
WOW: Congratulations, Sarah, on your third place win in the flash fiction contest. Where did you get the idea for your hysterical story, "The Event"?
Sarah: Thanks! My mother is actually a teacher, and would always come home with really bizarre and funny stories about things her students had done. None of her students ever actually stripped naked and ate a cactus; but when I was a kid, I had a weird fixation with eating bits of house plants. Thankfully, I grew out of it and never actually got caught doing it at school.
WOW: Ahh, so it's a bit biographical. (smiles) What's your writing process like once you get an idea--are you a planner or a pantser?
Sarah: I'm definitely a planner, although I do most of my planning mentally. I'll be writing an essay for class and trying to flesh out the plot of a story at the same time. A writing habit I have that I'm trying to get away from is that when plotting something, I'll have this set of funny anecdotes that I always try to shoehorn into the story. The plot then feels unorganic, though, so I have to go back and stay true to the characters and their world without forcing my own life onto them.
WOW: What are the challenges of writing flash fiction pieces, like "The Event"?
Sarah: I love tiny, character-building details; but in flash fiction, you can accidentally stuff a story with all nuance and no plot because you've dedicated so much space to building your characters. The challenge then becomes how can I say all of those things about this character in one detail? In "The Event," I wanted to establish that the young teacher was anxious, a bit messy, and not accustomed to handling things by himself; I think you can get all of those details from his blazer with the chalk dust on the sleeves.
WOW: That's an interesting look at building a character--even with few words. Do you often enjoy writing humor?
Sarah: Absolutely. I love reading humor, so it's the easiest thing for me to write. I hate reading a story without even a touch of humor in it. Sometimes people laugh at funerals: I think life is never purely comical or serious, so showing that nuance in writing is really important to me.
WOW: You have a very colorful bio! Besides a writer, you are also applying for law school, a college student, and a stand-up comedian! So, you must be wonderful at time management. Can you share a couple tips with us for fitting all your interests in?
Sarah: Thanks! I do a lot, but I'm also addicted to having a full night's sleep and an active social life, so I have to get pretty creative about time management. I am constantly prioritizing: how important is it that I eat lunch today? Can I wait until Saturday to wash my hair if it means that I can finish my assignment before noon? Also, I can accomplish a lot of my creative interests because it's so easy to work on them mentally while accomplishing other tasks. While I'm at work, I can think of a punchline to a joke or have an idea for a new story. If my hobbies included, say, knitting, I think that kind of multitasking might be more difficult. My general advice is: a) be a writer and b) the laundry can always wait another day.
WOW: Now that is a great philosophy! You also have a website and are active on Twitter. How important do you think social media is to today's writer? What do you share on social media?
Sarah: Social media is massively important to my generation of writers. I think that while Amazon has democratized online book publishing, a social media network like Twitter has democratized advertising for your projects. If I have no time to try and get the word out about something I wrote or a project I'm working on, I can just type it up on Twitter in 140 or fewer characters, and I've suddenly got an audience.
WOW: What's up next in your writing world, besides law school essays?
Sarah: I'm trying to finish at least one full-length play before Christmas; but unless I write it in the form of an admissions essay, I might not succeed. I also absolutely love the way that WOW! organizes their flash fiction writing contests and look forward to submitting my fiction in the future.
WOW: Great! We look forward to you entering more contests. Thanks, Sarah, for talking with us today. Best of luck to you in your future endeavors.
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