On Writing True Fiction

For years, ever since the first writing workshop I conducted, I've called the kind of writing I do "True Fiction."

What does that mean exactly? It's the kind of fiction in which the character—or the muse via the characters—dictates the course of the story, as opposed to fiction in which the plot is carefully outlined according to formulaic rules. It's literary fiction vs. genre fiction. It's seat-of-the pants writing, character driven rather than plot driven. 

So why do I call it true. It's because I write to learn the truth—about a given issue, about life, and about myself and what I really believe, and about what is important.

Others have described this kind of writing in their own terms, and a host of writers employ it. The late Tony Hillerman once said in an interview that he does not outline his books. He tried it, but it never worked for him. His characters had their own ideas of how the story should go.

And that's how they are, in true fiction. Once you are in the heart and mind of your story's characters, they will tell you if you're not telling the truth about them—about what they would do, think, or feel. And that's what makes writing so much of an exciting adventure.

Ann Lamott said "You make up your characters, partly from experience, partly out of the thin air of the subconscious, and you need to feel committed to telling the exact truth about them, even though you are making them up."

And it works like magic, as long as you, as Ann Lamott says, "don't pretend you know more about your characters than they do, because you don't. Stay open to them."

It's what Jon Gardner was talking about when he said, "Art is as original and important as it is precisely because it does not start out with a clear knowledge of what it means to say. Out of the artist's imagination, as out of nature's inexhaustible well, pours one thing after another."

"The writer," Gardner says, "asks himself at every step, 'Would she really say that?' or 'Would he really throw the shoe?'"

Wallace Stegner declared, "It is fiction as truth that I am concered with."

Oakley Hall claims that "Truth, not fact, is the business of fiction."

And as I write my stories from the characters' perspectives, I agree. It is the best way I know to learn and convey the truth of what it is really like to face the serious and difficult issues that challenge the human spirit.

In my workshops on "Writing True Fiction" I will show you that you, too, can write fiction from a character's perspective.

Have ideas—will travel

author@janetmuirheadhill.com

Writing the Ending

I have always maintained that the ending is the hardest part of the book to write. My style of writing is to develop characters I care about and then hand the reins to them, so to speak. Beginnings are usually easy, as I place these characters in the middle of some action with a dilemma to solve. Then I ask them, "What will you do, now?" and the story takes off. I don't outline. I don't plan the end until my characters take me there.

However, in a recent assignment, my Fiction Writing instructor gave the class an interesting assignment, which I just completed. "Write three possible beginnings and three possible endings to the story you are working on." Each of the three was to take a different approach from the types of endings and beginnings outlined in the book, Ficton Writer's Workshop, by Josip Novakovich.

Although I am only about two-thirds to three-fourths of the way through the novel, Kendall and Kyleah (working title), the third book of the twins trilogy, I found this assignment both useful and fun to do—especially the endings. This was a surprise to me. Knowing the possible ways I might end the book gives me a target—a beam of light in the distance I can use to keep my focus. I still don't know which of these three endings, if any of them, I might use. But writing them has energized me and made me want to get on with the journey, over whatever rough roads lie ahead, toward that beam of light.

Titles for young adult novels from Raven Publishing

In my last post, I asked for help in finding a title for my book about a junior high boy assigned to work in a homeless shelter. Several titles were suggested to me. The winner, so far, is "The Body in the Freezer." Yep, you gotta read the book to find out why. Coming soon.

Coming sooner is Kendall's Storm, the companion novel to Kyleah's Tree, which is also being reissued with a study/discussion guide at the end. To complete the trilogy, the third book that brings the twins, Kendall and Kyleah, together is also looking for a permanent title. So far, I've called it "Twins Together," "Reunited," or just "Kendall and Kyleah." Also thinking of dubbing it something like, "The Runaways" as there have been episodes of running away in both books and may be in the third, if it continues as planned. It isn't finished yet.

I began, as I always do by writing a few chapters as my muse (and characters) led me. As ideas came to me, I wrote a rough general outline of what will transpire, but I never know for sure what turns it will take or how it will end. That is up to the characters, who, once developed and put into situations I think up, teach me what they would do, and often create situations of their own. Being true to my characters allows both me and the readers to learn what the character's lives are really like. Readers can relate to characters whose emotions and reactions are authentic. That's what makes "true fiction." Both Kyleah's Tree and Kendall's Storm are available as ebooks on Amazon.com and on Smashwords.com.

Compelling Fiction Comes from the Heart, not the Head

Are you intimate with the characters in the novel you are reading? Do their problems become yours as you are reading? Are their emotions, happy, sad, frightened, or angry, real to you? Felt by you? Then you are reading a book written by an author who tells his or her story from the heart, not from the head. The author became one with the characters, felt the emotion, and suffered or rejoiced with the characters as the story progressed. 

Regardless of who we are and what we write, we are bound to put some of ourselves into our writing. Each experience is unique and our passions and our idiosyncrasies help to flavor our work. Writers, don’t be afraid to give your characters some of your own passions, phobias, and emotional upheavals. It will give your writing passion as well as encouragement to those readers who carry the same troubling baggage you do.

The purpose of "true fiction" is to express and show emotion with which readers can relate, to allow the reader to experience the emotion vicariously. It should also have the potential for positive influence. Literature influences people. It is up to the "true fiction" writer to use that power for the reader’s good. There is nothing wrong with fiction that is written solely to entertain. But the purpose of "true fiction" is to touch the readers’ emotions; to help them feel what they may be afraid to feel in real life.

 “People recognize that it feels good to feel and that not to feel is unhealthy.… Literature offers feelings for which we don’t have to pay.” (Janet Burroway,  Writing Fiction, A guide to Narrative Craft) 

“Don’t be afraid to ask of your writing, ‘Who will this art help? What baby is it squashing?.…Ideals expressed in art can effect behavior in the world, at least in some people some of the time.… I have said that wherever possible, moral art holds up models of decent behavior; for example, characters in fiction, drama, and film whose basic goodness and struggle against confusion, error, and evil—in themselves and in others—give firm intellectual and emotional support to our own struggle.” (John Gardner, On Moral Fiction )