Fiction Vs. Nonfiction

Lots of self-doubt these days.

My boyfriend just left with a friend to go see The Host, an excellent Korean horror flick about a mutant river monster who starts preying on humans. After they left I had an idea for a short story using his friend as a base for the main character. I have lots of story ideas based on real people, but I'm averse to writing them. Why? So many writers do. The example that first springs to mind is Thomas Wolfe, who based his book Look Homeward Angel (a must read) on himself and people from his hometown. The reaction was intense and he was pretty much ostracized from his hometown in North Carolina.

I guess I'm afraid of that reaction, that people would read those kinds of stories and say, "Hey, that's me! You b#@%h!" But so what? I am, actually, averse to writing fiction in the first place (kind of ironic, considering I'm trying to write a novel). But so often while reading and writing fiction I find myself thinking, "What's the point? This is just made up stuff happening to made up people. It has nothing to do with real life." At the same time, I often garner insights from reading good fiction, which I apply to my own life.

Take Nick Hornby's book How to Be Good, for example. I finished it last week and so much of it rang true for my own life. One of the main points of his book is that books and movies and plays take our mind off ourselves and our own lives and force us to see the world from a different perspective. I am often guilty of thinking that my view is the right one, as well as my opinions and thoughts and morals. Without exposing myself to different writers and thinkers I am in danger of pigeon-holing myself into my narrow view and becoming stodgy and stuck-in-my-ways.

I know that both fiction and nonfiction can make me think and see differently. I suppose I see nonfiction as having a leg up in this regard, because it's about stuff that did actually happen. So there's an incentive, if I am to write fiction, to base it on real life. Hell, I could USE real life and just change names and dates if I wanted.

In fact, the main character of the novel I'm slowly writing reminds me both of myself and an old, old friend from first grade who became a doctor. My main character is doing his residency and I often use stories my friend has told me for inspiration and authenticity.

I'm a songwriter as well, and most of my inspiration is toward that lately. I'm off to play my guitar!

(photo of annie dillard)