Creative Conundrums #13: Fiction Vs Non-Fiction?
A Writer's Corner series dedicated to challenges and worries throughout the creative process, doubts, queries and everything in between.
Welcome February and Past Instalments of Creative Conundrums
Whoop whoop, January is now officially over! A collective sigh of relief across the globe, as we enter a different month, a shorter month even if in 2024 it consists of twenty-nine humble days. I hope January brought you what you wished for, and more; writing or not, reading or not.
What are your hopes for the month of February? Is there anything you would like to see through? Let me know in the comments section below; it has been a while since I have heard from you and I would very much enjoy that.
Whilst here, help yourself to previous instalments of Creative Conundrums below. Post #1 and Post #2 are related, and so are Post #11 and Post #12. Other than that, the Creative Conundrums can be read in whatever order you see fit.
Creative Conundrums #2: Individual Publications or Publication Sections?
Creative Conundrums #4: What Are the Substack ... Things Called?
Creative Conundrums #8: Creative Writing Courses Vs M(F)As in Creative Writing
Creative Conundrums #9: First Draft Exposure Vs First Draft Secrecy
Creative Conundrums #10: Literary Competitions Now Vs Literary Competitions Later
Creative Conundrums #11: Corporate Jobs Vs Creative Jobs (Or Both)?
Creative Conundrums #12: Wealth Vs Creativity (Or Both)?
What is Creative Conundrums?
“What is Creative Conundrums”, you ask yourself. It is a series – if someone has a finer term for it, I would steal it in a heartbeat – dedicated to questions of creative nature, worrisome thoughts, plaguing insecurities, and day-to-day challenges that I wrestle with.
Over the years, I have realised that much of what we often consider to be unique to our personalities, for example the tendency to be indecisive, or circumstances, say, our education background or job, resonates with others louder than we have ever imagined.
Creative Conundrums will, therefore, serve two purposes:
Aid me in un-baffling myself through endless rambling and mind backflips, and
Provide solace to you in the realisation that you are not alone in your troubles (Fingers crossed, sound practical advice will be a welcome by-product).
Now then…over to Creative Conundrum #13. Are you superstitious?
Creative Conundrums #13: Fiction Vs Non-Fiction? Context
I am penning – literally – a memoir. One of my Christmas gifts last year was a replacement of my former, very cheap, plastic fountain pen; it had run out of ink months ago and I never stocked back up. I was not enamoured with the pen; it did the job but, as pens went (not even fountain pens), it was mediocre. Below mediocre.
This newcomer, though, was an upgrade. Easy to see. It has a good (but not unbearable) weight about it, a proper fountain pen. A perfect mixture of light and dark shades of blue covers its shiny, metal body. Gold-rimmed shapes – air bubbles perhaps – are floating about the surface in a seemingly random pattern. Underwater treasures.
I like memoirs, I do, but the thought of my own memoir? Cringe. Such a self-indulgent thing to do, you muppet.
‘Why do it then?’ Well, for a beginner writer like myself, a memoir feels like the right place to start. This may be an erroneous assumption, especially with creative non-fiction rising amongst the ranks of literature, yet it would be cheeky to pretend it is not less work: I do not need to create the characters, for they are entities in their own right: alive and kicking, three-dimensional (fingers crossed!) creatures. My mind does not need to invent street names or plan how the intersect one another; I do not have to worry about the length of time it takes someone to walk from A to B. The locations are, and have been, in existence for centuries. The events? Already happened at no extra cost for me and my creative juices.
(P.S. This very first draft can hardly be called a complete draft; it is the act of writing down memories before they fade away to the back of a cupboard, third row, second from the left, of a discarded wardrobe in the attic… The layer of dust is visible across the top of the furniture without putting a single finger to it.)
Do not get me wrong: a non-fiction book needs to be written well, of course. But the heavy lifting, on behalf of my imagination, has been done before I have even put pen to paper. The list of potential problems diminishes; it is only the dull, predictable writing that I dabble in that can fail me (and the lack of care readers might show to the ins and outs of my life to date).
Unlike finding an (amazing) idea for a fiction work (short or long-form) and building the world (locking in the theme; injecting the main players and their sidekicks; supplying the architecture, the flora and fauna) from the ground up. Hardly far-fetched to assume that it is easier to write a non-fiction book!
Or is it?
Creative Conundrums #13: Fiction vs Non-Fiction? The Actual Conundrum
You may argue the end of my conundrum is near.
After all, two weeks are left until my Creative Writing course commences, and with it, my dreams of learning the craft of fictional writing are coming to fruition. I live under no illusion that on one bright, sunny day at the start of May, I will wake up and know everything there is to know about fiction. However, in three months’ time, I should be better equipped to muster dialogue, draw characters, come up with a setting, dictate the pace, build the tension, et cetera.
‘Yes, yes you will be!’, an angelic mini me on my right shoulder whispers. Great, but I doubt my newly found ‘expertise’ will remove the inner hesitation, the notion of going back and forth over what type of writing I should focus on at the beginning. Carry on with the memoir, producing a second draft (in which I transpose the ugly handwriting into a neat, electronic software of sorts), or submerge myself into the big, scary world of make-believe?
Some writers, I hear, do not choose. They pursue a handful of projects simultaneously. A scene in the gruesome crime series falling flat on its face? No cause for concern! They pick up the collection of essays on intersectional feminism they have been neglecting for the last few months instead. But one must learn how to walk before they attempt a sprint…
(Reverie: Fast forward to the end of April, and I have a fully-fledged novel idea that I am itching to write; the excitement oozes from me. No doubts clutter my mind or mist my vision. I am convinced the idea has legs and, therefore, is what I need to spend my writing time on. #Manifest)
On a regular basis, success stories spring from both camps. Not one size fits everybody. Some first-time writers take on the gigantic task of writing a novel whereas others turn the fruits of their years-long journaling habit into a coherent, autobiographical book that readers swarm like a fly swarms a hot plate of food. They cross the fiction vs non-fiction bridge as and when.
None the wiser I am about which side of the bridge I am currently on.
Creative Conundrums #13: Fiction Vs Non-Fiction? Thoughts
I wonder if this is something you have thought through or wrestled with. The (mental) image of a writer is often a person writing fictionalised events in fictionalised places whose roads fictionalised people drive on, but it does not have to be. Not always.
A selection of questions to help you along if you decide to participate in this week’s Creative Conundrum:
Have you ever considered writing a memoir, an autobiography, or any other piece of (creative) non-fiction?
If so, did you persevere, or did you abort mission?
If you have written non-fiction previously, what was the experience for you? Did you find it easier than your fiction attempts?
Assuming you have not written non-fiction, are you interested in the genre?
What are some of the fears you have about writing non-fiction?
Your feedback on this topic is greatly appreciated, and I thank you in advance for your time.