Transforming Facts into Fiction Might Just Give You the Inspirational Advantage

I’ve been feeling really good about something and I wasn’t sure why. What had changed in my daily routine to instill in me a sense of calm?

Each morning, I spend several hours writing. Some days it’s poetry, other days it’s an essay, and other days it’s revisions on something previously written.  For months I’d been procrastinating about re-starting work on “the novel” I’ve been writing and revising. Then I got an idea for another entry point.  Inspired, my mind began creating a story.

In Fiction, I begin to picture something and the journey begins. It’s a good feeling, addictive, due to the comfort it provides. The entire month of November as part of my Nanowrimo 2023 challenge I’d been laboring over memoir. The work of sifting through my recollections spilled into December and I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to just make things up.

Is one genre superior to another? They each have their time and place in our lives and I like to experiment with them all, select them as a musician would select an instrument, depending on the mood of the tune.

My reality is informed by what I’ve experienced, but certain things are better conveyed by reconfiguring the structure of the event. Changing the setting from a lush meadow to a dry dessert might emphasize the despair a writer may be trying to convey.  Changing the number of characters in a scene might enable a writer to focus on the central figures. This is where the creative force of inspiration comes into play.

WRITING PROMPT: Take a true event: Your first day or school, the search to find an apartment or place to live, the purchase of your first car—something memorable.

Now re-imagine the situation in a different way that captures your emotions but easier for the reader for grasp. For example, you are nervous about your new school and what you are wearing, a stray dog jumps up on you as you walk towards the school and puts her muddy paws all over your white shirt but you don’t have time to change (didn’t happen but it does in your fictional story) Maybe your character meets someone, a future classmate, who witnesses the event and is sympathetic to your plight.  What ensues? Maybe the child and the dog become friends.

How do you feel about this new story? Would you like to try writing another version or try something else?

Thank you for reading. Here’s the link to a short story “It Began with Something that Might Break”, published in Rock Salt Journal that is fiction but was inspired by a true event.

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