Tags
Fiction, Homecoming, M. Night Shyamalan, Storyteller, The Sixth Sense, The Visit, Truth, Writing
Last Saturday on Psychological Sizzle, in a post titled Home is Where the Sizzle Is, I blathered raved about one of my favourite movies, The Sixth Sense.
Writing the post prompted me to watch the movie. The comments, and one comment in particular from a new reader, prompted me to plug in the Special Features disk, and to write this post.
I’m of an opinion. Yes, I know that’s shocking coming from this mousy, shy little pipsqueak of a writer–SNORT!–but I do have one. And yes, I’ll be happy to ram it… er, share it with you. Ready?
There is no true fiction.
Ground-breaking, I know.
The adage, write what you know, isn’t–again with my opinions–something we should practice with absolute conviction. Ever watch a friend’s home movies? Ever mentally add clothespins to your letter to Santa so you can keep your eyelids open?
Real life, aside from the odd bump in the night or rattle of chains, is BORING.
Real life, in all of it’s thrill-sucking glory, does not make good fiction.
Except for the times when it does make good fiction.
Case in point, THE VISIT. Item #10 in STORYTELLER’S table of contents, this story, pulled straight from my 12-year-old life, was previously published online at New Mystery Reader.
Yes. Straight from my 12-year-old life, for real and for true, except for the last few paragraphs where the truth is revealed. The revelation was what the revelation was, but in real life, the revelation did not come to light for another 12 hours.
As an author, I had a choice: blather on about a ‘sick’ day, watching TV, reading, snoozing and other at-home-playing-hooky-during-a-blizzard activities or…
deliver my reader to the twisty-turvy truth post haste, and,
empower the AHA moment so the reader would be as certain as I, many many moons later, am certain, that what most certainly did take place, most certainly could not have. Two truths, in direct conflict and complete synchronicity at the same time.
There you have it. I fictionalized a true event. Or rather, I fictionalized a slice of a true event.
There is a little of a writer in every character they create, a little of their own experience in every plot they weave. In THE VISIT, it was a slice, a sliver, of the truth that was changed. In my novel, HOMECOMING, the opposite occurred. The story grew from a tiny seed of truth, planted in the creativity-rich soil of my imagination.
Or, as those who know me best might say, the story took shape in the belfry where the bats doth reside.
Back to The Sixth Sense. Back to M. Night Shyamalan and his twisted Hitchcockian ways.
Says the writer/director in an interview (clip below):
“…each movie, you want to tell a little bit about who you are or a part of your life.”
Great advice, for directors, screenplay writers, and for novelists.
Further into the clip, Shyamalan relates a story from his childhood, and the resonating image from that experience. The experience influenced a scene in The Sixth Sense that bares little resemblance to the actual story that inspired the scene.
It is the essence of the experience, more than the facts and fine details, that made it to film.
Be they real experiences, visions or dreams that impress us, those defining moments of truth are alive with the psychological sizzle that haunt us into our waking hours in search of deeper meaning, in search of clarification.
And if you ask me, reality is the stuff the very best fiction is made of.
Do you have a dream or experience that has the sizzle to become a great story?
I agree with you, Sherry. No surprise there, right?
THE VISIT was one of my favoUrites in STORYTELLER. Your sight, sound, smell, feel descriptions were so detailed they popped on the page. Engaged my senses. Gave me a cue-Twilight-Zone-music-response when the phone rang. It’s something that could only be written if you were there, had experienced it.
Loved that interview. Thankfully Huey P Ackard behaved through most of it. Locked up forty-seconds before the end. I must know if missing those last forty seconds were a sign, a warning, a prompt.
WTG! Another sizzling hot post.
Gloria, so glad Huey P Ackard was on cue this Saturday morning! Thought I might have to forego including a video stream on my posts for the rest of time.
Kind words on The Visit… Thank you.
It helps to open the video, let it start to play, then pause to let it load. Huey, might be able to set it up that way!
And so I spend another Saturday morning with Sherry
Interesting interview … do you see dead people? Of course you do. In waking hours, in dreams and nightmares in the shadow of a smile or the sound of the rain … they are all around you. Yikes, what the heck is that? Okay, the difference between telling a story that resonates instead of sings one note like a flat line … is to avoid “category” … to resist hacking out the same “forumla” and get inside where the truth never sets you free, but gives you some damn good stuff. Do most people want to go under the surface? No. The reason HEA sells by the gazillion is the desire to escape what lies below the surface. Can you write a story that engages and digs deep? Every day if you can get there. Lots of people read those stories as well.
In good fiction we write from the core of who we are and create characters and “plots” if you will … to use different parts of our own reality to build another reality. The real event that is fictionalized, the character that is an amalgum of a dozen other arch types can be uniquely your own, yet no one you know who lives a moment you have never actually experienced. That’s the fun part. Taking from the known to the unknown, taking the reader on a journey that is new for both of you.
In the shadow of a smile or the sound of the rain… What the heck is that, you ask, dear Florence? That is genius. LOVE it.
I do love The Sixth Sense. I think there’s some good real life in all fiction. I know I can point out the occurrences, personalities, and places in all my fiction that escaped my memories and lept onto the page.
It would be amazing, wouldn’t it, to be able to know all those little straight-from-real-life snippets in our favourite books.
Happy Saturday, Brinda!
Fiction IS my reality. That’s why I write. That and it makes for a better sounding career choice than “crazy lady who makes stuff up”.
As the parent of two adopted kids, learning to cope with grief and loss is almost a daily occurence around here. That theme – grief and loss and trying to make sense of it all – is what planted the seed for my WIP.
It seems unavoidable that my own journey of trying to understand grief and loss will be woven into those pages even though my protag is 16. My hope is that it all comes across from a teenager’s POV and not from my adult POV.
Hey, crazy lady who makes up stuff! We wackos with twisted realities must stick together.
Loss is a theme we all relate to. When I was 16, every emotion was hyper-charged. Sounds like you’re on a poignant journey. Can’t wait to read all about it.
Bravo, Sherry, this is a beauty of a post.
“Real life, in all of it’s thrill-sucking glory, does not make good fiction.
Except for the times when it does make good fiction.”
Well, see, it’s lines like that which make me convinced that you must be a closet genius — although maybe not so much in the closet if we’re all reading it here on the vast acreage of the Internet. Anyway, I love this — really love this, because it’s the bare-bones truth of fiction without the fluffy fillers. I am certain I will always be a writer of fiction simply because I lack the courage to write full on truth. And yet, being the coward I am, I will never write fiction that isn’t laced with the distinct and necessary threads of truth.
BTW, where oh where can your book be found? I was thinking a simple click here or there and I’d have it, but so far, wholly unsuccessful?
Genius? Ka-snort! I mean, yeah, sure…
Is it even possible to write fiction that isn’t laced with truth, Barbara? But therein lies that little bit of advice everyone should heed: never piss off a writer! LOLOLOL!
My book? Well. I am new to WordPress. I have an HTML code for my paypal link, but can’t seem to load it. My publisher is small, which means distribution is me me me.
Storyteller will become available online once I figure this little techno-detail out, stay tuned! In the meantime, I am so thankful for your interest. WOOT!
I think it’s impossible not to take pieces of our lives for our stories. When I first started writing classes at University of Toronto, we were required to write stories from our real lives because the professor thought making things up was too difficult for an introductory writing course.
I’ve had quite a few of those unexplainable, spirit moments in my life. I think the fact that I know there is ‘magic’ in real life drives my love of paranormal writing. I’ve taken it a step further by adding ‘what if’s’ in Love of Her Lives, with Calum, the spirit guide and Finn the elf, but the essence behind this book was a real life event that I tried to find meaning in, and perhaps reality.
Interesting point, Sherry. I don’t know as I’d say there is no true fiction, but certainly fiction is life with the boring bits removed. Now, there are people who reckon I leave those parts in mine, but it’s something to strive for.
Certainly I’ve used my experience in my writing. One of the things I think it that we’re all the sum of our influences, and ignoring them in our writing diminishes our style and voice.
Cheers
Real life is boring. Well, unless you do what you did and cut out the boring parts. We do that in our memories anyway. I bet when you remember that day all the boring parts squish together and the interesting part stretches out longer than the time it actually took. We self edit our memories, why not edit and then embellish as authors? Not doing short stories I am not including my personal stories into my fiction, I think it would be more like the interview where a flavor incorporates itself into a scene. I’ve thought about writing about some of my personal stories, but if I did, I’d never tell.
Just read this post, am late to the party.
I had my “sixth sense” moment in my teen years. Scary stuff. Haven’t used it yet in any story. It’ll come. When I’m not so scared anymore.