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| Photo credit: blog.mjscott.net |
You
pick up a good book to read it (fiction in this case) and you find the story
too close to the bone to be anything but a record of a real life situation. I
sometimes, catch myself beating my tracks back to the front page trying for the
'Disclaimer' (This is a work of
fiction blah, blah, blah).
A
good book translates you to a space where fiction no longer reads like fiction.
You start making illogical assumptions and arriving at ambitious
conclusions-naive contrivances to the objective mind. This is too real to be make-believe, you tell yourself.
I
started this blog back in '09 on the heels of my creative writing instructor's suggestion.
I appreciate her for going to such trouble to make me see reason: she wanted me
blogging so I could develop a personal writing voice in point of fact.
Her
second reason was quite intriguing; regular bloggers are offered a rare
privilege of grooming a faith in their writing voice which they then, transport
into their fiction. The credibility of their story is reinforced, as a result.
My
instructor said blogging is like the
laying of a foundation. You post anything you want on your blog; it's one
surefire way to discover your writing voice and fix the timidity of the guy on
the inside. There is also the issue of the authoritative voice to deal with.
And that's the point I'm driving at.
The
attitude of authority is the boost that feeds your fiction and sends it in over
the transom, yet, maintains a ring of reality. The mindset of belief in the real things you blog about used to
sharpen the unreal stuff in your
fiction.
Get your facts first, then you
can distort them as you please.
That's
the beauty of it all. The pivotal thrust of fiction. The ability to 'distort'
known fact, to cook up a story and still deliver on the payload. I've made
something of a lifestyle from reading the introduction/foreword to novels
before setting myself up for the main event that is, the story. I am often than
not fascinated by the ordinary, uneventful occasions, which inspire a 700 – 1000
page-turner.
Writers
never call what they do "lying". Such words don't do it for their
trade. A writer's job is not a profession of deceit rather it's the writer's
duty to take the reader by the hand and lead him/her into a world of
might-have-beens. Taking pains to dig
into the depth of things, tackling the utmost degree of the "what-if"
question.
There
is an element of truth in every genuine work of fiction. But unless the story
is presented as the narration of a eyewitness, the theme and the overall
purpose of plot is defeated.
A
good writer brings his experience to bear on his competence to warp the facts
and present a story that plows through the brain and reaches straight for the
heart without putting his foot in it.
However,
it is always the best policy to speak the truth unless of course, you can spin
an exceptionally good yarn on a string of lies.
Keep
your pen bleeding!
Akpan
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