Author Spotlight: Interview with Suzanne Grove
Suzanne Grove, author of our featured fiction piece this month, ‘Like Saline and Sugar,’ chats about her process, working through blocks, reading endlessly and how she knew the story was ready to submit.
Tamar Mekredijian: Can you talk a little bit about where your idea from this story originated? What sparked the idea? Or is it something that you had been thinking about for a while?
Suzanne Grove: Nearly all of my stories originate in the same way, arriving via the combination of a single sentence paired with a set of ideas or questions with which I’ve recently been obsessed. Both elements combine to spark the narrative and set the writing process in motion. Usually, a sentence drops into my mind fully formed. I give the act of reading 100% of the credit for this occurrence: The more I read, the more my thoughts seems to operate in this specific narrative mindset for a while afterward. That second element—the set of ideas or questions—owes a lot to reading, as well. It consists of whatever is actively haunting me, whether that be something I’m experiencing personally or consuming in various forms of media. The alchemy that happens next is just that—a certain kind of magic for which I feel like I can’t take any credit. All of the puzzle pieces suddenly lock into place, connections between them emerging and fitting together to form a story.
For “Like Saline and Sugar,” I remember standing over the kitchen sink, watching this squirrel who kept coming to eat the birdseed from a hanging feeder. The line “We said yes” just popped into my head. I knew it was a first sentence. It possessed that weight—that specific heft. Most importantly, it raised a set of questions: Who is this narrative “we?” And what are they saying “yes” to? I knew I had the seed of a story within that sentence.
As far as the puzzle pieces, I had five: For my current novel manuscript, I’d been researching mushrooms, specifically the psychedelic compound psylocibin, and learning about therapeutic uses for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. I’d also been thinking a lot about nostalgia, as well as domestic violence. What happens when the past that provides comfort for so many people doesn’t provide comfort for you? Additionally, I found I couldn’t let go of an experience I had while serving as an emergency substitute teacher: I was assigned to an in-school suspension classroom when the high school went into lockdown for an unspecified threat—a drill that I didn’t know was a drill. My status as a substitute meant no one had given me the literal memo that had arrived in the other teachers’ inboxes. And, finally, I’d recently logged into Facebook after a long hiatus to discover an influx of messages from former classmates or friends of friends of friends, trying to get me to join them in selling skincare products or leggings or supplements with promises of BMWs and Caribbean vacations as motivators.
The pieces all clicked together, and I had the basic, skeletal structure of the story. This is why I believe that so much of writing is simply observation, and why I try not to get too anxious when I’m not actually producing words on the page. As Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird: “There is ecstasy in paying attention.”
TM: Tell us a little bit about the process—how long did it take you to write the story? What was revision like?
SG: My writing process mostly stays the same whether I’m working on a novel, short story, flash piece, or poetry. Once I have that first line and the various puzzle pieces, I take endless pages of notes by hand or in the notes application on my phone. I’m a big notebook person. I have a daily personal journal, but I also have four separate notebooks for short stories, poetry, whatever manuscript I’m working on at the time, and general notes on the craft of writing. It’s a bit chaotic, but it works for me to have that separation. My initial notes on a story consist of whatever my mind creates that feels relevant, interesting. Bits of dialogue, descriptions, questions to myself about characterization. Afterward, I try to nail down some sort of coherent plot simply because I struggle tremendously with the concept of traditional plot. So many of the stories I love drive forward on the power of their voice, style, and interiority—and not necessarily hitting specific beats. But, I do find a few essential elements of plot to be so helpful to the way I think about story, and I’ve become an outliner because I actually feel a lot more freedom on the page when I have an outline. Rather than worrying about what action will occur next and how that action moves the story forward, I know where I’m going so I can focus on all the small details of every scene, every line. I know the opposite is true for many writers, but the page completely opens up for me when I work off an outline.
So, I think a lot about hooks and opening lines, which, for me, translates to emotion + mystery. Then, what is my character’s goal? What does she want, both internally and externally, and what does she need? Rather than straightforward conflict, I like to think about all the micro tensions that will occur throughout the story. I borrow my definition of tension from a line I heard while meditating with Headspace: “The space between what is happening in the moment and what we want to be happening . . . that is the space of stress.” Finally, I’ve had a lot of fun lately thinking about this idea of shifts or turns in fiction—an element to which I didn’t always pay close attention. For me, shifts are anything weird, surreal, unexpected, or disruptive. They create uncertainty, reveal new information, or show things in a new light. What small shifts occur constantly throughout the story and keep myself and the readers engaged?
After I outline those basic beats, I go through the whole story in my mind and take notes by hand again, writing down single words or descriptions or lines of dialogue, but also sometimes whole pages of narrative summary or scene. Whatever jumps out as I make my way through the unraveling of the story’s events. Afterward, it’s all a matter of fleshing it out via specificity and details. I absolutely cannot fly through a story. I have to fall in love with the sentences as I write—It’s what propels me forward. Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t wake up the next day and think everything I wrote is absolute trash. But, in the moment, I have to love it. Revision is all about letting the story rest for several weeks or longer then returning with fresh eyes. Does it make sense? Does it hold together? Is every single line doing some kind of work? Can each sentence stand on its own? This story is the result of a month or so of notes, a couple weeks of actually writing in Word, and weeks of revising every day. But, it’s also a result of every single thing in my life that helped me arrive at that first line and helped those five puzzle pieces assemble inside my brain. Not to be hyperbolic, but I really do think my whole life is probably there, somewhere. It’s all there on the page, in one way or another.
TM: What is your favorite scene, moment, or line from your story? Why?
SG: In some ways, I think that every time I write, I’m answering in response to other writers or other texts—all the stories and novels and essays and poems that reached out to me and said, You are not alone. I want to put that back into the world, to create something that reaches out that same hand to someone else. But, I also write because I find it really pleasurable to craft sentences. The certain energy or vibration of getting a sentence to feel right—to feel like it actually reflects the experience, the tone, the atmosphere, the image of what I’m trying to create. I’m happy with many of the lines about setting, but I think my favorite has to be this one: “But not everyone desires sedation in the form of nostalgia.” I didn’t realize it until I was talking about the story and trying to summarize it, but I had been thinking a lot about the poem “Against Nostalgia” by Ada Limón. It’s one of my favorites and brilliant in a way I can’t even begin to comprehend. Those final lines! So much of her work—so much poetry in general—just leaves me in this state of awe. In a lot of ways, I think my whole story is about nostalgia and can be summed up in that one line I wrote toward the very end.
TM: What do you do when you feel stuck in your writing? How do you work through blocks?
SG: I love this question, especially because I’ve been feeling stuck in my writing recently—probably since the summer. I had written about 60,000 words of my new novel manuscript, and I hit a wall. I felt a bit of imposter syndrome, and I began to feel unworthy of the characters I had created. I kept thinking, Am I really capable of turning these ideas in my head into reality on the page? Do I deserve these characters and their story? I loved those first 60,000 words, and I felt terrified I wouldn’t be able to carry that momentum into the rest of the story. I felt completely incapable. But, I also wasn’t reading as much, and I knew the block started there. I am always, always, always a better writer when I am reading, and reading a lot. So, when I get stuck, I read. I read lots of poetry. I also give myself permission to write just one sentence that exists independently of any larger project. Story doesn’t matter. Plot doesn’t matter. Forget charter motivation or stakes or conflict. I write just one sentence that I love without any context surrounding it. It’s freeing for me, and it allows me to trust myself again. Okay, at least I can write one sentence. And then I fall in love with writing again, and I trust myself again. For me, that’s what it boils down to: getting myself to fall in love with the work, over and over again.
TM: How do you know when you are done with a piece? And when do you feel ready to submit it?
SG: The idea of knowing when you’re done with a piece is something I’ve struggled with a lot. I know a project is right when it’s constantly whispering in my ear. When I can’t stop thinking about it. It follows me around when I’m walking the dog and cooking and showering and driving. It keeps tapping me on the shoulder, even during the revision stage. So, I think when that voice starts to quiet, I know I’m done. At that point, I also feel ready to submit; although, I will try to set the story aside for an extra couple weeks and come back to it one final time. I truly don’t think you ever come to the page as the same person twice, and maybe that’s why it feels impossible to officially label a story as complete sometimes. The short story I’m working on now—about a recent high school graduate who engages in a relationship with a beloved football coach after her father never returns home from a hunting trip in British Columbia, leaving her in a precarious financial and living situation—keeps morphing and shifting because the way I now approach the characters and events feels so different from when I first started taking notes on it over a year ago. I’m still me, but also a different person in a lot of ways. Still, if the story stops talking to me, and I know I’ve created space between creation and revision, then I’ll allow myself to submit it. I also want to say that I really trust the editors, too. I know that if I’m fortunate enough to get an acceptance, the advice from the editorial staff on how to better achieve the vision for my story will be so valuable. When it comes to publication, I’m never alone in the process.
TM: If you could give writers one piece of encouragement or advice, what would it be?
SG: Write about the things with which you’re obsessed. Read, endlessly. Technically, I suppose that’s two pieces of advice. Three: Really listen. I had a drama teacher who told us that 99% of acting is listening and reacting. We always talk about agency and active characters, but doesn’t everything follow this constant rhythm of action/reaction, action/reaction? Four: No one—absolutely no one—has your mind and your life experience. No one will ever be able to have your style, or bring what you bring to the page. So lean into that, hard. No matter what craft elements you struggle with or how many rejections you receive, no one will ever be able to truly duplicate your voice. And: Never stop paying attention.
Suzanne Grove currently serves as both the associate editor and short fiction editor for CRAFT. She is a Pushcart Prize Nominee, and her fiction and poetry have appeared in The Adirondack Review, Barren Magazine, The Carolina Quarterly, No Contact, No Tokens, Okay Donkey, The Penn Review, Porter House Review, Raleigh Review, XRAY, and elsewhere. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA, where she is at work on a novel. You can find her at www.SuzanneGrove.com.
