Tammy Letherer 
Last week, I wrote about how ‘Keeping it Real’ can be hurting your writing. I shared the reminder that if our goal as writers is to create dramatic action (and of course that’s the goal!) then we need to remember that fiction is not reality. It’s concentrated, intensified reality.
I told the story of my humiliating attempt, at age nine, to jump off the high dive at the local pool. Both that story and the idea of turning real-life events into fiction elicited some great responses that are too good not to pass on.
Keith sent me this wonderful story:
I faced a similar situation around the same age—everyone’s jumping off the diving board except me. My friends come over and say, “Aren’t you gonna get in line and jump?”
I said, “Are you crazy? I’m not gonna do that!” and they walked over and got in line to climb and dive.
Then as I was sitting there I thought, all these kids are getting in line, climbing up, jumping off, resurfacing, sometimes laughing, then swimming to the side, getting out, and getting back in line.
I thought, is anybody getting hurt? No. Are any of them saying how scary it was? No.
So then, what separates them from me? And I thought: FEAR. If there are no bad results, what’s keeping me from getting in line?
So, I said to myself, I’m getting in line and jumping. Somewhat shaky and nervous, I got in line, climbed up, went to the edge, and jumped in (didn’t dive, but hey, it was a first step!). And that’s when I realized how fear keeps us from accomplishing so much.
F.E.A.R.= False Evidence Appearing Real!
And June shared some great quotes from Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel:
“Even if the novel is based entirely on what the novelist himself has experienced, he will rework the experiences to make them more vivid and evocative, and, indeed, more logical and comprehensible. In working them, he will betray, or transcend the original experience.”
And, “The constructions of memories themselves, and their arrangement into a logical and understandable order, may make them fictional, but also make them worth reading about.” (Smiley paraphrasing Proust)
Thanks, loved ones, for sharing!
