I’m doing an awful thing as of late. I’m filching ideas from fiction to help guide my current non-fiction writing sprint. The nanowrimo “write a novel in 3 weeks” mad dash started out as a novel that then became several loosely linked short stories and now it has become something more like that arty, terribly cliché “creative nonfiction.” Which always puzzles me. What is creative nonfiction? To the layperson? To the reader who reads everything? To the writer who reads everything looking for good ideas? I see everything as both complete fiction and complete truth. A problem, I realize.
When attending a reading last week (no, the week before? my god, where has the time gone?), the author stated clearly, before she began reading “Just to remind you, what I’m about to read is fiction.” I thought that was interesting. A little odd. Of course its non-fiction, you wrote a “novel.” But, whatever, duly noted. She read. She was lovely. Her story was powerful. And of course, I did not heed her warning. I drove home that night thinking “Wow, I can’t believe that happened to her!” But it had not. Or had it? Maybe pieces of it happened to her or a friend or an extended friend or a stranger that happened to be talking about it too loudly at dinner.
This is where I get stuck. Not only in my assumption of what has happened to others as a result of the fiction they write – but I get myself into jams when I forget that I can make it all up. I’m trying so hard to remain true to the spirit of what happened…that I forget I’m a FICTION writer. I get to make it up. Artfully spin my tale. Lie, if you will.
I’m finding it hard to lie about the details when the truth of the matter still has to come out, fiction or not. Shall I take this as a sign that non-fiction is my métier – or must I just hunker down and start fibbing?