There are many reasons why I’m thrilled to be presenting Nik Perring here today.  He’s a lovely, generous writer who I’ve gotten to know through his blog, here.  He makes me laugh and I believe he has an interesting and rather quirky take on life.  But mostly, he’s a fantastically talented writer with a new collection of stories out called Not So Perfect.  Roastbooks’ description is spot on:
22 short, short stories; 22 not so perfect lives. Bird watchers come out at night, couples perform love surgery, and a woman is throwing up animals. The extraordinary is everywhere, but an unsettling familiarity pervades.
Nik Perring’s brilliant debut collection demonstrates the underestimated powers of brevity. Intricately crafted and filled with dark humour, his 22 stories examine the conundrums and contradictions of human relationships, and ask us what it is to be human.

Not So Perfect is a masterclass in flash fiction. Each story is a small gem and I found myself sitting and staring into space in amazement after each one.  Luckily, I was able to ask Nik all sorts of questions about his craft which I can share with you now.

Thinking specifically about “flash fiction”: I see this as a rather new genre. Why are you drawn to it? Do you think its form can accomplish things that other forms can’t?
Hello! Thanks for having me here, Sue. I think it’s certainly true that the term ‘flash fiction’ is a new one and also that the form (as well as the short story) has seen a resurgence in popularity over the past few years (which is wonderful!) but I’m not convinced it’s all that new a form. I think very, very short stories have been around for a long, long time. Fables, folk tales and fairy tales are often brief. And we shouldn’t forget the brilliant short-short stories people like Hemingway, Lovecraft, O Henry, Chekhov, Vonnegut and Kafka produced.  (Here’s one of my favourite Kafka shorts).  But, history lesson aside (sorry!) I think I’m drawn to writing short-short stories because of their immediacy. Often a piece of very short fiction is no longer than the moment it’s describing and, like those moments – which are often so short – they stay with us long after. I think, also, that flash fiction gives us the opportunity of being more direct, of getting straight to the point, and then out again, quickly.
   Can it accomplish things other genres or forms can’t? I think I’d have to say yes but I’d argue that all works, regardless of length, should all do kind of the same thing – be that affect the reader, entertain them, make them laugh, move them or change them in some way. I think, because of its brevity, flash fiction when done well has a big echo, a long resonance. Flash fiction can be a single handclap in a cathedral rather than the full choir of a novel.

Several stories have magical or “unreal” images, such as spitting up fire, throwing up animals, cutting open bodies to store hearts. Do you think flash fiction is especially suitable to this sort of “magic realism”?
Again, as far as content goes I see absolutely no reason why a longer story can’t have unreal or surreal images. If the story’s good then it’ll work regardless of length – mostly, I think, because a story finds its own length. That’s paramount for me – I never set out to write something of a specific length; that’s for the story to decide.
   I think the key thing I try to remember is that the wacky, surreal images and situations I make up aren’t the point of the story – there’s nothing worse than a gimmick. I work hard at justifying these images and trying to make them relevant and familiar, so they end up not being all that weird after all. One of the last stories in the book (Number 14), for instance, is about a woman whose house is decorated in Post-it notes – and that image of walls covered with them was absolutely where the idea for the story came from. But then I asked why and came up with a reason that, I think, is plausible and human.
   By contrast, and this is going back to the question of whether or not flash does magic realism better than a longer piece: I’d point people to Neil Gaiman’s “Stardust”: where the main character is a star who’s fallen to earth. That’s a terrific and very believable story, and it certainly doesn’t suffer from being novel length. In fact it couldn’t be anything else.

When do your pieces begin for you? With an image? A sentence? A concept? Or do you just sit down with your pencil and start to write. I think this is stemming from a knee-jerk assumption that a piece of flash fiction may not require the same amount of planning as a longer piece might. Is this correct?
Ooh good question! Really it can come from anywhere, but mostly: an image or a question, or a situation. I like asking what-ifs? What would happen if a young boy played with a grenade? What if there was some illness where a person literally couldn’t stop? What if a man’s wife threw up animals? You know – how would he feel about that? What would it be like to live with? Why would she be doing that? What does it mean? And then – what could that represent?
   The writing process and the amount of time that takes can vary hugely.  You’re right in that first drafts tend to be written quickly. But my process isn’t a fast one at all. I’ll often write several first drafts until I’ve found the right angle. “Kiss”, the first story in the book, was written at least half a dozen times from different points of view – I think a daughter narrated the story at the beginning. And once that’s done there’s considerable redrafting and tweaking, and read-throughs. So a story as short as “When You’re Frightened, Honey, Think of Strawberries”, can take a week or two to finish – which could be the same length as something six or seven times as long. But then others come out pretty much already done; “I think Seconds Are Ticking By” was done in an afternoon.
   And as for planning – with me, there’s pretty much none. Just an idea of where I want to go. And a fair dose of faith and/or hope!

What’s the story behind including the illustrations? I do love them and they do add to the atmosphere of the book, but the stories could well stand on their own without them. Are they just for fun?
I love that you love them, Sue! I do as well.  And they were all my publisher’s idea (thanks, Faye!). Faye suggested it might be a cool idea to have someone illustrate the eBook version, which I thought was a terrific idea, and then we saw the illustrations we both agreed that we should try to incorporate them into the paperback. And I am thrilled with them (and the cover) because I think they compliment the stories perfectly. It’s definitely worked out wonderfully well.

Here’s a question close to my heart: when I wrote “Tangled Roots” and had half the book in the voice of a man, I was questioned about whether I thought that was difficult, or even possible. So now I ask you: did you think twice about writing in women’s voices? Do you have trouble doing that ever? I must say, I never thought you faltered when you took on the voice of a woman. I think “Where Did He Go, You Wonder?” is particularly suc
cessful, even though it is actually 3rd person, I suppose. I thought you completely got into the head of an older woman with that one. Were you aware of doing something “challenging” with that, or did it just come out like any other story comes out?

Thank you! I’m thrilled you think so!  I can honestly say that I never thought twice about writing from a woman’s point of view at all. I’d been sitting in a pub, reading, when an older couple came in. And although they’d both made an effort to look nice and to go out, neither seemed happy. They seemed almost annoyed with each other.  That was the seed from which “Where Did He Go, You Wonder,” came from. I started asking myself why they could be like that and came up with the idea that became the story. But that theme (or idea) of loss and of being angry with someone for simply being them was something I hoped people would understand and get regardless of their sex. I wrote it from the woman’s point of view because that’s what felt the most natural and because that’s where I felt the story came from. If that makes sense! Sounding convincing as a woman wasn’t anything I worried about until the story was done, and questioning whether the voice worked was part of the editing process – but it certainly wasn’t the only thing I questioned!
   So no. It wasn’t like I’d deliberately set out to challenge myself to sound convincing as a woman, though obviously making it convincing is extremely important: if it’s not believable then the story doesn’t work.  So I think the voice is one of many things that has to work, and work with all the other components: and be interesting on top of it all! And, hopefully, moving as well. I like it when someone thinks something I’ve written is moving. That’s good!

We could chat like this forever.  At least I could.  But I think all that really needs to be said now is buy this book.