‘Don’t put your first draft on the internet’

Rapper’s ‘power-packed story of dread and sadness’ wins the Star-Times’ annual competition, writes Warwick Rasmussen.

Top tips from the winner of the Sunday StarTimes short story competition and the hair-raising way he’s spending his prize money

Dominic Hoey reckons his first short stories sucked. But there was something about the format that he was still drawn to.

The Aucklander, perhaps best known as a poet and a rapper, aka Tourettes, took out this year’s Sunday Star-Times short story competition open category – and the $6000 prize. More than 900 entries were received.

Judge Rosetta Allan described Hoey’s 1986 as ‘‘a sharply observant social commentary on the Grey Lynn neighbourhood in the days before gentrification’’. It was also a ‘‘power-packed story of dread and sadness, as well as tenderness and retribution’’.

That’s quite some praise for someone who didn’t think he was particularly good at the form.

‘‘I used to write them probably like 10-15 years ago. And I was terrible at it,’’ Hoey says.

‘‘And so I just put it aside and was like, ‘that’s not for me’. And then in the last couple years, I sort of revisited [short stories] because I’ve always really liked the form.’’

That’s when the homework started; reading books and interviews with great short story writers, trying to glean clues along the way, rather than trying to guess how to do it.

‘‘And eventually, I sort of got to a point where I can kind of understand this form now.’’ So, what about the story itself? As the title suggests, it’s set in mid-1980s New Zealand, and focuses on a young boy who

spends a lot of time in his ‘‘lonely house’’ while his dad pulls double shifts.

Looming large is the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, a major event that always stuck with Hoey, who was a child at the time.

‘‘I remember watching that and freaking out and not understanding what it was.’’

The story is not autobiographical, he says, but there are aspects of his childhood woven in.

Wider themes include how Hoey misses his community of that time, the feeling it gave him.

‘‘I miss where I grew up, and I miss all that stuff, it doesn’t exist any more. You know, you can go to the streets, but it’s not the same place. So I guess writing about that, it feels kind of cathartic.

‘‘And I know a lot of people think you’re the same, you know, when I run into old friends and stuff, it’s not really the same.’’

Speaking to the Sunday StarTimes from his Mt Roskill home, Hoey says he’s been quietly working on a collection of short stories over the past couple of years, finetuning them to the point where he felt comfortable with sharing them.

‘‘I think you get to a point where you’re like, ‘OK, this is actually something now, it’s not just me sort of freestyling’.’’

Hoey, who also teaches creative writing, puts some of his work out on social media, but says that doing so is not necessarily a weathervane for work that’s worthy or not worthy.

‘‘I think it’s nice to know that there’s an audience there automatically. But I think sometimes it can kind of sway you, because you can write something you’re really stoked with and no-one really engages with it and also sometimes you just write some trash in five minutes and put that up and people love it. I think it’s important to keep in mind, that it’s not reality.’’

Hoey’s process comes down to discipline.

‘‘I teach creative writing ... and I always tell my students that it’s better to write 20 minutes every day than it is to sit down and write six hours once a week.’’

He says he’d try and write for about two or three hours each day, often accompanied by what he calls dreary, ambient music. The short story format was often about ‘‘coming in late, and you’re leaving early’’.

He liked to grab a little window of time and focus, nailing down the details, vividly describing the characters.

‘‘I sort of had to learn that [about character], which is something I struggled with the most because I came up rapping and writing poetry.’’

Winning the competition was a great confidence boost (he plans to spend some of the prizemoney on giving his rescue dog, Chilli the pomeranian, a post-lockdown haircut).

Apart from writing every day, Hoey believes people who think they have stories in them need to write like no-one’s going to read it.

‘‘I think the best stuff can come when you do some weird thing that doesn’t really make sense initially.’’

Oh, and possibly most importantly: ‘‘Don’t put your first draft

‘‘I miss where I grew up, and I miss all that stuff, it doesn’t exist any more. You know, you can go to the streets, but it’s not the same place. So I guess writing about that, it feels kind of cathartic.’’ Dominic Hoey

on the internet.’’

Hoey’s short story, 1986, will feature in the Boxing Day edition of the Sunday Star-Times, followed by the other three category winners. Maja Ranzinger won the under-25 category with Papatu¯ a¯ nuku, judged by Tinderbox author Megan Dunn.

Shannon Spencer (Nga¯ti Raukawa) won the Emerging Ma¯ori Writer category for her story Tunga¯ ne, judged by renowned author Patricia Grace. Elsie Uini won the Emerging Pasifika Writer category for No Small Thing, judged by awardwinning author Amy McDaid.

The latter two categories were added this year, thanks to support from The Milford Foundation, which joined longstanding awards partner Penguin Random House New Zealand. The two new category winners, along with the under-25 winner, each took away $1000 in prizemoney.

Entries were judged anonymously.

Penguin Random House NZ head of publishing Claire Murdoch said: ‘‘After more than 15 years of proud association with the Sunday Star-Times and these prestigious awards, we are delighted to see them grow in interest and diversity, and to witness the ferocious talent on display among the winners.

‘‘Nga¯ mihi to fiction publisher Harriet Allan, who has published so many of Aotearoa’s great writers, and winners of this competition over the years, and to all her fellow readers and judges.’’

Milford Foundation CEO, Bryce Marsden, said the foundation was proud to have supported the competition, including the new categories recognising emerging Ma¯ ori and emerging Pasifika writers.

The winning stories across all categories offered an insight and essential perspectives on life in Aotearoa New Zealand, and it was this sort of creative and sometimes challenging storytelling that deserved a wide readership.