SMFS Guest Post: Lisa de Nikolits on Writing Short Stories: Part Two

Please welcome back Lisa de Nikolits. Her short story, “Fire Drill” appears in the soon to be released anthology, The Best Laid Plans: 21 Stories Of Mystery & Suspense published by Superior Shores Press. You can read Part One here.

As a followup to my first blog, which established that a number of novels had come about as a result of the short stories, I’d like to explore the ‘how” of this a bit more.

So, let’s take Fire Drill and use it as an example of using a short story to create a novel.

We have Miranda, sad and sorry protagonist.

“My mirrored reflection stared back at me in the elevator. I was ridiculously exhausted and it was only seven a.m. I counted the red numbers as we passed each floor. Going up, when my whole life was going down. Down the tubes, that is. What with the shrinking industry, tenacious Shar-Pei lines etching their way into my cheeks, my teeth like old corn on the cob, the gums receding as fast as the prospects for my future, and my electric-socket hair, the prognosis wasn’t good. Sideburns, OMG, did I see sideburns?”

I love Miranda! She’s a character I simply must  explore more. Then there’s Alice B, antagonist, aka Princess Tight Pants in Red Stilettoes.

I don’t want to give away any plot spoilers but suffice to say that Miranda exacts revenge on Princess Tight Pants. And that the current plot point would make for a good ending.

I’ve been rereading Patricia Highsmith recently, prepping for a panel at ThrillerFest in July. The topic is Highsmith, Hammett or Agatha Christie? The Thrills of Mystery. I was particularly taken by a description of of fifty-year old minor character in The Price of Salt. I read the novel after I wrote Fire Drill but I was bowled over by the power of Mrs. Robichek. I wanted her to reappear and play a larger role but she remained in the shadows. Her life had disappointed her, she was a seamstress, a fashion designer but her eyes failed her and she had to survive by taking a job in retail, shovelling peas into her mouth at lunchtime in the crowded cafetaria.

Patricia Highsmith had no regard for this character, or so I felt. She was captivated by her young and beautiful lovers. It’s true that The Price of Salt was driven more by forbidden eros than a murder mystery so it’s not fair to judge for that and I’m not. I just think that her Mrs. Robichek, like Miranda, deserved so much more air time.

But what will I do with my Miranda? Her moral ambiguity is fascinating and I do have the culmination of her anger to work with but I will have to come up with more than that! My three-point structure will need sub-plots that intertwine and twist and keep the reader turning the page until the last word.

I’ve also been watching reruns of Prime Suspect, with Helen Mirren. I’m at the penultimate season and I’ve watched Helen, oops, Jane, fight the internal politicing with a stubborn irascibility that would have made Miranda proud. And, like Miranda, Jane is clearly on her way out. What if Jane Tennison was pushed too far? But Jane is more likely to become Prime Minister than take an Uzi into work, an option I considered for Miranda since workplace gun violence is such a terrible and prevalent story today. But no, I want something more devious, more deeply planned and mapped-out.

And my Miranda is written with humour and I’d like to keep that. I like noir with humour, Tarantino-style. Highsmith wrote Mrs. Robichek with derision, as if utterly certain that she herself would never end up like that, varicose-veined and blind, shovelling peas mindlessly. But Patricia Highsmith ended up alone, surrounded by cats, with heads of lettuce in her handbag, along with dozens of snails. All of that in itself fascinating, she was a tough cat herself, with nothing warm or fuzzy there.

I think what I loved about Mrs. Robichek was the bizarre encounter with protagonist, Therese Belivet. It was utterly strange – she took her young friend home and dressed her in red velvet and fed her a tincture with Therese took ill, overwhelmed by the ugliness of the life she had stumbled into. Oh yes, the horror! And that sort of thing would make for a very rich novel.

And that my new friends, at the Short Mystery Fiction Society, is where I currently at! Which may seem like I don’t have much at all but this is where the real fun begins. I’ll begin the long process of flipping through the Rolodex of my mind for plots and stories that I haven’t yet used and start making diligent notes. Could Miranda meld with other short stories that I’ve written? Can I use any of the other stories, like so many engine parts lying around the workshop? I have a wealth of short stories that I’ve never given up on and they’ve served me well, either as descriptions for longer works, or minor characters or as mentioned, as full stories.

Thank you for sharing this exploration with me and I’m very interested to hear your thoughts. Have any of your short stories become novels? Any tips or insights or observations you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them!

Photo by Bradford Dunlop

Lisa de Nikolits ©2019

Lisa de Nikolits is the award-winning author of eight novels: The Hungry Mirror, West of Wawa, A Glittering Chaos, The Witchdoctor’s Bones, Between The Cracks She Fell, The Nearly Girl, No Fury Like That, and Rotten Peaches. No Fury Like That was published in Italian in 2019 by Edizione Le Assassine under the title Una furia dell’altro mondo. Her ninth novel, The Occult Persuasion and the Anarchist’s Solution, is also scheduled to be published in 2019 by Inanna Publications.  Her short fiction and poetry have also been published in various anthologies and journals across the country. She is a member of the Mesdames of Mayhem, the Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime, and the International Thriller Writers.  Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits came to Canada in 2000. She lives and writes in Toronto.