Fears of a Fiction Writer
It's Feature Friday and Haly is getting personal about her own fears, making plans for new fiction, and seeking YOUR advice through a poll!
The Only Thing You Have to Fear, Is Yourself
There is no truer insight to our soul than the lies we tell.
Or, as a writer of fiction, there is no deeper intimacy for me to share than that of my imagination.
In the fiction that we write, we lay bare our fears, our insights, our opinions. We reveal ourselves and how we see the world. We expose those we know through the characters we paint. We let our very souls burst free from the entrapment of the real, in all of their shame and glory, naked and on display for the judgment of the world.
It is absolutely terrifying, and I think that sharing fiction — in whatever form it takes — is one of the bravest things to be done in art.
Speaking for myself, a large part of why I started writing stories was as a means of escape from the drudgery and research associated with the non-fiction writing required by school. Book reports and science reports and history reports…reports, reports, reports! Say it enough times in your head, and the word completely loses all meaning.
Stories, on the other hand, never lose meaning.
There was a point when I thought that writing fiction would be easier than non-fiction. After all, there aren’t any rules to imagination! You don’t have to cite your sources in footnotes or compile a bibliography. No one lowers your grade if you don’t turn in your notes. And while margins and formatting might still be a thing, I’ve yet to have any of my fiction-writing peers complain to me about fact-checking my imagination’s assertions within a story.
It’s neither the first nor the last time I’ll be wrong about something!
Fun Fact: Fiction is Harder than Non-Fiction
“Haly…that seems backward.” You’re right. It does. Still, follow me through this.
When writing non-fiction — say, about worldbuilding or writing on Substack or advice in the publishing industry — most of the information is right there for you. All you have to do is research, rearrange, and polish. Unless you are actively pursuing an advanced degree in a subject, it’s not necessary to contribute new knowledge, it’s well enough to just use what’s already there.
In fiction, you’re starting from scratch. You have to determine not just the characters and the events, but the entirety of the setting. Remember how I’m always saying that there’s room for an entire universe in every fictional world? Well, congratulations, you’re building that universe, from the Big Bang on out.
Lookit you go, you worldbuilding deity, you!
Now, maybe you say, “It’s just like real life except for these differences….” That’s fine, a lot of us do that. I do that. Argentii is a lot like Earth, except…. Avalon is set in the real world, except….
But it can’t all be the real world, otherwise it would be non-fiction! There has to come a point in a fictional story where the real world lays off, and the imagination takes over. That is where the creative process begins, and that’s where the real work comes in.
There is no encyclopedia, search bar, or librarian that can help you research your own imagination. Tools such as writing prompts can give you some direction, like the topical divisions of the Dewey Decimal System help with research.
In the end, you still have to do the work, you still have to do the creating of the new and impossible thing. And you have to do it in such a way that it makes sense to everyone else. In non-fiction, they can grab a different source and check your work. In fiction, you are the only possible translator of an entirely new idea.
Don’t think about that too hard, it’ll give you nightmares!
Yes, I’m Still Talking to Myself
Some of you may feel as though I’ve pulled straight from your diary and posted it onto the internet. This is not the case. I am talking entirely to myself. You see, I’m a great big chicken-shit.
Non-fiction is safe. Talking about worldbuilding and story craft are easy and safe. In those realms, I’m an expert. Research, rearrange, and polish on two subjects in which I have been immersed for as long as I can remember. Easy.
Fiction is not safe. Writing out a story and putting it into the world for y’all to read is almost paralyzing. “She’s so great at giving advice, she knows everything about worldbuilding and story craft…so why is her story such garbage? Why am I taking advice from someone who can’t write?”
Mostly, this guy just lives in my head 24/7.
New Fiction on the Horizon
Several months ago, I shut down paid subscriptions through Substack because someone was threatening to use Stripe’s charge-back policy against me. My business model has always been education for free, fiction for profit. Being unable to charge through Substack meant that I needed time to explore my other options for selling my fiction.
I have narrowed the final choice down to three. However, before I make a final decision and start moving forward with my plans, I need some information from YOU, my precious Moonbeams!
In a heroic attempt to not spread myself too thin, I have put very reasonable limits on my own expectations for myself, and these three plans represent what I can sustain for the long term at this time. So please take a moment to vote, it’ll really help me out!
