After posting the amazing story, The Othering, we peppered P. R. O’Leary with our writing questions. There may be minor spoilers ahead for th tale so we recommend you read it first.
Q1. I love how this story isn’t a typical short story. We have three narrators in such a short space. How did you decide upon that and how difficult was it to manage?
The initial idea was pulled from real cases of the Capgras delusion. I liked the idea of a simple opening where a wife wakes up and thinks her husband has been replaced by an imposter. I tend to figure out where a story is going while writing it, and from that opening, the concept of the three narrators emerged pretty quickly.
Structurally, each character having their own short section actually made it a lot easier to write! The first one sets up a premise. The second one sets up the hook. The third one resolves it all.
Q2. What the hell did the kid give the parents??
Ha! One joy of writing fiction is that you can make up whatever you want. The real unvarnished answer is that I have no idea what he gave them. Is there a recreational drug that exists in real life that might cause the same symptoms? Probably! That’s all I needed for the story to make sense to me. Hopefully that is enough for the audience as well!
Q3. One of the things that impressed me the most was the musicality of the story. It repeats itself and establishes a nice rhythm. Did you spend a lot of time thinking of this, or did it all come out naturally?
That’s nice to hear! The half-truth is that the style of the story came about naturally. The real truth is that the published version is the result of many rounds of editing.
The concept of how the prose should feel was there in the first draft. It felt like the right way to tell the story, and I wrote it pretty quickly. That draft had all the core ideas: the first-person POV, the repeated motifs, the mirroring between sections, etc.
However, an idea and a way to tell it are just parts of a whole. There was a fair amount of adjustment done during editing to get to where the story is now. There may be writers who bang out perfect first drafts. I’m not one of them!
Q4. How much of your time do you spend writing short stories versus other projects?
Short stories were my go-to when I first started writing. They were a good way to hone the craft and, maybe more importantly, finish projects. I love it when a project is complete and out of my head!
Now my heart lies with the novel. Most of my writing time is spent working on longer fiction. However, ideas for stories continue to pop up. A writing session or two with a short story gives me a chance to have some fun with a weird idea, and finishing something, no matter how short, helps to keep the work spiritually fulfilling.
The Othering is one of those weird ideas, and I’m glad there are still places for shorts like this to get published.
Q5. What other works do you have on the go? Anything you’d like to promote?
I am currently seeking representation for my newest novel Crowds in Dark Rooms. It is a dark but humorous mystery about a film festival attendee who thinks that someone, or something, is causing people to disappear when the theater lights go down.
Otherwise, I have several short stories on the road to publication. You can find more info about me and my projects on my LinkTree.