 Short Stories: January 22, 2020 Issue [#9978] |
This week: From a Certain Point of View Edited by: Storm Machine  
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“Fiction has been maligned for centuries as being "false," "untrue," yet good fiction provides more truth about the world, about life, and even about the reader, than can be found in non-fiction.”
― Clark Zlotchew
“Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”
― Ray Bradbury |
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Last fall, my family and I went on vacation. My husband took me to a 'free' play, and I cringed at their theme: We think the only stories worth telling are true.
There is a place for both fiction and nonfiction. There are things that we shape among nonfiction, whether creative or simply 'based on actual events' to make the story flow more smoothly. No one wants to sit there for an hour about how you got up, you ate breakfast, and you didn't miss the bus to school for three days in a row. We're waiting for something to be different. We're waiting for the conflict.
Your short story is about that change. Fiction stories are often a way to talk more about the humanity of a situation than actual events. I sat in the audience for that play, simmering, wondering if what I knew about the real world was so different from what the other people in the audience experienced.
Then I read a story this week titled "My Gender is an Attack Helicopter," and I have feelings about this story. The story was pulled from the publisher (Clarksworlde). Perhaps you've run into it, and perhaps not. Published under a pseudonym, this story was trying to turn an anti-trans meme into something that was meaningful, something that could be helpful to the trans community, and something that would bring understanding to different concepts. What I can gather from this story is people started talking about it - which is the biggest impact that a short story can have. I'm not sure I would have read it if it hadn't been banned, because I might not have heard about it.
What we talk about changes us. I regularly debate pieces of stories with a couple friends. We have feelings about characters and plot points. We have ideas about which choice ought to be made, where it ought to end, and why we believed it would go that way within the rules of the story world.
Actual events and the opinions we carry about them can be distracting to the story, especially if something was changed just a little bit to allow the story to flow or for an certain view to rise to the surface. By creating our own world and our own events, we create what we want the reader to experience.
Think Star Wars --
Luke: You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father.
Obi-Wan: What I told you was true, from a certain point of view.
Luke wasn't amused, and the audience can be enraged on his behalf. It wouldn't be the same if we misquoted a historical figure. if Obi-Wan had told him the truth from the beginning - that Vader is his father - would he have managed the same journey to becoming the Jedi he became? Would he have been better prepared to face his foe?
Would it be better not to incite anger from within and without a marginalized community by getting people to talk about gender?
Would it be better to only stick to events that can be accounted for?
Choose to write. Choose to read. Choose to discuss. Every story deserves a moment to shine. |
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Some things are better left in the dark, unspoken of. Welcome to Hell, enjoy your stay.
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