The Reward of Writing Fiction
The stuff of everyday life makes us who we are, and it’s the job of the writer to identify those truths and make them accessible. We do that by finding the universal in the particular. We start out with the relationship between two people and search out what they have in common with every other couple.
For the last year, I’ve been struggling to describe the complex relationship between two characters in my next book, whose attraction to each other is deep and multilayered. What they have in common is obvious; what distinguishes them from one another should be equally transparent to them, but they protect themselves from awareness of how their differences are a magnetic attraction. Culturally, racially, by temperament and upbringing, they are worlds apart. Late last night, I finally identified the universal truths that define the dangers and opportunities of their relationship. It flowed from me like water. When I read the words my fingers had typed, I was surprised (as I always am when it happens) to find that they came from someplace beyond me, expressed ideas outside me, in ways I was never conscious of having formulated.
In this way, I am occasionally reminded that I belong to something far greater than myself. When undefended and accessible, insights not my own are sometimes channeled through me to the page. For me, this is the real reward of writing fiction.
Photo: Photo by Nathan McBride on Unsplash