An interview with Sarah Scoles, author of Algorithmic Behavior.

Fringe: What was the inspiration for this piece?

Scoles: I am really interested in human behavior as it relates to patterns and feedback. How do we know how to act in a given social situation? How do we learn to act and react in an acceptable manner? What does it mean to “fit in”? I believe that a lot of our behavior patterns are based on learned, algorithm-like neural pathways. If X happens, then I should do Y. If A upsets you, do B to feel better. Last year, I was taking a History of Mathematics class, and one of the first things we learned about were Sumerian tablets and the way they were always encased in these egg-like “envelopes.” In my head, a character formed–someone who was actively aware, because of her social awkwardness, of the algorithms that determined her actions (as opposed to most people, for whom these “algorithms” are subconscious and natural). I imagined that this character would have a difficult time expressing herself, and using the tablets as both metaphor and literal communication mechanism seemed apt to me.

Fringe: How often do you write? Do you do it on a schedule?

Scoles: Though I wish I had a schedule, I do not. I write when the impulse strikes. I write when I have a definite idea and a definite direction. I find that if I sit down and “force” myself to write when I have nothing to say, I begin to associate negative feelings with the writing process. And if, when I sit down to write, I remember how much fun it was not last time, that’s not really conducive to creativity or motivation. I find that once I have sloshed an idea around in my head for a while, without writing anything, when I finally take pen to paper (or fingers to keys), the words come much more quickly.

Fringe: How did you get into writing? How long have you been writing?

Scoles: I began writing when I took a Creative Writing class as an elective when I was a college junior. I was majoring in Astrophysics, so all my other classes were math-heavy, problem-solving things, so the writing class used neurological muscles that were not being flexed often enough. I found myself writing stories in the margins of my Quantum Mechanics homework. I found myself using that Quantum Mechanics homework for inspiration. I was pretty much hooked from the beginning. So I suppose I began writing fiction in a serious way four years ago, though my mother can tell you that since age six, I’ve been involved in some kind of writing project. Diaries, newspaper articles, teenage manifestos, etc. But the coherent fiction? Much more recent.

Fringe: Is this piece typical of your work?

Scoles: It’s stylistically typical, and the perspective (limited third-person with varying levels of closeness) is also typical. I also often write about scientific or mathematical concepts, so I suppose it’s also thematically typical. The form, though, is unusual for me. My stories aren’t always chronological, but while they sometimes play with time, they don’t often play with form, and I’ve never written a story in which different parts of the story take different forms.

Fringe: Is Fringe your first publication?

Scoles: No, I’ve been lucky enough to have had stories published in DIAGRAM and SNReview and to have had an essay published in Sotto Voce.

Fringe: What do you like to read? Who are your influences?

Scoles: I love to read short stories. I love novels, too, but I like short stories for their ability to create a world and a moment that influence a character for the rest of his/her life (if he/she actually had a life, which he/she doesn’t, since he/she is fictional) in less than 5,000 words. Everything in a short story has to be so necessary. Plus, they’re usually a little sad, and I love my pathos. I think I’ve been most influenced by Lorrie Moore and Stephanie Vaughn.

Fringe: What do you hope the reader gets out of this piece?

Scoles: I hope that readers can see a little bit of themselves in the main character. I think it’s valuable for a reader to, at first, think, “Wow, this character is insane,” and then, as the pages go by, to begin to identify with some of the narrator’s thoughts and/or actions. I like to take a character whom the average reader would not necessarily want to befriend (in real life) and then show how very similar they can be. I think even the Prom Queen and the agoraphobe could find some common ground.

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