Fiction Marries Fact
By
RD Larson
"So much lies beneath the surface of all of us, I suppose . . . I suppose."
These are words that I heard a woman say at a cafe as I was sitting at the next table. I began to wonder what secrets she had, what did lay beneath her synthetic self? What had happened to her that only a few people knew about? Things that had broke her heart? Unbelievable agonies, maybe? So vile that it made her go mad? And was she capable of crime? The worst kind of crime? From all this inner dialogue, I wrote a story about a woman who forgave and forgave her beloved. Until the last time.
All of my stories have some truth and some fact. A person turning away, pulling his hat down against the rain is perhaps a start of a story. From another place, perhaps a news story, I'll hear about an environmental cover-up. This became a story of a man who works to rid his town of greed and corruption.
Sometimes a group of writers seems to have something to say; itÂ?s sort of like a cadence of marching with all the writers of that era hearing the same music. Yet also there are those hear flutes and not drums. Still, the story is the essence of a private communication between the writer and the reader. With movies and television the experience is not one-on-one as with the writer and the reader. We do it as a team event when we go to movies or watch television. Listening to the radio seems to be more of a lone person event where the person is receiving only receiving input.
It seems odd to me that many times a cloud of stories fly above the heads of writers everywhere, waiting to be snatched from the air. Which writer is able to grab the story is the torment that we must suffer. Often the first person catching that story will sell it first. Is there only so many stories that can find a place? And what of readers? Do they want the similar stories for a period of time? I believe this is so. It is the time in which we exist and our distance from each other that is irrelevant.
I canÂ?t plan what I want to write because it sort of just comes about from a word or a conversation, even another writer that inspire me to learn more about a subject which then takes its own characters and own story.
Sometimes a moment in my life, such as an illness or an accident will prompt a Â?What ifÂ? question. Every personÂ?s story is important and universal because we all must live our lives.
As a writer my job is to take true events and turn them into a story or a novel that while it is fiction, has a truth about our selves, our families and lives. Every story has -- must have -- a level of communication that the reader can understands and connects with his life.
We enjoy what we know. We want what is familiar and known to us. But as writers and as readers we must be open to growth and to change however small and unimportant it seems. As children we are thrilled to read stories of adventure and excitement. Or stories of other childrenÂ?s lives. Why should anything be different when we are older? To become grounded is limited. To explore, to learn is to grow forward.
In every fact there is a cloud of secret ideas and thoughts and desires waiting to be told. A personal growth of self can improve our lives and lives of others.
Read what you can. Write what you can. But a writer canÂ?t be afraid to coil the facts to make a fictional story come to life. The reader must suspend his own reality for the writerÂ?s imagination for just a few hours. Both must try to grasp what is beyond the apparent and obvious. Look for that in your life, your travels and in your books.
Reading is a agreement between the writer and the reader. A contract, if you will, of offerings and expectations.
DonÂ?t give up easily in challenging yourself. Take a chance to read a story that you would not ordinarily read or write a story that you would not usually write. For who knows when that cloud of stories will reveal a secret that only you can understand. As a writer, I am a mirror to you and we have a contract. My contract is to show you my vulnerability and my strength. Your contract is to be receptive and to give the story a change to develop and to enrich your own life.
© RD Larson 2005
May not be used without permission of the author.
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