After posting the amazing story, Poster Child, we peppered the author, Nina Morgan, with questions to see what she had to say about the tale and about writing in general.
*Please note, there may be minor spoilers for the tale ahead.
Q1. How did you come up with the idea for this story?
I was thinking a lot about depersonalization and how you can feel “missing” even when you aren’t. On a larger scale, so much dehumanisation is happening right now in our culture in the United States and it’s very decentering. Then I passed by an actual missing person’s billboard and thought, what if you looked up and saw yourself? How would that play out?
Q2. I love how tense this story is, and without going into too much spoilers, I love how the tale isn’t naturally ‘resolved’. Was this a conscious choice to leave us hanging? Do you have anything to say about the power of an unresolved tale?
I’ve always thought what you don’t know is much scarier than what you do–that’s why we’re afraid of the dark, after all. I wanted the reader to be left with Jessa’s fear of not knowing what would happen next, because questions like that are the ones that get stuck in your head.
Q3. How much time did you spend fleshing out the characters? The dialogue and inner thoughts add so much to this story.
Thank you! The most consistent positive feedback I get (and the one I’m the most proud of) is that my characters feel like real people. It is typically the thing I spend the most time on- I want to say Mia and Jessa lived in my head for about a month before I actually sat down and wrote this. I spend a lot of time day dreaming up characters, even just for my own entertainment.
Q4. How much of your time do you spend writing short stories versus other projects?
What’s funny is the longer the work is, the faster I write. Last year I wrote the first draft of a novel length project within 3 months. A 10k word short story took me about a week. But shorter stories and poetry I drag out forever, stopping for a few weeks at a time then going back. I find it takes a lot more careful thought and consideration to pack a punch with less words.
Q5. What other works do you have on the go? Anything you’d like to promote?
I have a series of novels I’m editing and will query at some point, but for now I’m just trying to get as much work as I can out there. I have some published poetry pieces in Spill Words Press (here), Ink and Oak (here) and one upcoming in Carolina Muse Magazine. I’m so excited to be a part of A Midnight Kind of Place, it’s my first published short story! I oscillate between horror and romance, which may seem like opposites, but writing them is actually pretty similar. I like to joke that what we don’t know is terrifying existentially, but BEING known is terrifying interpersonally. Tension is tension!