Making Fiction from Fact, Making Fact of Your Fiction

Abstract

Very rarely, nothing happens. Real and genuine nothing, that is. A nice stretch of nothing might be quite a relief! But it’s pretty elusive. Most often what’s happening is something. Naturally, not everyone notices all of it, although the bigger things, they’re pretty obvious. The spectacular successes, the terrible disasters, the monstrous acts, the mighty achievements: they’re noticeable. But how often have you read fiction that is based only on these things? Different kinds of fiction have different relationships with what’s happening around us, with what we might call ‘fact’. That’s what this chapter is about.