Truth or fiction?

"There is only one type of story in the world---your story." ~ Ray Bradbury

Today was my favourite day of the month: writers’ group day.  Each month we write to a particular topic or theme, and then read and comment around the table.  This month’s assignment was to write something biographical or factual – no fiction.   Ironically, I have only ever shared short nonfiction pieces, and had been thinking I should probably produce some fiction for a change!

After hearing me bemoan yet another heavily autobiographical contribution, one of the ladies said something I found very interesting.  She said you need to keep writing it, get it all out, and only then can you start on the fiction.

I’m not sure that I agree with her assertion.  For starters it implies that autobiography involves some kind of progressive catharsis.  And that this expurgation has some sort of finite quality to it.  And that fiction requires a more sophisticated relationship with one’s inner terrain than autobiography does.  I would argue that all writing involves an interior process, regardless of the writer’s depth of awareness of it.  The deep truths that drive autobiographical pieces are the same truths that give life to good fiction.  If you can connect to that place inside yourself before you start writing, it will breathe that same energy and connection into what you’ve written, regardless of whether it’s fictional or not.  Fiction writers may labour under the illusion that the stories they write are “made up”, but it all spills tellingly from somewhere in their psyche. 

This is just a scratch on the surface of the thinking I’m doing about writing and “being a writer” (yes, two separate concepts).  I am being aided and abetted in my explorations by Dennis Palumbo’s exceptional book, Writing from the Inside Out. While I disagree with my friend’s statement, it is true that I’ve got a transformative process going on.  And it has nothing to do with catharsis, but claiming.