Fiction.

December 19, 2024

I’ve come to think that I might be in a bit of a creativity rut. This blog is, honestly, exhibit one for this rut. I don’t know if I can write about something that has not happened to me. Or something that I have not thought about or believed or experienced or heard about. Considering this, I truly cannot remember the last time I truly synthesized something new – maybe high school? Maybe through other mediums of art, like when I used to do photography? When storytelling was less important than it is now in the medium of writing, definitely. Perhaps, I am not all that creative in the first place – maybe my talents lie elsewhere? In truth-telling? In reality, the truth is such a curious thing. What separates fiction from nonfiction is truly just perspective. Everything in my perspective is truth – whether it is something “objectively” true or something I have fantasized about or something I have quelled against – and that is all I write about. So, is anything I have to say original? I suppose it might not be. Maybe it is not just a rut. 

You see, I’ve just read this chapter in a book where the author writes a long form story about the characters’ lives in a single paragraph. Through the entire ten pages, she never takes a breath. A ten page paragraph. She simply creates this entire universe within her existing universe of the story without a second thought. Notwithstanding the fact I will never know the work that went into the chapter, nonetheless the book, before it’s publication, is one of the most impressive things I have ever read. For ten straight pages she writes this life about people who simply do not exist. She doesn’t even write about their lives – she completely creates them. Without this paragraph, there is no backstory and no harbored breaths and growing pains and wedding veils; they are completely synthesized by the author. And I know they are most likely not reflections of her life: She has written, and I have read, many other books in which there are different characters with different personalities and different plot lines and different relationships that do not follow this paragraph’s formula. 

The thing is, as enamoured as I am by this kind of writing, and as much of it I have read and consumed, I do not think I could create such a thing. As I mentioned earlier, this very blog is a perfect example of it. In order to share my writing, I started posting on a page on the internet about my life, my thoughts, and my fantasies instead of creating something new altogether. In reality, I think I am afraid of even trying to create something completely new because I am not sure I really could. I do not know if I am creative like that. See – this here is more of an online diary that few people read instead of some great journalistic or artistic endeavor I originally had the intention of making it. Maybe this is why I chose studying journalism instead of writing a novel, like my father pushes me to do constantly, and I fight against constantly, despite it being my dream since I was a young child.

I don’t know if I could write true fiction. I was speaking with a professor of english for an article I was writing a few months ago and I asked her if she thought if authors instinctually integrated themselves into the characters of their books, with her response being somewhat of a question back to me. Something along the lines of, “Would that be true creativity, if you cannot write about something you have not experienced?” To this, her immediate answer to her own question was No. Then how would people write characters of other races? Characters of other sexualities? Characters of other financial backgrounds or characters living in other countries or characters of other genders? She posed this to me as my internal perspective that no one can really write without inserting themselves and their experiences and personalities into the characters they create crumbled and left me feeling weary and quite frankly, stupid. Would the fiction really be fictional? Would you really be a creator? Or just an interpreter? A mediator? My greatest fear would be to be reduced to this.

Whenever I try to think of a story it is just some version of my own. A romance about characters separated by immensity and brought back together just to push each other away again. A family with conflictingly loving parties set in a suburban landscape – no siblings, obviously. A first friendship so convoluted and complex that, of course, it ends without a word. Or a later friendship that involves a group that defines us, and most impactfully, the main character, of which she cannot fully fathom the weight of that definition. I don’t know – I can’t even come up with more because I am truly not sure what else is going on or has gone on in my own life. I don’t know how authors create characters that are not based on people they know – where do they get inspiration for a completely new human? How could I just synthesize the thoughts and actions of a being completely of my creation without them being something I would do or think or something I would actively think, “I would never do/think that,” making those actions or thoughts actively present in myself just the same?

See, I could never write a character who does not fathom the world or their own selves like I do or actively don’t. That is only two ways of being. How could I make other ways? Either someone acts like me or someone I know or they do not – that is only two ways of being! There are so many more than that and I have not unlocked how to find those and use them. 

For these reasons, I am afraid I am not truly creative. Even the more “creative,” or perhaps better labelled as “narrative,” postings and writings and thoughts like this are from my own experiences and hopes and fears and fantasies and actions. Who wants to exclusively read about that? If I ever had a novel, I believe I might be a one trick pony. How can I have more ideas than this? This all leads me to the question: Am I not very creative, or am I just a narcissist? Possibly both.