Bookshelf Snooping - Nik Perring

Your childhood favourite

I remember really loving Mossflower, by Brain Jacques.

Your current favourite

There really are so many, it’s impossible to pick one. I recently read Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ for the first time and I loved that so, for now, that’s what I’ll go with.

Your top five authors

Again, SUCH a difficult question to answer as there really are so many. But the first five who come to mind, I think, would be:

Aimee Bender

Etgar Keret

Kurt Vonnegut

Michael Kimball

and Kafka.

Book(s) you’re reading now

At the moment I’m reading a book ‘Naïve. Super’ by the Norwegian, Erland Loe. I’m finding that a lot of the books I enjoy the most are translated, and I’m not sure translators receive quite as much credit as they deserve. So: Nice one, translators, from this writer!

Book(s) you’ve pretended to read

I don’t think I’ve ever lied, saying I’ve read something I’ve not. Knowing me it’d be to the person who was an expert on whichever book I said and I’d get found out straight away. I wish I’d read more Dickens though, and more of the classics. But I haven’t, and there’s not much I can do about that as there’s so much other stuff I want to read first.

Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover

I think I actually only did this for the first time the other day, and that was for ‘Naïve, Super’. We all know we can’t judge a book by its cover, but a good one does help. (Link for the cover: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Naive-Super-Erlend-Loe/dp/1841956724/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323529968&sr=1-1)

Book you’re a champion for

I’ve been banging on about Aimee Bender’s books for a few years now, and I can’t see me stopping just yet! They’re magical. They’re brilliant. I think, and this is only my opinion, that she’s the best writer out there at the moment. So I’d heartily recommend ANY of hers. And probably Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, too, because that is a genuine masterpiece. As is Michael Kimball’s ‘Dear Everybody’.

I’m a champion of mine as well, of course.

Book that changed your life

‘Willful Creatures’ by Aimee Bender. It showed me that I could write the kind of things I wanted to write, and also the standards I’d have to aim for. And without my professional hat on, I think the stories in it are about as perfect as you’ll find.

Book you most want to read again for the first time

Probably ‘Willful Creatures’ again, for the magic. Or Frankenstein, maybe.

Book you turn to for comfort

I don’t tend to re-read books, so the ones I do, for whatever reason, I think makes them exceptional. Again, anything by Aimee Bender. Anything by Etgar Keret. There’s a passage in ‘Dear Everybody’ that’ll make me cry, nine times out of ten, whenever I go back to to read it. It’s on page 236 of the hardback, and it’s about dividing the memories of a relationship once it’s over between the two people who were in it. It’s stunning.

Favourite line from a book

So it goes.

*

Nik Perring is a writer, author, and editor from the UK. He writes, mostly, short stories. The stories he’s written have been widely published, in the UK and abroad, in print and on-line. They’ve been collected in the book ‘Not So Perfect’ (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-So-Perfect-Nik-Perring/dp/1906894078/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2)(Roast Books, 2010), read at events, printed on fliers and used, with one of Dave Eggers’, as essential material on a creative writing course in the US.

‘Freaks!, (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freaks-Caroline-Smailes/dp/0007442890/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1) an illustrated collection of short stories, co-written with Caroline Smailes, will be published by The Friday Project (HarperCollins) in April 2012.

His online home is here: nikperring.com

All About Editing - Nik Perring

Do you love editing, or hate it, or somewhere in the middle?

Good question, Dolly. It’s such a massive part of the writing process that I don’t think I could still be a writer and hate it. It just wouldn't work. For me, editing is all about making the story better, and that has to be a good thing. What I do hate (and I don’t mind admitting it!) is when, no matter how much editing I do, I can’t make a story work – that’s frustrating. (But again, writing things that aren't any good are a part of the process too…)

Do you edit as you go? Or do you start only after the first draft?

After the first draft, usually. All my first drafts are written in notebooks so editing those as I went would be messy and difficult (crossing out rubbish words/sentences/paragraphs/pages aside) . The editing starts when that handwritten draft is typed up – typing it up gives me a half-edit as I’ll change things as I type.

Do you have a definite method for editing? If so, would you like to share something from it?

While my writing method is quite rigid and works for me, I’m always wary of telling people what they should do; writing is such a personal thing and I think that people should find what works best for them.

But for me…

1.       Write the story longhand.

2.       Type it up (editing as I go).

3.       Print it out and edit on the page.

4.       Repeat until I’m happy it can’t be improved on.

5.       Read aloud, and edit that.

6.       Record what I’ve read and listen to it back, again, editing as I go.

Any tips you've learned from your experience?

As I say, I think people have got to find what works the best for them.

Editing though, is a huge part of the writing process – you’ll, unless you’re very, very good, spend more time tweaking and rewriting than you will actually getting that first draft down. And there’s so much to watch out for. The story has to be good and well told, the dialogue and characters believable, and the spelling and grammar and punctuation correct – but there’s also the rhythm of the sentences and words that needs to be right – never under estimate the power a comma can have to change something.

Anything else you would like to add - pet peeves, things that make you want to pull your hair out (editing related), joys and wonders of the process?
I think the joy of editing comes when you turn something good into something great. That’s where the magic is and where the real satisfaction lies.

The trick with editing, I find, is to be thorough. And in order to be thorough I think it’s important to take your time. The aim should be to make the story as good as it can be, and not to work to a deadline. There’s no point in rushing, and no need to either.

I guess my pet peeve would be (and this is wearing my teacher’s and editor’s hat) seeing a story I know that can be great but the author has been too keen to say that they’ve finished it. While it’s true you can edit something too much, I think a good chunk of people don’t do quite enough. I suppose then, the real trick with editing is keeping at it even when you don’t want to. That, and knowing when you’ve done enough!

BIO

Nik Perring is a writer, teacher of writing, and editor from the UK. His short stories have been published widely in places including SmokeLong Quarterly, 3 :AM and Word Riot. They’ve also been read at events and on radio, printed on fliers and used as part of a high school distance learning course in the US.

Nik’s collection of short stories, NOT SO PERFECT is published by Roast Books and is out now. Nik blogs here (http://nikperring.blogspot.com) and his website’s here (www.nperring.com). He offers short story help here http://thestorycorrective.com/