Laura Elvery is an award-winning writer from Brisbane and the author of two short story collections, Trick of the Light (2018) and Ordinary Matter (2020). She has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies, and her work has been published in Overland, The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings and The Big Issue fiction edition.
What have been some of the seed ideas for characters in your own short fiction?
Finding the seed is a powerful and central part of my writing. I remember this for most of my stories—where I was or what I was thinking about at the time. A seed in itself is not a story, but when I cultivate it or mix it with other ideas, I’m usually on my way. It’s a thrill when I recognise that an idea I’ve been circling for a while has legs (lots of mixed gardening metaphors here, sorry!) And they often start with lots of questions. I’ll give you a couple of examples.
My story ‘Frost’ in Ordinary Matter is based on the life of Nobel winner Dorothy Hodgkin. For me, the seed was a portrait of Hodgkin that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. I saw the painting when I was searching online for information about Hodgkin. Then about a year later I saw it for real in London. The painting is gentle, beautiful, generous, and very honest about ageing. I wondered about the woman who had painted it. Then I found out it was Maggi Hambling, and then I researched her fascinating life. I wondered what it might have been like for Hambling and Hodgkin to sit together to create this piece of art. I latched on to an unusual voice and narrator, then beamed in and out of this room. So, in the end, the focus of this story is that moment between the artist and the subject sitting at her desk in her home.
Sometimes a seed lies dormant for a while until it finds its other half. For another story in Ordinary Matter called ‘The Garden Bridge’, I was inspired by an essay in The New Yorker about an architect’s proposal to build the bridge in the centre of London. In real life, construction never happened. But out of that came the question: what if it did get built? So I was getting somewhere. But that was just a concept, and I needed a character. A while later at a party I overheard a woman talking about working in a dental clinic. Done. In my story, my protagonist would be a dentist, her father would be a famous architect, and the bridge would be built.
I find it joyful and satisfying to look back on my notebook after I’ve written the whole story and see how my scrappy ideas progressed. I can usually pinpoint the moment where things fell into place and the guts of the story appeared.
What makes a character memorable in other short fiction?
There are so many ways for a memorable character to emerge and stay with me—and what is memorable for me might not be for others. But consistently I think it’s a character who doesn’t see something coming that the reader does. Or a character who breaks my heart in a really, really good way. A character who tries and fails. And at a sentence level, a character with a voice that is truthful, engaging and revealing is very hard to beat or forget.
How do you know when something isn’t working with your characters?
Usually when I can’t get them to say anything! I love writing dialogue and I get suspicious of short stories without it (hard to pull off!). So, if they’re literally not speaking, or if they’re stilted or contrived or totally boring, that’s a sign for me. And maybe I don’t throw the whole story away, but I might be convinced that actually the story belongs to Character B, not Character A.
Which short story writer has most influenced your work, and why?
I would stop whatever I was doing to read any new short fiction by Tony Birch, George Saunders or Carys Davies. Their short story collections continue to leave me thrilled and amazed. I love Saunders’ mash-ups of total odd-bods + wild tragedy + pure hope. Ditto Lauren Groff for her command of tone. Ditto Julie Koh whose work I love for her inventiveness, and Elizabeth Strout who is stunning and yet somehow so simple to read and comprehend. Lorrie Moore is one of those oh-that-character-just-broke-my-heart writers. I also remember reading Ellen van Neerven’s Heat and Light when I was beginning to write. I loved seeing how a connected collection can work. That book’s slenderness belies its enormous ideas and unusual turns in phrase and character.
What is the best piece of writing advice you have ever received?
Nobody else can write what you can. Nobody has the same way of creating new plots or characters. Nobody comes close to your experiences and memories to shape. I remind myself of this when I read others’ work and think how bloody good it is and I could never write like that in a million years. It’s a comfort to remember that you have ideas and feelings to draw from that are yours alone.
You can find Laura’s latest writing course here:
