34 | The Writer • April 2020
each one carries a lot of weight. I’d leave it alone
for a week or two, return to it and change one or
two words. But when you’re working with less
than 500, each word carries great importance.What are some of the challenges and benefits
of writing short-short fiction? How does it dif-
fer from novel writing? I think it’s an emotional
hurricane for me. I often get one line, or a visual,
and try to evoke the gut impact that it brings for
me. I’m naturally a tight, concise writer, so I actu-
ally enjoy the parameters that encourage me to
hone my natural inclination, which is to say a lot
by writing very little.Your fiction spans an impressive variety of
genres. How has not staying in one particular
authorial “lane” helped your craft and your
career? If I’m being perfectly honest, I doubt it
has. I think if I had picked a lane and stuck in it,
I might be more successful or well known. I
know I’d be easier to market, and my brand
would be more defined. I think career-wise it
might have been more intelligent to establish
myself in one arena. Craft wise, the thought
makes me claustrophobic. I read widely, so I
write widely.What’s your best advice for fellow short story
writers? The short story is a form that presents
challenges the novel doesn’t. World building,
character development and arc, plot...all of the
elements you’d have more room for in a novel
are constricted to a very small narrative. Flash
fiction is an area I excel at, micro-focusing on a
single moment and the impact of it. A short
story is much more difficult for me. You need
more than one moment in a short story, but you
need to give equal weight to each and not
become involved in a single scene to the detri-
ment of others. It’s a tricky balance, and one I’ve
not mastered yet.What inspired you to write “Something Hap-
pened?” I grew up in a very rural area and still
live there. It’s a lifestyle that is easily romanti-
cized, but it also carries a fair amount of danger
with it. I spent most of my time in the woods,
playing alone, and I often did carry a hatchet with
me. As an adult, I think about some of my activi-
ties and cringe...like purposefully crossing a
flooded stream because I liked how it felt when
the current carried me.
What was your writing and revision process
like for this story? It came out fairly quickly, and
the tone was exactly what I had wanted right
from the beginning. However, with so few words,
INTERVIEW
Mindy McGinnis
Photo by Amy Parrish