GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2023/24

An interview with GBP Short Story Prize author Will Hall

Hello Will! It’s quite hard to introduce your longlisted story, ‘The Muffin Man’, without giving away too many of its surprises. So we'll just say that it’s about a man who doesn’t seem to like his sales job at a quite dodgy company very much (but likes his girlfriend much more). Is there anything else you’d like to add, to set the reader up?

I think that’s it in a nutshell. All I’d add is, to anyone like me who prefers going in completely blind, don’t read this interview first!

And can you tell us more about the inspiration for the story: How and when did it come to you, and how did you set about writing it?

I vaguely remember it started out as an attempt at something Black Mirror-ish. It would have been much more focused on the premise of a group of colleagues who get put on a diet control scheme at work and become disturbingly competitive.

I’m glad it became more grounded and character-driven. With other unsuccessful stories, I focused on concepts and language too much and neglected character.

Your portrait of office life – and politics – in ‘The Muffin Man’ is sharp, funny, and quite often unbearable. There’s a lot of bullying, and also bullying ‘in jest’ amongst the staff  – a mixture of passive aggressive and just plain old aggressive that feels very real and is often excruciating to read. (Not to mention the structural bullying of HR and the company itself.) Can you tell us a bit more about that, and how important a part it plays in the narrative?

Thanks (and also sorry!). I didn't set out to make bullying so central, but if I picked apart the narrative I’m sure I’d find it drives most of the key story moments and turns. I suppose the simplest explanation is that conflict often just takes that form in workplace settings.

Another thing I never considered before is the possible influence of Succession. The final season will have been wrapping up as I started writing this story. Every other line of dialogue in that show is one character insulting another. In real life, seeing someone be picked on is generally upsetting. But in so many shows set in offices, it’s such a big source of entertainment and humour, The Thick of It being another example.

Hopefully, like those shows do, Muffin Man reflects how bullying is pathetic and dumb, if also an expression of pain and insecurity. The main antagonist does things that border on psychological torture. But the crushing humiliation of the video leak still makes me feel sorry for him. Not as much I feel for Meryl though or basically everyone else in the story...

There’s quite a lot of deception going on too, now I think of it – and the protagonist struck me as someone without much self-awareness. For instance he can describe, in detail, how awful his colleagues are; but he doesn’t give much thought to the things he does himself. … I guess one of the things ‘The Muffin Man’ made me wonder about when I was reading was whether he is being particularly egregious, or whether this is just a very common human flaw (one that we all suffer from, to some degree). What do you think?

I think it’s a little of both. To me, he’s an egregious example of a common Dunning-Kruger-esque flaw: he massively overestimates his control over how other people see him. The impulse behind that often only exists if you’re uncomfortable with/uncertain about who you are, which seems very relatable. I think it explains loads of behaviour we exhibit ourselves or see in people who come across awkward and self-conscious or even arrogant.

(Do you like The Office? And do you work in an office?)

I love The Office. The number of social situations where I feel a need to say something funny but go blank and end up making an Office reference… I should pay royalties. The US version is great, feel-good watching too.

Since Covid I’ve worked hybrid, so I do spend a couple days a week in an office. I never worked anywhere like MindPrint though and generally I’ve always really liked my colleagues!

OK! Writing in general. Tell us about your routines – or lack of them.

I try to find an hour or two outside work each day, often quite late into evenings. On weekends I’ll do as much as I can manage. I wish I had a stricter routine or managed my free time better. I need deadlines to get anything finished, whether for contests or open submission windows.

Writing and rewriting: What’s your ratio?

I rewrite a lot. I tend to go over certain parts multiple times within the ‘first draft’ stage, trying to add redeeming qualities that make me less likely to give up. After I get everything down in some shape or form, I’m usually much more focused and writing starts to feel more like problem-solving. I’d estimate I average three drafts per story, then a fine-tuning. Then the story gets rejected and I do another draft.

Other writers. Tell us about some you especially admire. Also what you’re reading at the moment.

I looked into Gordon Lish/minimalism fairly recently and found Amy Hempel’s story ‘The Harvest’, then ‘In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried’. Everything about them is so lean and inventive without sacrificing emotional depth. Right now the only story I think about as much as those is Julio Cortázar’s ‘The Night Face Up’. The ending might not impress everyone but I’m constantly resisting the urge to rip it off.

I listen to audiobooks maybe more than I read. I’m currently working through the 2023 O. Henry Prize short story anthology. They’re all amazing but my favourites so far are ‘The Haunting of Hajji Hotak’ (Jamil Jan Kochai), ‘Temporary Housing’ (Kathleen Alcott) and ‘The Mad People of Paris’ (Rodrigo Blanco Calderón).

“The horror of the blank page” is something that has – by pure chance – popped up in our social media timeline two or three times over the past week. So we want to end by asking all of our longlisted authors: Do you feel that horror? And how would you advise other writers to get beyond it?

The horror I more often face is numerous, scattered, out-of-control pages full of text that I have no idea how to organise. I think this kind of overload and ‘the horror of the blank page’ are both paralysing feelings, though. I don’t have enough experience to be truly insightful here but whenever I feel this way it helps to go for a run or a walk. Usually ideas or solutions come to me while I’m out. You can take notes on your phone or whatever, then put them on the page when you get home and it’s less blank.

Read Will Hall’s GBP Short Story Prize nominated story, ‘The Muffin Man’, here.

WILL HALL is a sports writer and editor based in London. He won the 2023 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Prize.