Let me introduce myself. I’m Abigail Humphreys, but everyone just calls me Abbie, so you might as well too. Although I’ve been writing for a large chunk of my life now, I didn’t really internalise that I could be an author until a year or so ago. A lot of that boils down to permission. It sounds weird when I say it like that. What it came down to, for me, was that I didn’t believe that I could write until other people believed it. And I didn’t really think that other people believed it until my Fiction Writing professor enthusiastically wrote me a letter of recommendation for this Master’s Program. It was a really validating moment.
‘Not Just Any Bear Will Do,’ is a love child of mine. The main character, Cordelia, is struggling with growing older, a worry that she had managed to keep at bay by working at a “Lolita café” where the escorts pretend to be underaged. When we enter the story, the life that she had carefully constructed around this childlike self is beginning to wear thin. As the story progresses, Cordelia turns towards murder and magic, like her mother had many years ago, to restore her sense of balance in the world.
“Sienna looked around her and into the mirror. For a split second they were twins, the way Cordelia and her mother had looked like twins in the vanity mirror in her childhood bedroom.” – ‘Not Just Any Bear Will Do’
The inspiration for this piece came from a short writing exercise that I did several years ago, as a test student for an interviewing professor. The exercise that he used has become my favourite un-blocking exercise. You imagine a character—in this case, a new character. Then, once you have the character, you imagine an awkward or odd situation, and you drop them into it and see how they react. In my case, I imagined a woman, one that identified as a bit younger than herself. I dropped her into a store, and she reacted by stealing a teddy bear. Over time, this story developed the magical and horror aspects, as well as having the pseudo-sex-work fleshed out a bit more. It took a while to get to the point that this story stands at, because there are so many small facets of the character’s world and interactions that could be expanded upon, and I had to decide which ones were crucial enough to the story to be included in such a short form.
I flip-flop between writing short fiction and writing novels. The short fiction is usually a snapshot that allows me to see a character react more fully. Novels are more about seeing a story through to the end. Right now, I’m working on a novel that is encompassing all of my writing attention, so it may be a while before I write short fiction again. I have a couple of snapshots to write off of in my mind’s eye, but I’m pretty sure they can wait a bit longer.
My biggest inspiration for writing short stories is Mariana Enriquez. She has such an amazing ability to build tension and discomfort in the reader. Her work is genuinely stunning. I think the piece that sticks with me no matter what is her short story, ‘The Neighbor’s Courtyard’. Enriquez layers the main character’s guilt over mistakes that she made as a carer for vulnerable children with the encroaching concern that a young boy is being mistreated in her new neighbour’s home. Enriquez does this so skilfully; not even the main character fully believes herself, with disappearing evidence and guilty flashbacks that make you wonder whether the main character isn’t just imposing her own issues on the new landscape. Enriquez builds the tension and disbelief skilfully, using sensory and descriptive detail that are genuinely unbelievable unless seen, until the very end. I can only work in the hope that one day, my writing will be as creatively suspenseful.
Right now, I’m about a third of the way through the first draft of my novel—a gothic horror and fantasy mashup set in the Edinburgh of 1864. I hope to finish sometime this year, although that depends on how much time I have left after completing my dissertation.
‘Not Just Any Bear Will Do’ will be published as part of Stryvling Press’ Time and Tide anthology later this summer.
Stryvling Press 