On Writing Fiction

What Good is It?

I have wanted to be a fiction author for as long as I can remember. Throughout my life there has been no question about this. All my other published works were undertaken with a subliminal promise to myself that I would “someday” write the stories I’d been dreaming about since childhood. 

This, like so many other things, was called into question in 2020. For me, waking up from mass formation psychosis meant going back to the drawing board wholesale. I didn’t just want to find an alt-news outlet to feed me a preferred version of the now. I was after first principles, foundational roots, wisdom that could not be shaken. Consciously navigating the deconstruction of my worldview’s assumptions entailed rethinking everything, including and especially those things I’d never questioned. 

Why did I like basketball? Why did I wear the stars and stripes? Why did I eat vegetables? Why did I play video games to “relax”? 

Why did I read dragon stories? Given that they were part of the mythos under which I’d buried my head about so many necessary things, why should I continue reading such fiction? I needed real answers. This hunt was imperative. What honest good is it?

It quickly became clear that stories (written, watched and played) were my preferred form of escape. The reason why a young man might feel the metaphysical urge to escape from the modern world is a worthy topic on its own, but escapism, no matter its form, is the crutch of a weak soul playing willing party to self-deception. It is avoidance. It is “not grit.” It is self-imposed slavery. 

But I was on a newfound quest for self-ownership. I was on a crusade to put my skin in the real game. I intended to stand amidst the ruins of the world, and not wallow with those who have no hope. 

As a result, I had to not only ask whether or not I could keep indulging in such stories, but more so what business did I have writing them? In a battle against the fragile and in pursuit of the substantial, what place is there for the “novel”?

I remember vividly an argument I once had with my sister, years before, during a holiday dinner. I cavalierly suggested that all fiction is a kind of acceptable lie. As a self-styled fiction writer, I saw this trifle of a thought as a clever brain teaser rather than some sort of drastic moral pronouncement. She did not take it that way. I do not remember what her arguments were, (for all I know they were very good), but the zeal of her position caught me off guard. 

Post 2020, the unexpected, acute sophistic dispute over dinner has come to my mind again and again. What makes a fiction story “not a lie”? How can we justify such things? Or should we at all? What makes bedtime stories that are not histories “good” or “ok”? How wise is it to dream about fairies and dragons?

Now, I am in no way suggesting that reading or writing about hobbits is “sin”. I am only noticing that it is not that easy to defend such things on longstanding principles. More so, in an age when story-telling and make-believe are mega-million dollar industries aimed directly at sabotaging the minds of the young, where mind-control and manipulation are not just a hypothesis but an evident, religious reality, the puffball assertion that “you’ve got to have fun” or “we all need to relax” appears pretty hollow. If I was ever going to write stories for popular consumption, I needed something more than an appeal to carnal emotion to sway me to the task.

Central to this search was the admission that, “I don’t already know.” From my point of view, it is being wise in our own eyes that got us into these hairy times to begin with. Of all people, we who are grown up in the matrix of such powerful brainwashing entertainments are most in need of recusing ourselves from claiming we understand their impacts. We simply don’t have the perspective to be objective about such things, and the most dangerous possible position of all is to arrogantly assume we have it all wrapped up and figured out. 

At the time of this writing, I have begun serially releasing one of my stories, Earth. I hope, therefore, you will discern that I believe there can be a positive conclusion to this struggle. I’m not ready yet to advocate a bonafide theology of story-telling, and I may never be. But I do have an inkling that such a thing rings true. (Yes, it has the ring of truth to it after all.)

So, along with all the other olio you’ll find here, I plan to share some of these contemplations with you. Along the way, I also will detail some of the best narrative-crafting insight I’ve gleaned on my novel quests. As I have yet to bring any of my stories to a satisfactory conclusion this may be a bit presumptuous. But if you’re trying to write your own yarn, there is a good chance that the landmarks that have helped me on my journey will, at the least, be some temporary inspiration to you as well.

To be continued…

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