‘When I’m writing, the hubbub of all the worlds I am in gives me such a buzz’
Claris Harvey, 2025 NFFD winner
Flash Frontier: Your winning story, ‘The golden glove’, holds the details of a novel – so many things packed into a small scene. We have history, motivation, mystery. Tell us about the challenge of packing so much into a small space? Do you start with an idea, or a character, or…?
Claris Harvey: I always start with a character. Often it is someone I have met or observed from a distance that I want to know more about. I won’t lie, I eavesdrop, and I watch and I ask many questions of strangers each day. If someone gives me a little crumb of a story I will always ask for more. I believe we are built of stories and come from them, we naturally want to tell them.
Often a meeting with a real person will start a curious type of turning in me. I start wondering what they were like as children or will be like as old people, what they dream about or long for.
The story starts to build atmospherically around them. There’s always a magical moment when I feel like the recorder and not the driver behind the story. There isn’t a discourse between you and the characters so much, rather you just know that character would do or say that thing at that time. If you listen carefully to people and ask questions that go deeper, you learn so much about people.
I look for the most defining actions and words and write those down. In this particular story I say “yes, he could cook, but he did it like a man on the run” and I wanted the reader to imagine that scene right away, a man in a kitchen cooking like someone who was on the run. I then wanted the reader to think “What does cooking like someone on the run look like?” so then they have those images in their head. Those images need to be arresting.
To do this I think you need to be constantly open to the character revealing interesting things to you as the writer. I mean I say character but I mean person, as sometimes the word character feels as if they’re not real when they are, to me at least.. They are the story.
FF: What about your editing process? Do you trim and trim some more, or do you select carefully along the way? What is the most important thing about language, when it comes to writing a 300-word story?
CH: I write lots of drafts where I include many more details than can make it into the short form and then reduce each time, or try to. Sometimes an edit turns into an expansion.
Generally, there are key phrases that I have become attached to and I make little guards around them, often those are phrases that are touchstones for me that reference bigger concepts behind a simple sentence. Despite the reader not knowing this back story, I do believe there is something out there from all that knowledge that you have for your people that readers pick up on. It tells them that this character is inherently true and relatable, even if they aren’t likeable.
In terms of language, I try to use my tools as a poet here and use words very carefully. I want to make the writing very accessible to the reader so I try to avoid words that may make the reader feel excluded or mist up their brain with detail. I see most of the sentences as little ramps into that character’s world, so you don’t want to block that on-ramp in any way. For example, one of my favourite poems about death (by Ruth Whitman) begins with the words “If my boundary stops here” and to me that is such a vivid image of a life finishing, one we can all relate to. My mother read me that poem one time and it got me right away (I urge you to look it up). It’s a great example of language paying homage to the heart.
I tend to think of images a lot when I am writing and track back and forth from memory to present time. We are, as people, I think, in constant flux of both.
FF: Both your stories that placed this year are about a close focus on connection, with the suggestion of the larger world. In ‘Eternity’ we glimpse this in the moments of dialogue and flashing details. Can you tell us about how this story came to be?
CH: ‘The Golden Glove’ was borne out of a man arriving to my house and telling me a pretty wonderous story of his own. It wasn’t the one I told but he gave me a character to draw from in himself. He was a window washer in need of work and he was getting married in a few days. I was beguiled by his story and to be honest his ability to tell a story like that on my doorstep. I guess I saw him as a romantic, that he was raising funds to get married seemed so full of grace. Being a storyteller, I saw something of a kindred spirit, someone knocking on my door to tell me a story.
He offered to use what he called his ‘golden glove’. I was so curious about the golden glove, I just had to know more. That is where the fiction started. I had those few statements attached to a character and I was off. In many ways he was a master marketing man, as dropping an image in to someone’s brain that they want to know more about, is a great way to hook them in. Also, there was something about him, that placed him in another time. A man in love, going from door to door, asking for work. Then I decided what if I introduced a character to meet him (who wasn’t me?) who wanted happiness but had an odd way of getting at it. How would those chemicals combine?
There was a whole other story running behind the one he told me, which was the story of his life. As with all characters who appear in my stories I have huge empathy for them.
FF: What’s the most challenging – and fun – thing about flash fiction, compared to other writing you do? What kind of mindset or space are you in, depending on the genre you work in? Does it change radically?
CH: It’s a beautiful blend of poetry and fiction, and there is something musical about it. The most challenging element would be, for me at least, I don’t know if this is true for every writer, is that you have to go from A-Z to sometimes get back to A. As in, there’s no short cuts in writing, it’s like telling someone who is telling you something true to just hurry up already. I often get lost in it before finding my way back, just because you need to hear everyone out…the characters, that is, and sometimes I feel a sadness for my characters, which is also I suppose my own. But when I am writing, the hubbub of all the worlds I am in gives me such a buzz.
FF: Is fiction a space for flight, or truth, for you – or both?
CH: The lines are blurry – sometimes I have been working on a character for some time and then I see someone who in my mind’s eye is just like them, walking down the street. I have to stop myself from following them.
FF: What are you doing when you are not writing flash?
CH: I have two small children and am a producer working in television, so my job there is really helping others bring their stories to life. I spend as much time with my children as I can, enjoying them. When I have a minute I rush out to the west coast Karekare or Whatipu, places I love deeply. I always find time to read, it makes my life complete and bigger. I also have a deep love of fossicking for stones, which is a type of writing, every stone is so different and has a story to tell.
FF: Thank you, Claris, and congratulations again!
Read Claris Harvey’s winning story ‘The Golden Glove’ on our June 2025 story page.
You can also hear Claris read her story and talk a bit more with Jesse Mulligan, following her big win, on RNZ’s Afternoons, Monday, 23 June, here.