Blog: Part Personal and Part Fictional; The Best Fiction Blends Both

Some things are meant to be personal, private…

But like my difficult coming out experience as a twenty year old decades ago, sometimes opening up about something traumatic or otherwise is warranted.

As an author, my work has to blend parts personal and parts fictional. It doesn’t have to be confessional as many people think. Authors need to resist the urge to write autobiographically, at least when it comes to fiction. Whether a story were based on true events, a work of fiction could improve greatly with embellishments. I wouldn’t want to give readers the impression that my stories are jigsaw puzzles of my personal life and motivations. I want to mislead people who think that all writers essentially write about themselves.

Why? Because people who read between the lines and assume too much about an author based on their works of fiction are missing the point. Novels/novellas/short stories are artistic efforts, bursts of creativity and inspiration that need to be more fulfilling and rewarding than those clamped down by limitations. Although the adage that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction applies, rarely does reality outmatch a tale engineered to inspire the utmost fear (maybe except the holocaust).

That might disappoint some readers, but most readers only care if the product is good. If the book is unputdownable and wrought with a great focus on aesthetics, a book will hook a reader regardless of an author’s personal life and reputation. The latter things become superfluous.

It’s like a mirror in a dressing room where someone is trying on multiple ensembles. People see some semblance of the author, but each book is different, just like the clothes.

It may be tempting to introduce as many realistic details in a work of fiction as an author deems appropriate, but most authors write only one autobiographical novel in their careers if any. The fact is we authors love to fantasize like the next person, and placing our characters in scenarios that we envision for ourselves without real experience suffices for some of that ‘a posteriori’ awakening that doesn’t come with simple visualization.

If you ask me personally, I can only introduce so many details derived from everyday life before I ultimately lose interest. I may introduce a character based on a real life person and portray them differently, if only to watch a scene unfold cinematically, to manipulate these characters and their plans of action so as to experience some form of catharsis. The trouble is I’ve met too many people misled into thinking that all works of fiction are inherently autobiographical. They mistakenly use books as maps to an author’s personality profile. This finds credence in some aspiring authors who have no ideas to work with, no premise besides those in real life they yearn to subject to an exorcism. The difference? A capable storyteller fleshes out very realistic characters that have been spawned by nothing more than the overactive imagination. For mankind to mimic godhood and create as he was created.

Especially in horror…where circumstances force a character to trigger fight or flight response, where real life violence is magnified and multiplied. Terror presents with its share of thrills, a morbid fascination for the darker side of life in a safe medium of expression. In real life, we don’t want drama; we don’t want the crippling paranoia brought by a fear of the unknown.

And yet, we are at liberty to examine that fully in the world of fiction, as it should be. Readers understand the impetus of such a morbid curiosity, that they, themselves, are egged on to explore the darkness, to keep turning the page as more grisly details are unearthed. We use our imagination liberally and with seeming reckless abandon.

When an able storyteller merges social commentary derived from reality with a make-believe world based loosely on the same actuality, readers see the world around them differently. They approach this reality with hesitancy; else they arrive at a clearer understanding, and are, therefore, immune to fear.

The crafty storyteller is the genius that can place their readers in fantastical scenarios that look anything but. He is the seasoned debater that can convince everybody of the truth he knows, perhaps even fooling or persuading himself.