Meet Elisha Oluyemi: Writer and Founding Editor, Fiery Scribe Review.
Our showcase creative for August is Elisha Oluyemi. We have wanted to interview this exciting writer for a long time and we are excited to finally sit with him.
Hello Elisha. When did you realize that thrillers were your thing? It shows by the way even in your poetry that you are jarring us.
I’ve always loved the profound, the deeper place. If it promises to ease or throw me into the deep recesses of the human mind, or beyond the banalities of this world, then I must give myself up to it. To reach beneath layers of mystery, you have to struggle; you have to exert yourself. And the one thing you find within this struggle is a thrill — a sense of adventure where the deeper you go, the more you lose yourself. Yes, I lose myself when navigating a world that I or the other thriller writers have created. And you know… you can’t want to forsake what makes you go wild. Love, God, fame, success, fun, name it, carnality. And in my case, thrillers.
I decided I want to explore the thriller genre after seeing the crime-psychological thriller series, Love Me If You Dare & Dr Qin. Both dramas are heavy with mysteries and high stakes. And within the characters, you find struggles too complex to handle. Following each episode, a pang of hunger began to rise within me. There was that nagging voice in my head, ‘You can do this, too. Isn’t this what you’d like to write? Look, characters like these are perfect for your world.’ And I’d nod with my brows furrowed, and mutter, ‘I can do this.’ No kidding, this really happened. It was like a possession. There’s that saying that, we are slaves to whatever we surrender ourselves to. I began to write short thrillers after that. I read a couple of James Patterson’s. Studied the style in Tess Gerritsen’s and relished the darkness of the world she built in The Surgeon & Mephisto Club. Anthony Hyde, Dan Brown, Larry Bond, I read them too at that early stage. It was fun for me. Eye-opening.
I soon began accessing a lot of resources on human psychology and then criminal psychology. I read a lot of forensic psychology books. I wanted to know things. And like that, I was transiting from the general thriller scope into a more defined ring. I love to ponder on the complexities of the human mind. What is going on in this folk’s mind? I often ask. What could they be thinking? Why have they done what they did? Digging up answers to such questions is a struggle. And there’s that branch of thrillers that affords me the full luxury of this exploration: the psychological thriller. As I said, if it can make me transcend the banalities of this world and then sink below the surface of the human mind, then I must give myself up to it.
And that’s why, in virtually all of my published stories, even in my poetry, you’ll probably (always) find a psychological inquiry — of course, carried out with the struggles that define the thriller genre. So, to, sum it up, it all started from a place of curiosity about the mystery of struggles.
Do you have any writing rituals or habits that help you get into the writing mindset?
Rituals? Yes! If trusting my guts can fit into that sense, then I’d call it my strongest ritual! There’s barely a time that I’ve started out writing with a defined plot. Oftentimes, I don’t even know my characters’ goals. One of my earliest writing, Fire in the Maze, exemplifies this. I had about 24 hours to write the story for a crime fiction anthology. I didn’t know what to write, and woe betide me if I succumb to the lazy myth of writer’s block. I spent time imagining who my central character is, and more time seriously asking the question, ‘Hey, Main Character, what do you want to do differently?’ And, I tell you, once I got the answer, ‘Fire’, I trusted my guts and began to write whatever comes to mind. That time, I ended up writing about a female arsonist whose fetish had developed from a time in her childhood. That story has earned me applause from writers I admire. It’s been one of my best.
The goal is to trust my guts. I ain’t gonna sit down and look and expect the words to come out suddenly. I ain’t gonna wait till I have a full outline. I just write with my mind and ears open, active to capture the whispers of motivation and identity. What do you want? Who are you really? And when the end of the story comes, I sense it. Now, this has ended. Going beyond this is a bad rebellion.
Another of my rituals is like the one described above. I like to create a strong first line that bears profundity. I want my readers to read that opening line and feel immediately immersed. I want them to be forced to ask questions. A reader who asks questions is curious. And curiosity will make you read to the end. If I get you to become curious, then I feel successful! Once I write my opening line, even without a tad idea of where I’m going, I tend to flow effortlessly. You can check out God Has a Foe, The Pariah’s Joy, Pandora in the Throat of Adam, The Dust Can Intoxicate, and so on.
The last ritual I can think of is writing in a dark place. My fingers are on the keyboard and I’m occasionally staring into a dark space. There’s serenity in darkness, all that hush and calm. And in it, I can imagine things that would have been blurred off by movements active in daylight. The day is like a transparent sheet — I can’t draw clearly on it. But darkness is a blackboard, and I have some pieces of chalk.
How do you approach the process of developing characters or creating a storyline?
My answer to this is similar to the previous one. The process of developing characters or creating a storyline isn’t defined for me. Everything happens in a place of discovery.
However, I like to make my characters develop via internal monologues that reveal their internal struggles. The ruminations of their mind become so loud the reader grasps what they really are and what they are likely to be. My central characters in The Lord’s Surrogate, God Has a Foe, Till They Look Just Like You, and so on, bear this trait. I reveal their internal state and filter the world through their perspectives. Once their nature is defined this way, it becomes easy to keep them compelling.
I work on their voice too. I’ve had writers tell me that I write realistic dialogues — that is, my characters speak in a way you’d hear people speak in real life, and they would sound just the way they are meant to sound. If my characters can’t own their unique voice, then I’d rather not write them. It’s not enough to create a character who can be pictured. How about giving them a unique voice — a voice that reflects their nature? I use both tools of internal monologue and realistic voice to get my characters up and running. And once this is maintained, they can mesh well with the plot and help produce a memorable story.
For creating a storyline, I’m afraid I’m strictly an adventurer. Nothing is set for me. I only go out to discover. I discover the gender of my characters, their name, their class, their voice, their motivations, their arcs, their endings. My story is purely written that way. From a place of discovery.
Did you get formal training for your art and do you think it has affected your ability to be a better artist? And do you feel this formal training is a make or break for a creative?
No, I didn’t get formal training. I had a chance to major in literature but chose English instead. Many have tried to force-link my writing ability to my having a degree in English, but they are wrong. The English Language degree didn’t help me become a good writer; instead, it primarily taught me how the English language works: the phonology, the morphology and syntax, pragmatics and semantics.
Well, you could say, understanding how a language works is a step-up for creative writers. That is quite true. However, I’d rather credit my becoming a better artist to the writing communities I joined on Facebook where I received structural feedback from experienced writers. Aside from all that, my training has been self-based. I read a lot of writing guides, watched YouTube videos, listened to podcasts, studied the styles of writers like crazy. And slowly, like that, I built myself.
Yes, the MFA is trending and offers writers a really ‘strong’ presence in the literary community. Writers need it, in fact. After all, formal training is an act of leveling up. The exposure is there, the shift in perspective, the mentorship, the connection. We have seen writers bag the MFA and become lecturers of creative writing, editors of giant presses, judges for major prizes. There are many other opportunities it can afford us, especially seeing as we are in a region where creative writing is underrated. Nonetheless, the MFA-less writer should not attach their writing success to the terminal degree. They can become great and find their ways through more diligence, more exploration, more everything, and some stroke of luck (which we all need).
I have friends who have won minor and major prizes in writing, and they didn’t get any formal training to achieve that. They won big over even those with the MFA. Some are in the business field, some in the engineering, some in the legal, some in the medical. They read books and personally honed their craft. If they could pull big things off by themselves, then I believe any writer can win without formal training.
What associations have been extremely beneficial to your growth as an artist?
Prolific Fiction Writers Community (PROFWIC). I owe my success to that association of writers. The founder, Stanley Umezulike, started the community around the time I decided to take writing seriously. The programmes he created, the insights he shared, the attention he gave to me and other writers, they gave me the strength I needed to start. And I can boast of the fact that I’m one of the best products of the community. Making him proud to have mentored me is one of my goals, in fact. An extremely beneficial association? Yes, PROFWIC counts.
I haven’t been able to become active members of other associations. However, I’ve taken the initiative to establish platforms that will challenge me to grow. I launched Fiery Scribe Review, a literary magazine, and Writers Unite, a writing community. One of the motivations behind them is the idea that I must strive to achieve more so that I can prove myself worthy of leading a community of creatives and a team of editors who are better than I am. Both initiatives also count as extremely beneficial.
Last year and this year we had a lot of political issues as a country, and as artists we sometimes draw inspiration from them. Is this something you do too and how do you skirt around the legal or personal security part of things?
Yeah, I like the idea of using my writing to represent situations in the country. When you examine all the issues across the levels of politics, economy, tribe, identity, religion, and so on, you’ll acknowledge that there’s so much to write on. My first short story publication, The Crazy Shall Inherit the Earth (2021), had a full political theme. It appeared in The Shallow Tales Review. I wrote it because I wanted to unfurl the innate psychopathy of power-hungry and corrupt leaders. There’s a troop of them out there, crazy and inhuman, yet they wear caps and capes. Like us. Like our heroes.
And in February 2023, Iris Youth Review published my work, ‘Of a Pol’s Prayer and Offering’, a political satire meant to mock the sheer hypocrisy of power seekers. I could have kept quiet and focused on writing my characteristic psychological thriller, but I wanted to lend my voice in some way at least. I’m working on another short piece responding to the political situations around.
Now, speaking of legal and security implications — I believe that’s what you mean — there’s little to worry about, at least under the present form of government. I’m a fiction writer and I think my creations, no matter how much they resemble real-life situations and characters, are strictly fictional. If a politician is charged with child abuse in real life, I could create a story around that and spice it up with subplots. It is fiction, so I don’t think anyone would seriously bat a wild eye except I’ve been unprofessional in executing it. I think legal consequences may also spring up if I use real names and make little or no attempt to frame the narrative in fiction, or if I make the so-called fictional piece malicious and slanderous. Otherwise, I’m protected by the law. Well, except there’s no more freedom of speech/expression.
In a similar vein, I’ve written stories on religion, which is another focal point when discussing national issues. The Lord’s Surrogate, (Ngiga Review), Way of the Progenitors (Neurological), God Has a Foe (Nymphs), He Defends the God (Brittle Paper), and so on. They are all attempts to ridicule societal ills and paint things as they are. Discourses like this require a lot of care when making portrayals, and as I’ve stated above, staying professional and avoiding slanderous/malicious intent can help creatives navigate such sensitive planes. Our job as writers may be to tell the truth, but we can also make our art more benign than malevolent.
Thank you Elisha! Stripes is more than grateful for your time.
Elisha Oluyemi is a Yoruban writer, winner of the 2022 Lagos-HCAF Writing Contest (Prose) and 2nd-place-winner of the 2022 Shuzia Flash Fiction Contest. His fiction is forthcoming in the 2023 Mukana Press Anthology of African Writing. He co-curated the PROFWIC Crime Fiction Anthology, Vol 1, and was shortlisted for the 2022 YWC Award (Short Story Category). Founder and editor-in-chief of Fiery Scribe Review, he is a mentor under the SprinNG Writing Fellowship initiative. Elisha’s writing has appeared & is forthcoming in Mukana, Isele Magazine, Ghudsavar, Sledgehammer, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Mystery Tribune, Brittle Paper, L=Y=R=A Poetry, The Shallow Tales Review, Salamander Ink, and elsewhere. He writes in the psychological and literary genres. For fun and relaxation, Elisha learns Korean, listens to classical music, and studies criminal minds. He tweets @ylisha_cs. Read his works here: https://elishaoluyemi.disha.page
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