Aug 10, 2015
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I never intended to go into marketing. In fact, I just kind of
fell into it -- and realized I was fairly decent at it. In
marketing, I've learned a lot about truth (and how people respond
to truth) that I'll share with you today in Episode 020 of
the Write Now podcast.
Truth! Beauty! Right?
There's an adage that says, "Writers are professional
liars." I can understand the cynicism and humor that lie
beneath that statement, but I don't agree with it. Not a bit.
When you're writing to connect with people, whether it's an account of factual events or a story about unicorns piloting spaceships through a multiverse of rainbows, you have a responsibility to tell the truth.
The fiction writer is the penultimate truth-teller.
The resonant and enduring beauty of fiction doesn't lie in a
mere faithful retelling of events. And simply writing
what you know (yet another writing adage) is not enough.
We write and read fiction to connect with others -- to find
truths in one another. As Ernest Hemingway once said,
"From all things that you know, and from all those you cannot know,
you make something through your invention that is not a
representation but a whole new thing, truer than anything true and
alive."
I really can't say it any better than that.
Read more about it.
Podcast listener Maggie referenced a rich and lovely
interview with Maya Angelou in her letter to me. If you'd
like to read that interview yourself, you'll find it here, in the
Paris Review No. 119.
I also quote a couple passages from Stephen King's On
Writing in this episode. It's a great book, and you should read it
if you haven't already.
The book of the week.
I re-read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried for this
week's podcast episode, and I'm glad I did. Not because I
especially enjoy war stories or Vietnam War fiction, or even
because I missed a lot of its finer nuances as a college
student.
It just felt... refreshing to know that I'm not the only one who struggles with truth-telling in fiction.
It's a relief to know I'm not the only one who gets frustrated by the gross inadequacy and inability of our language to convey the complex spectrum of emotions that can be packed into one single event, one single moment.
I'm not alone in this. You're not alone in this. And that's truth-telling at its finest.
Keep up-to-date with my book-related adventures on
Goodreads.
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Comments? Questions?
What sort of truths have you discovered in your own writing?
What do you think of the adages "Writers are liars" and "Write what you know"?
Submit your own thoughts or questions on my contact
page, or simply email me at hello [at] sarahwerner [dot] com.
I can't wait to hear from you.
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The post Truth In Fiction – WN 020 appeared first on The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner.