Reflection #2 - Fiction VS Reality & Self-texting

The use of experience is always a good technique to provide emotion into one's writing. But distancing from reality and fiction is what allows one to paint a pattern that permits the reader to get in touch into the mood that they are trying to bring to their writing. Miller and Hoffman both mention the autobiographical components of their text. Sometimes one can dramatize an event that happened last week using emotions from somebody they met in their childhood. And that in its own can be fiction just because in fiction you could put yourself laughing at a joke relating to your mother dying but in reality you would probably have a cut throat feeling that fastens the pace of the beating of your heart. Hoffman shows that using experience is not creating an autobiography in the short story Sustained by Fiction While Facing Life's Facts. "When Jo Ann asked me to find her a gravesite, a heart breaking mission if ever there was one, my characters from 'Local Girls’ made a similar trek in the very same day, although they were far wiser than I and more optimistic," [95]. Using one’s experiences gets changed a little in fiction making your work not autobiographical. But at the same time talking about past experiences can make your work more relatable and feel more real.

Throughout fictionalizing an actual event in my life it felt very grand that I was capable of making fiction out of a small event. I exaggerated the whole situation by including sentiments that were not present, and actions that did not happen. I also changed the setting and the results of the story. Although I used my experience the writing was the least bit of what happened in reality. In Miller’s story - Virtual Reality: The Perils of Seeking A Novelist’s Facts in Her Fiction it is said that “The writer’s job is to make relevant the world she wishes to write about,” [159]. This concludes that you can use an actual experience but your end result is not your story but the connection that it has with your writing. So I just used events in my life to make it appropriate in my writing. In doing this I felt spectacular.

It was not that hard for me to distance myself from my work in order to fictionalize it because the idea was already there. The only thing I had to do was make the story unreal by changing the characters, the settings, and maybe alternating an event here or there to make it interesting. Changing the story to make it fiction was not that difficult. But adding in details to make the reader more engrossed was tough. I had to include the five senses in order to make the reader more attached to the writing. A quote that shares my exact sentiments was one that was in a vignette written by Miller. “The shaping, after all, is what it’s all about… It is that struggle for meaning that lets the writer escape the tyranny of what really happened and begin to dream his fictional dream,” [159]. Translating your story is not as hard as making it express the meaning that you want it to demonstrate. So distancing my work in order to fictionalize it was not the hard part but adding the rhythm such as imagery, and to actually make it make sense was the difficulty that I faced writing this journal.

I feel that a part of me must be in my work at all times because then I can bring the necessary emotion in order to captivate my reader. If I do not add my feelings about a particular situation the story will seem dry and uninspiring. I must write about every physical sensation, every external action, and every internal feeling. I must add why my heart beats so quickly when an event occurs, or in what motion does my blood run. If I include myself into my writing it makes it all the more easier for my reader to relate. Alice Hoffman was a great example of someone who used her knowledge of life to create a fascinating fiction piece. “What was real and what was imagined became braided together. I live in my own world and the world of my book simultaneously,” [p. 97]. Hoffman is a very successful writer and since she was able to include her sentiments, and life into her fiction she was able to grab an audience for her literature. Hoffman and many other writers have been successful in creating works of art for the world to read by using this technique which is why you must make reality and fiction intertwine to be successful in your road to fiction writing.

Work Cited:

1. Hoffman, Alice. "Sustained by Fiction While Facing Life's Facts". Writers [on Writing]: Collected Essays from The New York Times: 1st ed. By John Darton.95-98. Print.

2. Miller, Sue .“Virtual Reality: The Perils of Seeking a Novelist’s Facts in Her Fiction”.Writers [on Writing]: Collected Essays from The New York Times: 1st ed. By John Darton.156-160. Print.