The Method by Tom Vowler

12 May 2012

Can you tell our readers what to expect from your current short story collection, The Method?

It’s an award-winning book of twenty stories, featuring characters you are mostly glad you’re not. Some will make you laugh, some cry. Others might scare you a little. There are lovers, swingers, an old man who must learn to kill again, a pair of luckless gamblers, and a father forever tormented by the few minutes his back was turned, to name a few.

Where did your idea for each one come from?

Fortunately, not from personal experience. At least not many of them. I usually begin with a concept, say revenge or unrequited love, or grief or obsession, and then allow characters to form, see how they behave, where they take me.

Have you always had a preference for short story writing?

I came late to the short story, in terms of reading, but it’s where I began my writing career. I love the stamina required, the often Sisyphean act of writing a novel, but much of the thrill and intensity found in short stories is mimicked in writing them.

What challenges do you face in short story writing that are different to novel writing?

The short story is literature’s high wire act. The main difference comes from its intensity, which must be achieved from first to last, so that every word says more than it appears, the whole somehow greater than the sum of its parts. The real challenge is to leave the right amount of space for the reader, so they both experience and complete the story. The best stories transcend themselves, creeping into the reader’s mind before detonating.

It has been said that all the characters are good at losing things in your collection, was this an intentional theme?

I think themes in fiction tend to find the writer, emerging (largely unconsciously) from the primordial swamp that is the sum of your experiences and imagination. For me, it’s the one thing I don’t orchestrate, at least not initially: a concept leads me to characters who in turn drive the story. Themes evolve once characters are fully formed.

The stories and characters are sometimes extreme, however we can still connect with them, how is this so?

I think the great loves and losses, the pain and joy of people’s lives, are metaphors for each other, allowing us to relate to the most acute experiences as if they were our own. As long as the characters resonate, convince us they’re real, the connection is made. That said, I try not to be didactic; the meaning in my stories is often up for grabs after reading.

What is your background in writing?

I graduated with an MA in Creative Writing before submitting my stories to literary journals and competitions. My first book was fortunate enough to win a couple of prizes and last year I signed a two-book deal. There’s really only one apprenticeship to be served, though: Read, read, read.

How has editing others’ work helped your own?

It’s allowed me, I hope, to be objective when I come to my own work, to understand why some fiction soars and delights, whilst other writing falls flat. It’s important as a writer to develop a good ear – for voice, for dialogue, for language – and this comes largely from reading. But, yes, my work as an editor has been invaluable. Seeing others’ mistakes (usually) stops you from making them.

Can you tell us a bit about your
forthcoming novel?

A dark psychological thriller, set largely on the uplands of Dartmoor, it follows Anna, a ceramicist with a terrible secret and a past that comes back to haunt her.

What is there to follow, have you thought that far ahead yet?

I’m working on another novel at present, again someone whose troubled past won’t let go of them. There are some stories brewing, too.

A discount of 50% (plus free postage) is available to readers of Female First for Tom’s book The Method. Simply visit saltpublishing.com and use the code ‘FEMALEFIRST’.

Tom Vowler’s debut short story collection, The Method and Other Stories, won the international Scott Prize in 2010 and the Edge Hill Readers’ Award in 2011. Now an associate lecturer at the University of Plymouth, Tom has just secured a two-book deal with a major publisher. His forthcoming novel is a psychological thriller set on Dartmoor. Tom is also Fiction Editor for the literary journal Short FICTION.