Rachel Vogel’s story. “Will the Real Kim Novak Please Stand Up,” won third place in our Summer Short Story Award for New Writers judged by Jennine Capó Crucet. Read the story here and then check out this interview about her approach to dialogue, why place is important in fiction, and how Alfred Hitchcock played a role in this story.
Jennine Capó Crucet writes in her introduction that she “admired the story’s dialogue and how much it reveals about the relationships between characters—what they’re willing to say and what they withhold.” There are so many charged encounters in this piece–with “Kim Novak,” with Pam, with Peter, with Julissa’s parents–and rarely does anyone say what they really mean. What was your trick for writing dialogue in this piece?
When drafting dialogue, I ask myself what a character is thinking and feeling in the moment versus what she’s willing to reveal, and why. The why is important. Does she wish to be perceived a certain way to feel better or get something she wants? Does she fear rejection if she asserts herself? In that distance—between the character’s internal thoughts and spoken words—lies room for the reader to participate, interpret, infer. In my Kim Novak story, when Julissa runs into her high school friend Pam, she feels ashamed of her self-perceived failure, so she tries to project success. Regarding word choice, I try to use vocabulary, syntax, rhythm, and idioms that are true to the character, and always in as few words as possible to keep out distracting clutter. The process is more instinctual than methodic, I think, but it’s grounded in understanding the space between a character’s interior and external selves.
Place plays a big role in the story, both physically and in what LA (and New York City) represents culturally. Would you say that place is a primary consideration for you in your fiction?
As with dialogue, the role of place in my work emerges instinctively rather than by design. When I left my childhood home in Southern California to attend college in New York City, I felt a deep need to jettison my past. This desired distance led to each locale evoking strong but very different emotions. In the Kim Novak story, Julissa’s experience echoes mine. In her case, she had a difficult attachment to her mother growing up, fled to New York, but did not find resolution there. Upon returning home, all the feelings associated with Los Angeles bubble up—her insecurity, her sense of detachment, her longing for acceptance.
Tell me about how Hitchcock ended up playing such a prominent role in this story.
This story sprang from an image that randomly came to me of a girl seeing her father with another woman who happened to look like Kim Novak in Vertigo. As I worked on the story, I came to realize that Kim Novak’s Judy Barton persona in the film, who changes her hair and clothing to please the Jimmy Stewart character, mirrored Julissa’s longing to become a person her mother would admire and love. So, while I did not start out with a thematic or intellectualized reason to include Alfred Hitchcock, I guess I can thank my unconscious for the happy coincidence.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a novel-in-stories that follows two childhood friends whose lives intersect and diverge over sixty years as each struggles to shape her identity while navigating childhood, college, a love triangle, marriage, divorce, career change, and parenting.
Interviewed by Cole Meyer