not? I have another subway stop to go. Sure, an elf. Continue.”
Also, there’s something about the form that invites stretching your limits. If something doesn’t work, it’s not that big a deal, because you didn’t spend too much time laboring over it. If you try that with a full-length short story—well, there’s a month or two down the toilet. Unless you’re one of those toilet half-full people and deem it a learning experience. And I’m much more a toilet half-empty kind of guy.
Q: What has flash fiction helped you discover in terms of your short story and novel writing? Or, is there a certain aspect of flash fiction that doesn’t move so easily among the other forms?
A: Great question. I think the weakest of my flash fiction work is maudlin, morbid, with very little humor to leaven these tendencies. Fortunately, I recognized this impulse early on, for the most part on my own, so I didn’t subject readers to too many of these pieces. If I’m trying to be serious without some kind of humor—that is, serious in a semi-comic way—then I know I’m in big trouble because I’m trying to be someone I’m not. I have to remind myself of this on occasion. Especially when I’m starting something new.
Also, flash fiction helped me control my section and scene lengths. Now I tend to work much more compactly, and view parts of stories and books as fungible, I guess is the word. Modular. It’s a liberating way to work. You don’t have to view chapters as these huge intimidating chunks.
Q: In your writing, it’s often what’s left out or implied or hovering along the edges that makes the story resonate on an emotional level. It can be an unexplained cancer like in “The Lady in the Closet,” “Holes,” and “Who’s Who in America,” the ‘unforgivable…unforgettable’ and unwritten insult in “Dunking Booth Man,” or the unanswered questions of “The Old Fashioned Way.” Is implication essential to flash fiction?
A: I think so. Many of my favorite narratives insinuate rather than explicate. I take a lot out of my stories to make them work this way.
Come to think of it, I’ve read a lot about this matter lately. There was this article, I forget where, making a case against exposition. Or, more precisely, the article advanced a compelling argument that authors can get away with a lot less explaining than they often provide.
Q: I’m curious if you found yourself reading poetry as you started writing flash fiction. I noticed that not only did images repeat inside the stories, but also words and phrases, notably, ‘the lady in the closet’ in “The Lady in the Closet,” ‘the old fashioned way’ in “The Old Fashioned Way,” and ‘we can do it’ in “Sir Montague.” Obviously, this sort of rhyming action or echo effect occurs in other forms but it seemed especially intense in your flash.
A: I hardly read any poetry. I’m not proud of this fact. Only, I’m much more interested in the “why” and “what if” and “what then” of narrative. The trajectory of character. What little reading time I have is reserved for fiction and nonfiction. On the other hand, I’m drawn to prose that evinces a sense of good old-fashioned craftsmanship, a word-by-word and line-by-line density. So, the prose I like is akin to poetry in that way.
Q: My favorite sentence in the chapbook is the last one of “Tricks,” ‘For a second it doesn’t even feel like everything’s changed.’ Is there a responsibility for character change in flash fiction? What have you found to be the most effective way to end your flash fiction?
A: I don’t think there’s a responsibility for change. There has to be a potential for change, I guess, but other things drive narrative forward. How many of us really change in a profound way? Or experience those massive changes of heart, usually inexplicable and unearned, that are ubiquitous in corny movies and bad novels? “You know what, I should listen to this incredibly wise hobo and stop cheating on my wife.” Give me a break, right?
I find that endings are the easiest things for me to write. I hear a rhythm in my head, and I know there’s a concluding note I’m searching for, even if that eludes me for a while. The answer is usually buried somewhere in the story, an extension of some nuance that I might have previously overlooked.
Beginnings are a different matter. Beginnings are tough for me.
Q: This question may say more about me as a reader than you as a writer, but I found myself amused by the oddball things that makeup your fictional world. I’m talking about Arnold Palmers, Turkish teas, Italian stationery, Egyptian Ramses, cocktail onions, fob watches, puka shells, dirigibles, and Tibetan crucifixes. Are these things at the tips of your fingers or are you surfing the Internet?
A: I definitely pick lots of random things out of a hat. Sometimes, probably like most writers, I’ll poke around the Internet for inspiration. For me, the writing process is becoming more and more collage-like. I seldom know what I’m assembling until there’s enough of it to stand back and discern some kind of shape.
Q: While we’re talking about the elements of your fiction, can you talk a little bit about how you selected the stories to appear in Phantasmagoria? What if anything got left out? How did you decide on an order? Did anyone collaborate with you on the sequencing?
A: I decided on the order and the sequencing. I even designed a cover, which was rejected, for legal reasons. This sounds more interesting than it really is. I designed a cover that looked like the logo for a popular brand of firecrackers and the publisher said, “Well, that’s probably going to be a headache,” and that was that.
I like a hands-on approach to whatever I put out, and the great thing about independent presses is that they’ll work with you. With bigger presses and magazines, you have to step back and hope for the best.
There are around fifteen or sixteen stories in Phantasmagoria and I left just as many out. About half of those belong in the file cabinet. The other half I’m hanging onto, and this year I wrote several more, enough for a collection of roughly the same size. I’m not sure what will become of it, if anything.
Q: You are a successful short story writer, currently putting the final touches on your collection Hellions, and are in the midst of writing a novel. When you sit down to write do you know if it’s going to turn into a flash, a story, or the beginnings of a novel? Have you ever expanded a piece of flash fiction into a short story?
A: I usually know if I’m aiming for a flash fiction or a short story, though I have many, many aborted beginnings I’m always trying to resurrect for one thing or another. Most of them are pretty bad.
I’ve whittled down many stories into flash fictions. Never the other way around. One day, I’d like to expand on “The Old-Fashioned Way,” a short piece in Phantasmagoria, because I sense a larger story there. I think that’s about it, though.
Q: I’m curious about what your writing day is like, mainly because of your essay “Tracking the Muse” in Blackbird. In that essay, you imagine what your life would be like in any field other than writing, eventually asking, “What about woodworking? Scrimshaw? Cabinetry? I bet those are gratifying jobs. You have a tangible result at the end of the day. When something is a piece of shit—say, a piece of shit chair—you know it’s a piece of shit chair.” Can you talk to me about your writing process? Are you a daily writer? And how do you know when you have a ‘piece of shit’ story?
A: Some hyperbole aside, that essay was honest. I go through phases. Sometimes my teaching schedule doesn’t allow for daily writing. If you teach several classes, that takes a lot of energy. I find that I do my best work in the mornings, and if I try in the afternoons, I can get it done, but not nearly as well. I also find that seasons affect my productivity. I work a lot in the spring and summer, almost twice as much, but after Halloween, with the time change, not as much. I’ve learned to accept this. It’s my creative metabolism.
It takes a while for me to realize I have a bad story on my hands. A few months. I know a lot of writers talk about a two-week cooling off period, but for me that’s not enough. Maybe I’m slow.
On the other hand, on occasion I’m sure I’ve achieved what I set out to accomplish and I’m convinced of that entirely, even when I’m told otherwise. This is rare, but it happens every so often. For instance, I’ll get ten or twelve rejections for such a story, and when ordinarily I’d begin to doubt myself and think about burning the evidence, I don’t with this particular piece. Then, lo and behold, some magazine or journal will email or call up.
Q: What do you have planned for your next project? What can we expect from you next?
A: A novel, I hope, and after that maybe I’ll start another. Some multimedia things. I have a few ideas.
Q: Name a writer whose work is currently making you jealous.
A: Dan Chaon. Wow. I read his novel, Await Your Reply, and wished I’d written it. Weird, spooky, funny, dark, moving.
Q: What kind of child were you?
A: Impish. Definitely impish.
Q: What’s your relationship with rejection like?
A: Just as strong as ever. I think we’re in it for the long haul.
Q: What story do you feel you suffered for the most? How?
A: Well, I’ve never suffered for a story. Frustration and self-doubt, maybe. But suffering? It’s not like I’m a coal miner or prison janitor.
Q: Do you have a writerly habit you’d like to break?
A: Definitely. Stop falling back into the comparative comfort zone of writing short stories and concentrate on longer works. Also, stop goofing around with my i-phone.
