From Reader to Writer (by D. Slayton Avery)

I am thrilled to be in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine!

This is the magazine that was always around when I was a kid. My mother subscribed, she has always been a fan of Hitchcock; his movies, television show, and the monthly collection of short stories, which was read by the whole family. Though as an adult I don’t write or even read  many mystery stories, I still remember certain stories that I read some fifty years ago in AHMM. Those clever concise stories likely informed my craft as a writer of flash fiction. I have written many flash fiction and short stories, some even dark or mysterious, but “Nuisance Bear” is my first actual murder mystery, though I suppose it’s not really too much of a whodunnit.

“Nuisance Bear” takes place in northern Vermont. If you are not familiar with northern Vermont, watch the Hitchcock movie, The Trouble With Harry, which was filmed around here in 1954. (yes, my mother got autographs, and yes, that lakeside cabin in the movie is still on the very lake that I now live on) If you are not familiar with northern Vermont, you might not notice how Hitchcock had to fudge some of the shots when the weather and foliage that fall did not comply with his wishes. Of course, if you are familiar with northern Vermont you know that’s just how it goes. And you might also notice from the movie how much remains the same and how much has changed around here since that time. Maybe that’s part of what “Nuisance Bear” is about; managing change and preserving place.

At over 3000 words, “Nuisance Bear” is one of the longer stories I’ve written. I usually write flash fiction, which in my book is most often 99 words, though definitions of flash fiction vary. I enjoy the puzzle of fitting a complete story into an exact set amount of words. I have found too that a low word count forces tough decisions which make the finished product more polished through word choice and economy of details. But the flashes don’t have to stay at that word count, don’t have to be terminally “finished.” Often a 99 word story is inherently mysterious; they can leave the reader (and writer) wondering what might happen next. The thing about such short stories is they can be considered scenes, seeds for the writer to grow and expand the story. 

Now would be the time to say that “Nuisance Bear” grew from a flash fiction seed, but that would not be true. It’s too bad, it’d be fun to share that transformation, but this is one of those rare for me stories that I just sat down and wrote until it was finished. But the habits and skills developed through flash fiction writing served me in the writing of the story, and more important, the revising of the scenes. I hope the tale got told with just the right amount of words.

Sometimes my flash fictions produce characters who do not want to be finished at the end of the 99 word story. I become quite fond of some of these characters and so they find there way into ensuing stories and scenes. Nuisance Bear is finished; after all it’s a story of the perfect crime. However, I have lately been hearing whispered suggestions from Barret Ingram. Hmm. Character, check. Setting, check. Hmm.

This was my first mystery story, but maybe not my last.

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D. Slayton Avery lives in northern Vermont beside a mountain under some trees overlooking a lake, along with one husband and one cat. Though an award winning poet and published author of flash fiction, “Nuisance Bear” is D.’s first murder mystery. You can sample D.’s prose and poetry  at ShiftnShake.