THC: What are your inspirations for characters?

EP: First I think of the situation I want the story to show, then I pinpoint who the characters will be. Probably five of the stories will be in the third person, a little more than half. Generally if a main character is very distant from me and my experience, I will write him or her in the third person. I should probably deviate from this at some point.

THC: How personal are the stories?

EP: None are about one specific experience of mine, but all are informed by my experiences. None of the characters are me or people I know, but they all have parts of them.

THC: How do you come up with plot?

EP: First I think of a general idea that would be interesting for a story. A story I just wrote is about a young immature mother who is jealous of her son’s relationship with his piano teacher. Then I try to think of an arc for the story: I decide where the story should be going, where I want it to end up and I think of some scenes and details I want to include. Then the plot usually develops itself further in the process of writing. My stories are generally contained—they aren’t sweeping stories that encompass a lot of time or action, so plotting them hasn’t been that involved a process so far.

THC: How do you read and revise your own stories?

EP: I try to get a sense of what someone else would make of it, if what I want to get across is coming across. For my thesis stories, I’ve been giving my advisor drafts to read, and he gives me comments that usually make sense to me, with what I feel is accurate and useful feedback. After that I usually just do one big revision, making minor changes after that. I am thinking about getting more readers for my thesis later on in the process, but it is also good not to have a million people telling you a million different things, which sometimes happens in writing workshops and can be overwhelming.

THC: What do you do about writer’s block?

EP: When I have a deadline, it forces me to write something. I had a really hard time trying to write over the summer when there were no concrete due dates—I would write a paragraph, obsess over revising it and making it perfect, then I would go watch TV or something. When I know I need a story done in a couple days, I’ll crank it out in a few sittings and not worry so much about perfecting every sentence. If I’m feeling uninspired, reading some published stories (by other authors) usually helps. I look at what kind of voice an author is using, what kind of structure the story has, and how it begins and ends. Even if I’m writing something totally different, just reading something else can give me a fresh perspective that somehow makes it easier when I sit down to write. If it’s really not working for me I’ll just take a break and try again later.