Nikki Erlick: On Using Art to Bring Order from Chaos, Writing Through the Pandemic, and Her New Novel “The Measure”
Nikki Erlick's debut novel The Measure explores the concept of fate through eight characters coping with a world-shattering phenomenon: one morning, every person awakens to find a box containing a string that measures the length of their life. This new knowledge sparks dramatic shifts in the way the characters live, relate, and make decisions, and sparks questions around how we choose to spend the time we have.
I had the pleasure of speaking to Nikki about using art to make order from chaos, writing through the pandemic, and using impossible magical elements to shine a light on our daily lives.
Kasia Merrill: It was such a pleasure to read your book, The Measure. The thought experiment of ‘what would happen if we knew our own fate’ isn’t a new one, but I feel the way you explored it was really unique. What inspired you to explore this concept in particular and through the use of the strings?
NE: I wish there was a single lightbulb moment that I could point to that inspired everything, but it was really an evolution of ideas. In terms of the concept itself, I've always been someone who struggles a little bit with how random life can feel and how fate doesn't seem to treat everybody equally. Things can feel very out of control at times, especially in times like these past couple of years that we've all lived through. So I think it's a pretty universal thought that we all have at some point, this question of “how much power do I actually have over my fate?” There's a quote that I really love from Stephen Sondheim that art is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. I thought about that a lot while I was writing because I wanted to see if I could take the chaos of life and destiny and these unanswerable questions and try to turn them into art. Stories are really a way of helping me navigate the world and navigate its challenges. I think they are for a lot of people. When I was trying to figure out how to write a story about something as complicated as fate, I found myself thinking about the ancient Greek mythology around destiny and the belief in the three furies, the three sisters who were thought to spin these strings of life or threads of life on their spindle and that they were in charge of measuring out the amount of time that every mortal would receive. And I had this ‘what if’ moment? What if these strings were real and what if we could see them and that got the wheels turning initially, but I didn't want people to just be given their string and forced to look at them. I thought it would be more interesting and powerful if it was a decision that each person could make for themselves. And so even if the characters’ fates were predetermined in one sense in the story, the characters still retain a sense of power and agency because they have the choice of whether or not to know, as well as the choice of what to do with that knowledge. And then when I was thinking, if this is going to be a choice, who could possibly resist that temptation and resist that curiosity of looking? Who could say no to this choice? And that reminded me of another famous Greek myth that everybody knows; Pandora's box. It’s a question of temptation and curiosity. I thought maybe I could marry these two ideas and have the strings arrive in a box for each person. Then the rest of the story took on a life of its own from there.
KM: I love that mesh of chaos and organization. In the book, everyone knows of the strings and the lengths of their lives, but nobody knows why they know now. I love that it’s kept a mystery.
NE: Yes. I think for me, this story was less about creating a mythology around these strings and giving all the answers. It was more about telling the human side of the story. How do these people deal with the consequences of this inexplicable phenomenon?
KM: Another thing that makes this book unique is how you explore the idea through both a micro and macro lens. It'd be very different if it was just one character or two characters who know when they’re going to die. But it's through a larger lens; the whole world knows. Was it difficult to balance the impact of this appearance of the strings with the individual characters, the community they're in, the country, and the world? How did you do that? It’s a lot of strings to bring together. (laughs)
NE: (laughs) I think initially I thought this would be a much smaller story and I would only have a small number of characters. My first loose outline was just two main characters and a love story between someone with a longer string and someone with a shorter string, and really focusing on their relationship and how the strings would impact that. But the more time that I sat in this world, I felt I couldn't ignore the fact that there are many possible reactions to this phenomenon as there are human beings on earth. Everyone would have a different story in this world. I wanted to be able to open it up a bit more and I couldn't help but wonder how doctors would respond to this scenario when they're dealing with life and death. And how might a soldier respond when they're possibly entering a dangerous career? How would a politician respond? Could they use this crisis to shape the broader sociopolitical landscape? I felt like I had to explore all of these other perspectives and would've loved to keep going and adding in even more because there are so many potential storylines here. Obviously, I had to cut myself off somewhere. I think exploring the broader societal impacts was also influenced by writing during the pandemic, feeling like I was witnessing something that was very similar to what I happened to have already started writing about. And the effects that the pandemic had on our society as a whole was kind of pushing me to explore the similar kind of grand scheme effects that these strings would have in my book.
KM: Yeah. I was actually curious about that. That's related to my next question: even though fate is a timeless concept, the way it's explored in this book feels very relevant to today. Did today’s sociopolitical landscape shape your narrative as you were writing, or did you plan the connection from the beginning?
NE: The characters all predated the pandemic, so the pandemic didn't inspire the book in that sense, nor did any political ongoings. But I think when I realized that I was writing this story in which people would inevitably become grouped into short stringers and long stringers, I wanted that experience to feel as authentic and realistic as possible. I wanted the treatment of the short stringers to feel as realistic as possible. And so, in that sense, I did turn to history and the modern day for guidance. I tried to draw inspiration from many different traditionally marginalized groups in our society. The treatment of the short stringers within the military draws upon the history of the LGBTQ+ community within the military. The profiling of short stringers as potentially being dangerous or terrorists certainly draws upon the profiling of Muslim Americans, as it is here in the US. I wanted to portray the real way that we have treated people in the past and continue to treat people. Unfortunately the book is coming out in a time when hate crimes against Asian Americans have been rising and antisemitism is rising and there is this really strong ‘us versus them’ mentality that I did want to capture in the book, but my hope was that the book is ultimately saying that empathy and compassion and love can triumph over our tendencies towards tribalism and fear and othering that we tend to do as a society. And that there's always a reason to hope that the next generation might do things better.
KM: That definitely comes across. You mentioned that you came up with the characters first and then the narrative shaped out. How did you decide which characters to give a voice to? You could cover anyone in the world during this particular phenomenon. Did you choose characters to fit these topics you're talking about? Or was it sort of these characters’ voices came out to you?
NE: It was a process where the characters were appearing in my head, like one by one or, or two by two Everyone's always like, “Are they based on you? Are they based on people in your life?” They're not. I think I always knew that I wanted to have two sisters in the story, because I have a sister and that relationship is very important to me. I knew that there would at least be two voices who were modeled off this sister relationship. And as I mentioned, I initially wanted the book to be a love story. So I knew that I would have couples here and I thought that maybe it would be interesting to explore both a couple who is already in love when these strings arrive, and then a couple who has not yet met and has not yet come together. The strings are part of what brings them together to fall in love. I wanted to explore those two different sides of it. The rest of the characters, the doctor, soldier, and politician, were out of thinking about who is in a position to particularly be impacted by this crisis. Everyone would be impacted personally, but who's in a position to be impacted more professionally? Who also has power to shape society? Somebody in politics has power to change the landscape based on these strings arriving. I thought that would be an interesting perspective to add in as well.
KM: That reminds me of The Leftovers, in the way that it’s structured with the different characters. I feel like Tom Perrotta honed in on certain voices that would make more sense for that situation.
NE: Yes. What I liked about The Leftovers is that they're “ordinary people” even though they're in the middle of something quite out of the ordinary, and that's really what I wanted to do here. To have the bulk of the characters be people who are not necessarily in extraordinary positions of power; that they're teachers and journalists and folks who readers can hopefully see themselves in.
KM: Were there any books that inspired you as you were writing this book?
NE: Hmm… not so much as I was in the midst of the writing. I have always enjoyed books that bring in genre elements or unrealistic elements into what otherwise feels like a very realistic and recognizable world. Something like Kevin Wilson's Nothing to See Here, where there's this small supernatural twist that these children can catch on fire, but everything else about the world is recognizable and feels like our own. I like the way that these books bring in a fantastical or unrealistic element to shine a new light on our daily lives and inspire questions that we might not be asking on a normal basis because our world doesn't look like that. But when we bring in this kind of unfamiliar twist, how does that make us reevaluate what is familiar? Something that has more of a hybrid genre interested me. I enjoyed exploring that with this book. And I love Ted Chiang. His short stories are these amazing thought experiments, scientific and philosophical. He's the master of the “what if” story?
KM: Those kinds of stories are always so much fun. I read that you're also a travel writer. Did your travels and your experience of travel writing influence this book as well?
NE: Yeah. I was really lucky to be a travel writer for several years. Really up until March 2020 when travel ceased to exist temporarily. My scenes in the book that are set in Verona are based on my real travels and my love of that city. I had very powerful moving experiences there. Especially in seeing the letters that everybody writes from all around the world to Juliet. I always thought maybe there's a way I could put this into a book because it's such a unique, special place. I think also being a travel writer and having the sense of how large and varied the world is inspired me. I don't know other cultures as well as I know the USA’s culture. So obviously I wanted to focus it on here. I felt like I could make the most commentary on my own culture. But I always knew that I wanted to sprinkle aspects of the global nature of the phenomenon because of knowing that other countries wouldn't necessarily behave the same way that we behave in America. We have a very unique culture here. So keeping that open-mindedness that when characters are referencing other countries, they might be behaving in vastly different ways than we are here in America with these strings. (laughs)
KM: I thought that part was really interesting, as well as how you explored the concept of the scientists around the world working together to understand what was happening, which is very much like the pandemic.
NE: Absolutely. The world is so interconnected now, and I wanted that to come across as well. Certainly, my hope is that if there were some sort of global phenomenon, like these strings, it would be a moment for the world to come together and collaborate.
KM: Right. Rather than being divided. Previously, you mentioned that you took the concept and then it went in its own direction. This book seemed like it required a lot of organization and planning. How much organization and planning were required, and how much was you letting the story run with itself?
NE: More organization was probably required than I did to begin with, which I realized later. I had a very loose outline. I knew a couple key moments I wanted to hit, and I did know the ending from the start, but everything else I wrote my way through. To keep everything organized, I did try to write only in one character's perspective per day. But once I was in the revision stage and working with an editor, and we were moving things around timeline-wise, I really wished that I had a much more detailed outline from the start. It would’ve spared me a lot of confusion when moving things around and trying to make sure that everything still flowed. That was my biggest lesson learned: make as detailed of an outline as possible in the beginning, unless that’s just not your style and that works for you. Going forward, I would like to be a little more of a planner. Cause you can't really go back and do it once you're so far down the line.
KM: What is your writing process like? Do you write every day or in spurts, or just when you feel inspired?
NE: I wish I had a better schedule. I can write for eight hours straight and realize I didn't stop to eat a meal one day, and then another day have total writer's block. I never know what's going to happen each day, but the one thing that's consistent in my process is that I need total silence and total isolation to write. I've tried going to libraries or cafes because writing can be lonely. I want to feel like I'm part of this community with other people also typing at their laptops in the cafe. But I can't do it. I need no distraction, no noise; just me and my thoughts. I have to lock myself in my bedroom and write. (laughs) I have to embrace the solitude of the craft.
KM: (laughs) Yeah. That makes sense. And you're living in New York City, right?
NE: I was when I wrote this book and then I actually just moved to California.
KM: Oh, okay. I wanted to ask you if that was hard dealing with no distractions while living in the city.
NE: I had a very tiny apartment, so it was hard to do. (laughs) The city is so loud. There's so many kinds of outside noises. Sometimes I would even have to put in headphones with white noise to really get the total silence that I needed. At least the good thing about the city is that even if you're locked up in your apartment all day and you haven't seen or spoken to anyone, you still feel surrounded by so many people. You look out your window and you're literally looking directly into your neighbor's apartment, and you can see everything happening in their apartment. And so, you don't really feel quite as solitary. At least, I didn't.
Nikki Erlick is a writer and editor whose work has appeared online with New York Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, Newsweek, Cosmopolitan, Indagare Travel, The Huffington Post, and Vox. She has a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard in Comparative Literature and a master’s degree from Columbia University in Global Thought. The Measure is her debut novel.
About the interviewer
Kasia Merrill is a fiction writer based in Maryland. She holds an MFA in creative writing and works as a publishing director for a children’s publishing house. Her fiction has appeared in Breadcrumbs Mag and Fiction International, and in 2022, she was selected to be a Peter Taylor fellow for the Kenyon Writer’s Workshop. She is currently at work on her first novel.
