This is the first of many conversations I’ll be having with fellow Substack writers who’ve inspired me over the past few years. While “The Active Voice” podcast over at
has been an inspiration and fantastic resource for interviews with world-famous writers, I wanted to conduct these interviews with authors who may not be as world-renowned as the George Saunders or Patti Smiths of the world, but whose wisdom, though quieter, is still worthy of attention and reflection.Finishing the Hat Episode 1: Meg Oolders
Meg Oolders is a novelist and short-story writer who lives in New Hampshire. She writes
, a refreshing, playful Substack that writes flash fiction based on stock imagery from the world wide web (remember when people called it that?).What strikes me most about Meg’s writing is how human it is. While she often confronts questions of technology, Meg has a knack for storytelling that never forgets about humans, which are my favorite subjects when it comes to stories (the story down below, “Memory Five” for example, is a heart wrenching warming story about the importance of memory in a changing world.)1
“It’s fun. Prior to this, I didn’t write short fiction. I came to Substack after having a prolific year of vomiting novels.”
Meg very kindly took the time to expand upon some of my interview questions in written form, but Finishing the Hat is first and foremost a dialogue. The full recording is about 1 hour-long, and it’s not intended to feel like anything other than two writers talking about life, writing, and all the rest of it.
Here are a few of the questions we discussed during our conversation:
Tell me about the connection between your writing and the German word fernweh (“nostalgia, or yearning, for a place you’ve never been.”)
When it comes to writing novels (and congratulations on writing five in one year), are a “pantser” or a “plotter,” and what the hell am I talking about?
Many of your pieces have a darkly comedic, almost absurdist quality that shimmers at their dystopian edges. Two questions about your role as an artist: what is your creative vision for the future? And what do you think—not what you hope, but what you think—is going to happen socio/politically over the next decade?
This series is dedicated to the 63 paying subscribers who make this space and this kind of work possible. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You give us Substacking writers hope.
Finally, thank you to
for agreeing to this project. Our mutual friend, , will feature on Finishing the Hat in two weeks. Two weeks after that, will feature. Two weeks after that I’ll interview .And for now, a bientôt.
Interview with from Stock Fiction.
Q: I loved how you spoke about the importance—and unimportance—of the specific, detailed setting of your stories. Tell me about the connection between your writing and the German word fernweh, (“nostalgia, or yearning, for a place you’ve never been.”) Which places do you feel nostalgia for that you’ve never been?
I’ve never been anywhere!! I’m kidding. But my real “lived” life sometimes feels short on adventure, so for me the fernweh becomes more about visiting an experience that has never been mine than a place I’ve never been. I adore the opportunity that fiction provides for making a choice I didn’t make, or saying words I didn’t say. Taking a different path than my own. This is also a fantastic way to exercise my empathy muscle, which I believe is crucial for writing any kind of character driven story.
Q: Before we delve into the endless questions, I have about who you wrote five novels2 in from December 2021 until November 2022 (CONGRATULATIONS, by the way), what, in a few sentences, do you write about? And why is it always in 1st person POV?
I write about real life happening to real people. Or at least that’s what I try to write about. My books could be described as quiet, simply because there are rarely earth-shattering events or fantastical forces driving the narrative forward. I gravitate toward younger protagonists and their stories because I appreciate the importance of their journey in determining what kind of adults they’ll grow up to be. It’s also a place I feel I can move through with ample experience. If I’ve shied away from writing adult stories it’s probably because, up until very recently, I haven’t felt qualified to tell them. Ha! How’s that for revealing?
As for first-person POV, I find it’s the easiest way to get under a character’s skin. I’m big on eliciting “feels” in my writing and find first-person helps me do that. Since I wrote the Five for Five piece, I have been experimenting more with third-person limited POV. My short fiction piece Miles in Her Shoes is an example of that experiment. I’ve also messed around with second-person POV. My stories Everything and The Last of Us are good examples of that.
Q: Why in your fiction—and I hope this doesn’t sound like some puritanical critique, not the least because I am of the exact same mind—do you so rarely write about your family?
In fiction, I don’t have to. Of course, I do write about them indirectly, through my characters and their experiences. There are pieces of everyone I know and love (and despise) hidden somewhere in my stories.
Q: Tell me about your philosophy with epilogues. And what happens when you get picked up by a literary agent / editor / publisher and they tell you to delete them?
In Five for Five, I used an analogy of the epilogue being like the phone call you need from your kid who’s been off at college and you’re trying your best to leave them alone. The phone call is what I need, as the author, to know my characters are doing okay without me. If an agent or editor asked me to cut an epilogue, I would. In fact, I’ve started cutting them on my own from my final drafts, knowing that they’re a touch clingy. But I’ll still always write them. For me. And if any of my books ever turn into something big, I’ll have those little gems of bonus content lying around to release as fan igniter down the road. Insert maniacal, bookworld dominating laughter here.
Q: In your piece about your five novels, “Five for Five,” you talk about the difference between being a “pantser” and a “plotter.” I am of the same time, a pantser, and I have found a lot of joy and frustration as someone of this camp. Could you explain the difference between the two for people who aren’t familiar with the terms?[1]
A pantser is someone who writes by the seat of their pants. They don’t start a story with a specific point A to point B plan or story structure in mind. They may have some ideas of major events that will happen or how the book will end, but if they’re anything like me, those details usually end up rewriting themselves pretty quickly. Normally, my book writing process starts with a couple of characters having a moment in my head. And the more they talk to each other and move around, the more I learn about them as people, and the more their world builds itself around them and the more their actions in that world determine where the story is going to go. It sounds kind of insane, now that I say it. But that’s pretty much what I do.
A plotter takes a more hands on approach to setting up the world, the characters, and the specific acts and incidents that will take place in their story ahead of time. I’ve heard that genre fiction writers, those who write Science Fiction or Fantasy, do this often because they are essentially creating a new world from scratch. They have to set up a different set of rules for their world and its inhabitants. And I think some writers just prefer to know what’s going to happen. They create the blueprint, then they build the story from it. I know of some who pinpoint every crucial moment, from the inciting incident to the climax to the resolution, before they write a single word. Some people even go as far as to estimate the page number that these events will occur on!
I’ve tried once (and failed) to plot a story ahead of time. I’m too impulsive and I honestly love it when a story takes me by surprise. In a way that tells me that it’s working.
Q: Are you interested in traditional publishing? Have you tried to get involved? Do you care? When or where can I read your novels?
I do care, sadly. And the deal is raw. I haven’t exhausted my efforts trying to get agent representation and I will be making a concerted effort this year to … exhaust myself. This is because I know my limitations when it comes to self-promotion. I suck at it. So I know that the best chance my books have of being even moderately successful is through a traditional publishing house. That said – my shining star novel, See Dot Smile, is available to read FOR FREE at Wattpad.com. Here’s a link to all the YA goodness.
I also plan to put one or two of my other novels on Substack by the end of the calendar year. The first chapters will be free for everyone to read, but you’ll have to take out a paid subscription to read them in full. They’re my babies!!!
Q: I can’t help but notice that many of your brilliant flash fiction pieces—“Memory Five” in particular I found to be a real gem—have a darkly comedic, almost absurdist quality that shimmers at their dystopian edges. I want to ask about two different aspects of your vision: one being your creative vision for the future (focus on weekly writing? More novels?), the second being what you think—not what you hope, but what you think—is actually going to happen socio/politically over the next decade. As a mother, I imagine you’ve envisioned all manner of terrifying scenarios.
Creative vision – I will continue to put most of my creative juice into my Substack. I’m in a rhythm now and don’t see a reason to disrupt it. Behind the scenes, I may take steps toward self-publishing a short story collection. And I have an ideal for a novella that I may begin pantsing in my spare time. As for novels, I think I owe it the ones I’ve written already to try my damnedest to hook an agent and get a book deal. It’s a terrible long shot, but I really want to able to say that I tried--my damnedest—despite that.
World vision – As a mother, I worry about my kids growing up in difficult times, for sure. But they’re both already so much smarter and braver than I was at their age, so part of me wants to remain hopeful that they’ll live to see brighter days than these. But I’m also terrified of where things are headed in the short term. Which is why I think the world needs more books right now. More ways to see the world. More empathy. More love stories with lots of kissing. More friendship. More found families. More of the good stuff.
Finishing the Hat w/ Meg Oolders