An Evening with Author Michael Ashby
I met Michael Ashby on a drizzly Tuesday at a quiet cafe in Portland. He arrived with a worn copy of Chekhov’s stories tucked under his arm, and his handshake was gentle but deliberate. Michael is the author of three novels, most recently The Gaps Between Words, a book that uses silence as a structural device—not just in dialogue, but in the white space between chapters, in the pauses that stretch across a page. We ordered chamomile tea and talked about the ways quietness shapes story, character, and the reader’s imagination.
The Sound of a Character Thinking
Eliza Gale: Michael, in your novel, there are stretches where dialogue drops away for pages. Why does silence interest you as a narrative tool?
Michael Ashby: I think it started with a simple observation: real conversation is full of gaps. People trail off, they look away, they reconsider what they’re about to say. But fiction often fills those gaps with clever banter or exposition. I wanted to see what would happen if I trusted the reader to inhabit those empty spaces. Silence in my work isn’t absence—it’s a kind of presence. It’s the sound of a character thinking, or feeling something they can’t yet name.
He paused here, stirring his tea, and I noticed how the clink of the spoon against the ceramic became part of our own small narrative. That’s the thing about Michael—he’s attuned to the weight of small gestures.
White Space as Emotional Terrain
Eliza: You use white space on the page almost like a character itself. How did you arrive at that technique?
Michael: I was reading a lot of poetry at the time—Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, poets who understand that what’s left unsaid can be as potent as what’s declared. In prose, we tend to fill the page, but I began to see white space as emotional terrain. A break in the text can signal a shift in consciousness, a moment of grief, or a realization that’s too tender to articulate. In The Gaps Between Words, there’s a scene where a woman learns of her father’s death, and the text simply stops. The next page is blank except for three asterisks. Some readers found it jarring, but others told me they wept at that blankness. They filled it with their own experience of loss.
Silence and the Unreliable Narrator
Eliza: Your narrator in this book is unreliable, but not in the way we usually see. He’s not lying; he’s just withholding. Can you talk about how silence relates to unreliability?
Michael: We’re all unreliable narrators of our own lives. We edit out the parts we’re ashamed of, we emphasize things that make us look better. My narrator, David, is a man who’s lost his wife to a long illness, and he’s trying to reconstruct their marriage. But he leaves out arguments, small cruelties, moments of selfishness. The silence in the text mirrors the silence in his memory. It’s not malicious; it’s self-protective. I wanted the reader to sense those absences and wonder what’s missing. That’s where the real story lives—in the gaps David can’t bring himself to fill.
I asked Michael if he worried that readers might miss the point entirely. He smiled, a little sadly, and said, “Some will. But the ones who need it will find it. That’s the pact you make when you write this way.”
The Influence of Chekhov and the Unsaid
Eliza: You mentioned Chekhov. His stories are full of people who can’t say what they mean. Is he a touchstone for you?
Michael: Chekhov understood that the most important things are often unspoken. In “The Lady with the Dog,” Gurov and Anna never fully articulate their love; it exists in glances, in the way they avoid certain topics. That restraint creates a tension that’s almost unbearable. I try to do something similar—let the silence carry the emotional weight. It’s a risky approach because modern readers are trained to expect resolution, but life doesn’t resolve neatly. Fiction shouldn’t either.
Silence as Resistance
Eliza: There’s a political dimension to silence too, especially in an era of constant noise. Do you see your work as a kind of resistance?
Michael: I don’t set out to be political, but I think any art that insists on quietness in a loud world is making a statement. We’re surrounded by notifications, by demands for our attention. Fiction that asks you to sit with stillness, to tolerate ambiguity—that’s countercultural. It says, “Your inner life matters. The things you can’t tweet about matter.” I’ve had readers tell me my book helped them reclaim a sense of privacy. That means more to me than any sales figure.
The Craft of Writing Pauses
Eliza: On a practical level, how do you write a pause? Is it just instinct, or do you have a method?
Michael: It’s a mix. I pay close attention to rhythm. A short sentence after a long, winding paragraph creates a natural stop. I use em dashes, ellipses, and line breaks deliberately. But I also read my work aloud. Where my voice falters, where I feel the need to take a breath—that’s often where a pause belongs. It’s the body’s way of telling you the story needs space. I’ve learned to trust that.
FAQ: Understanding Silence in Literary Fiction
Why do some authors use so much white space in their novels?
White space can signal a shift in time, a character’s internal processing, or an emotional climax that words can’t capture. It invites the reader to pause and reflect, creating a more participatory reading experience. Authors like Michael Ashby use it to mirror the fragmentation of memory and the unsaid tensions in relationships.
How can I become a better reader of “quiet” fiction?
Slow down. Notice what’s missing as much as what’s present. Ask yourself why a character might be avoiding a topic, or what the atmosphere in a scene suggests beneath the surface. Re-read passages where the language feels sparse. Often, the meaning accumulates over time, like layers of sediment.
Is writing with silence a modern trend, or does it have roots in earlier literature?
It has deep roots. Think of the Bible’s spare narratives, the haiku tradition in Japan, or the iceberg theory of Hemingway—where seven-eighths of the story lies beneath the surface. Modernist writers like Virginia Woolf and Samuel Beckett also explored fragmentation and the unsaid. Contemporary authors are extending that lineage in new ways.
Can silence in fiction be overused?
Yes, if it becomes a gimmick rather than an organic part of the story. When every other page is blank or every conversation trails off, it can feel mannered. The key is emotional honesty: the silence must arise from what the characters genuinely can’t express, not from an authorial desire to be clever.
As we finished our tea, Michael looked out at the rain-streaked window and said, “You know, the best conversations are the ones where you remember the silences as clearly as the words.” I’ve thought about that often since our meeting. In a world that prizes constant chatter, his stories remind us that what we don’t say can reveal us most completely.
