Shannon McLeod: On Fallow Periods, Traditional Plot Arcs, the Value of Peer Feedback, and Her Story Collection ‘Nature Trail Stories’
I first heard about Shannon McLeod’s new short story collection, Nature Trail Stories, somewhere on the internet months before its release. Almost instantly I added it to my “tbr” pile. I was already a fan of both Shannon’s work and the small press that was putting it out (Thirty West Publishing), but what really called to me was the title. As someone who spends between 15-20 hours a week on nature trails — usually alone, in my own head, often thinking about writing — it sounded like the perfect book for me. I imagined it would be something in conversation with Terry Tempest Williams and Edward Abbey. All solitude and dirt and environmental justice. It was not. What I got was a book where nature and nature trails are more of a backdrop to the human nature and all the various things it can lead a person to do (or not do). Like most things in my life (and in the lives of McLeod’s characters), what I thought I wanted and what I ended up with were two different things. At least for me, this ended up being a good thing.
What struck me most about Nature Trail Stories is the way McLeod captures the turmoil of wanting something desperately but not knowing how to get it. The characters in these stories walk and think and do everything but the thing it is they most want. A mother is desperate to connect with her son, but feels her love is too intense to share completely; a man wants a happy marriage, but is worried talking to his wife will reveal she doesn’t love him; a young girl wants to embody her sexuality, but she struggles to move past her sexual trauma.
The characters in this collection are full of longing, and yet they rarely give in to what they most desire. McLeod’s stories embody a narrative structure that defies the traditional arcs (you know the one that’s drawn like a pyramid and ends with the protagonist getting or not getting what they most want). This collection resembles life a lot more authentically in its patterns of longing and repressing and settling and adjusting. There are no straight lines or linear paths here. In nature, trails only come to an end because humans declare an ending (usually to make way for roads or buildings or because of a lack in permits to continue the path). In reality, nature continues on whether we have a path or not. McLeod’s plots have a similar vibe, an awareness of limitlessness, to their existence as part of a larger story. They aren’t manipulated into rising and falling action. Instead, they take on a more natural pattern in which tension is pulled and released repeatedly until the protagonist shifts their relationship to what they want.
I spoke with Shannon via Zoom about journaling, traditional plots, and the value of feedback.
Shelby Hinte: I sort of went into Nature Trail Stories thinking that it would be naturalist fiction and I was so shocked when it wasn't. I was actually really excited by that. It definitely felt in dialogue with naturalist stories, but nature sort of loosely connects the stories. Could you share a little bit about your conception of the book.
Shannon McLeod: I admittedly haven't written a whole lot of naturalist fiction. I mean I did in college through this New England literature program, but I've never aspired to that sort of writing. It's just that that's where I ended up —continually setting my stories on nature trails. Once I noticed this pattern, I was like, ah, I need to branch out. And then I also thought, well, what if I just embrace that and use that as the challenge and then use that constraint to try to push myself to write more of a diverse array of characters and different types of conflict. I think with that linking thread, it does create interesting challenges for you as a writer.
I started it off kind of as a joke on Twitter, like, wouldn't it be hilariously stupid of me to write a book of nature trail stories? I was thinking that sounds so boring to most people —especially for me as a reader. I tend to gravitate toward things that are a little more conflict driven, but I just kept writing these quiet stories and natural settings. I didn't set out for this to be the title. I definitely had not realized that it's a misnomer. Relatives have been like, you should contact such and such nature preserve. And I'm like, I really don't think if people pick this up after a hike or camping trip, this is going to be what they anticipate. The title just kind of unfolded during the publication process.
SH: There's this line at the very end of “If I Said Everything I Thought” that feels like a sort of theme of the book:
“Life was cruel. Your child gave you this whole new experience of love. On a higher plane, one you didn't even know existed before. And then you had to hold it back, pretend you didn't feel it coursing in you all rabid and wild when you looked at them sometimes. That he didn't seem to want it anymore —that my love scared him or repulsed him— was too painful.”
Something a lot of the characters in your collection have in common is that they are thinking something or desiring something and working really hard to not say or do it. What drew you to write about that particular type of internal conflict?
SM: I think that the environment of walking and being outdoors, especially in solitude for people, brings them to think about their internal conflicts and work through their stuff, which is why I love taking walks and hikes in my own life. But it might have been more unconscious for me because I think writers tend to sort of write things that they're dealing with and working through. So maybe that's just the big question in my life right now— desiring something. I think that just worked its way for my psyche onto the page.
SH: It's interesting that you call them “quiet stories” because sometimes the internal turmoil felt really loud to me. There’s such a tension in characters wanting something and not doing it. In “If I Said Everything I Thought” the mom is having all of these emotions and wanting to share them with her son but doesn’t. Then in “Easier to Convince” a younger female character is having different sexual desires navigating the line of going forward and then pulling back. How do you manage to write characters kind of towing these lines?
SM: I think that might be, again, part of myself coming out in my own writing. I don't necessarily think of myself as a hesitant or quiet person, but other people have described me that way. I think I am in my head a lot and I do vacillate a lot. I'm pretty indecisive, so perhaps that's just a projection. I know I'm not supposed to admit that, but I think that might be sneaking its way out. I also think that it's more real. I'm writing the characters that I want to read. So often I feel frustrated by books when the characters are so sure of what they want and they're constantly taking steps toward it because I think that's what we tend to think characters should do in a story. In the typical plot structure, the character should always be working towards something and they should be clear on their goal, but that doesn't feel real to me. That doesn't feel like the people that I know. Part of it is just wanting to have more of a real nuanced portrayal of human nature because I think we are all full of so much conflict. We want conflicting things. We think conflicting things and a lot of people are unsure.
SH: I know in workshops that question gets asked a lot like, what do they really want? What do they want more than anything? Is it nerve-wracking to write something that's sort of bristles against the expectation that there has to be some huge engine driving character motivation?
SM: I think it used to be more so in the past for me when I was kind of figuring out writing and what kind of writer I am. I, like so many people who go into writing, would love to write things that are mainstream and popular and on the New York Times bestseller list, so I did spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the formula for a novel structure or short story structure is, and what readers want. Usually, it's not the kind of writing that is the sweet spot for me. I don't think I bristle so much at it now because I try to just be accepting of the kind of writer I am and embrace that rather than push against it. I've seen over the course of many years that when I try to push against it, what results is no good. I just embrace it and thank my lucky stars that I have a day job that pays the bills because I know the kind of writing I do is not necessarily going to make me a living.
SH: In general, what does the process of going from first draft to final draft of a story look like for you?
SM: Usually first draft is just whenever I have an idea. I try to write my first drafts of short stories fairly quickly. Flash fiction is more conducive to that. There are a lot of flash pieces in this book, so it's really nice that I can crank those out in one sitting, and I can just get the idea out onto the page. Then I try to sit on it for a little while and not look at it for a bit. Then go back to it and read it. I read it out loud. I edit on hard copy pages usually, or at least I do in the later stages. I have a few trusted writer friends who give me feedback. I don't usually sit down to write a new idea if I don't feel the energy and the pull toward a certain idea. But in revision stages I'll kind of force myself to sit down and edit.
SH: What do you think are the benefits of hearing feedback from peers? Whether it's an MFA or a writing workshop, or just other writer friends, what is the most useful part of that process to you?
SM: I think there were useful things I got out of feedback earlier in my writing career that feels a little different than what’s useful to me now. I think my own sense of what works and what doesn't is stronger. Earlier it was just critical that I had anybody read it to respond to questions like what does the pacing feel like? Does this make sense? What's coming across versus what I intended to come across? Now I look for where in the story is it feeling baggy? What things are unclear? So it's kind of more about balancing out the narrative and how much is explicated versus implied. It’s really helpful to hear from a reader what they thought the story was about because sometimes it's not what I thought was coming across, or maybe they're more focused on the secondary story or a little plot line that I wasn’t super conscious of. But I guess that's just the case of anyone interacting with your art — they're going to focus on the parts that connect to them personally too.
SH: I love that question —what is this story about? It feels so juvenile in a way, but I totally agree with you that it's so useful. How do you use that information when someone shares with you that the story is different than what you imagined?
SM: If I have like a really strong emotional reaction to it, then I try not to make any hasty decisions or go into it and edit it right away. If I'm emotionally activated, I just need to take a step back and think about why I am defensive or why it is hitting me a little more strongly than other types of feedback. I think I can sense if I am accepting from a place that's receptive and wants the piece to be its best self, versus if I feel misunderstood. I think the thing about being a writer is that it's really easy to be misunderstood. You’re putting yourself out there to be understood and it can be a really emotionally difficult thing to be misunderstood, especially if it's by someone who knows you and knows your writing already.
I did have a reader who really misunderstood the last story “Easier to Convince,” which is a lot about childhood sexual trauma and how that shapes a person's behavior in relationship to sexuality. They suggested that I cut the character that is the abuser. They were like, oh, they're, they're not necessary. Why are they in here? Just cut them out. I'm like, no. That was one of those instances where I felt really kind of upset, but it was also really good information because this was a male reader, and it gave me information about how someone who's maybe never had that sort of experience would perceive the story. It actually helped me to turn up the volume a little bit on that interaction. There's a fine line between making sure that what you're going for is clear and pandering to an audience that is not really the audience you're trying to speak to anyway.
SH: You mention that the collection sort of started as a joke tweet. What was the process like once you started to realize you might have a full collection that needed to find a publisher?
SM: When I put together these stories, I was (and still am) on submission for a thriller. That kind of felt like the book I had been working on and editing and revising for so long. It was the one that my agent was putting out and that I pinned a lot of hopes on, so [Nature Trail Stories] was sort of the thing I was just doing for me. I put it out to a few small presses that I felt would be good fit and then the editor in chief, Josh Dale, of Thirty West Publishing reached out to me just around the same time that I was starting to send this collection out to some small presses. He was someone that I read with in Philadelphia last year during AWP. He read Whimsy and loved it, and he and was like, Hey, do you have anything you're interested in submitting to us? So it all just kind of fell into place. I feel like that is what tends to happen when you're not, when you're not pushing so hard for something in, in the writing world.
SH: I love the idea that you sort of had this distraction project almost. How did this project help with the process of trying to publish a novel?
SM: It’s been on submission for over a year and I'm like, this isn't going to be published and I'm fine with that. I've kind of like made peace with it. I feel like I've heard a lot of writers talk about the importance of having those distraction projects and that those are the ones that end up being more interesting too. I kind of feel that way about this.
I started writing the thriller just before the pandemic began, and I was inspired by my friend who's a prolific historical mystery writer, Katharine Schellman, and she has, over the last three years, written and published like five books. I think there's something wonderful about being around someone so prolific because it makes you feel like you can be too. She gave me feedback on the outlining process, and then I felt inspired to stick to a strict writing schedule. I thought, I'm going to crank this out, I'm going to write a thousand words a day or more. Then after lockdown began, I was like, okay, this is the one thing I can control and the one thing I can focus on. So it was kind of a beautiful project for me to do in the pandemic that was changing all of our lives. I lost a couple family members to Covid early in the pandemic, and it was really important and healthy for me as a person and a writer to have this to focus on. I think that's kind of helped me get over the fact that, while I've put many years and hours into this manuscript, it is really okay if it never gets published. It has also shown me more clearly that the stories that you feel called to write and that you have to write because the idea has some energy there that's really intriguing to you as the writer, are the stories that end up your best work. I don't want to downplay those writers who force themselves [to write] and are the ass-in-chair kind of writers who are really determined and write every day. But for me, I know that my best work is when I feel called to write. I think that's kind of changed my perspective on writing too over the course of this experience. It's helped me see what role it plays in my life.
SH: How is writing showing up in your life right now? What's it doing for you these days?
SM: I haven't been writing as much as I would like to and I feel the sort of itch that I feel when I haven't been writing enough. I've been journaling more lately but not writing a whole lot of stories. I kind of feel some things cooking in the back of my mind and I do really love talking about and thinking about fallow periods because I think those are true for everybody. You needlessly beat yourself up if you don't accept that is true. For me right now it's been journaling and also trying not to stress out too much about it because, you know, I'm trying to promote the book and I have a day job and I'm trying to give the people on my life attention and love. But I do feel the part of myself that needs writing asking for my attention, so I think in the coming weeks I'm going to be looking back on my daily journaling and looking at some notes in my notes app to try to get into a new project
SH: Could you just share a little bit more about what your journaling practice looks like and how it's impacted your writing?
SM: Everyone lately has been talking about The Artist's Way, and I bought that book several months ago and I read the first two chapters and I have not read anymore in months, but I did read the part about morning pages and that did stick with me. So in the morning I try to have a good morning routine — journaling a little bit in the morning before I meditate and get ready for my day has been a really great practice for me. I just try to keep it really low stakes and I do think that the low stakes writing is an important part of being a writer. If you don't write anything, it can be easy to build up writing in your head and think oh, I haven't written a story in X number of weeks or months, I can't do it anymore. It’s really easy to convince yourself that you can't get back into it. There is something really wonderful about writing just for yourself after you've published so you don't feel like everything you write needs to be for other people's eyes and needs to be ready for publication because that is not true. I don't think that will ever be true, but it can be really easy to psych yourself out.
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Shannon McLeod is the author of the novella, Whimsy (Long Day Press, 2021) and Nature Trail Stories (Thirty West Publishing, 2023). Her writing has appeared in Tin House, Prairie Schooner, Hobart, and SmokeLong Quarterly, among other publications, and has been nominated for Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and featured in Wigleaf Top 50. Born in Detroit, she now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. You can find Shannon on her website at www.shannon-mcleod.com
