Assigned Blog Post #1

PROMPT: What do you think about truth in fiction? How much truth surfaces in your writing? How much of yourself? Does something that comes from a true story resonate more with a reader? (Think about stories or essays you have read.) What role does truth have in our creative work?

The amazing part about writing is that it's so indestructible. It's incredibly powerful. I used to think that preserving things through writing was....not so amazing. Things get lost, burned, smudged, old....whatever. But really, writing comes to its greatest potential and strength when it's read. Because then, it's spreading, and already, it's engraved in someone's mind. A part of the writer is sitting in someone's thoughts. And even when the reader isn't actively thinking about whatever they've read, it's somewhere deep in the crevices of the brain, quietly affecting emotions, memories, beliefs, thoughts, actions...the things that make a human a human, even if it's only affecting the reader a little, minuscule--sometimes unnoticeable--bit.

And the key to the power of the written word is it's truth. Fiction can still hold immense power over people's hearts because under the story and magic and plot and characters, there's reality. While nonfiction lays the truth bare, fiction (in my opinion) is more appealing in that it packages the truth. I don't think one in general is more effective than the other. The degree of truth a work has depends upon the reader. The truth in fiction is wrapped beautifully, and by spreading his/her fiction, a writer is handing off the package to the reader. By spreading the story, the writer is saying, "Here is a little piece of myself. I've decorated it, I've wrapped it, and right now it looks like a book, but if you open up this package, it's really a seed, and then it'll see the light and grow for you."

How can people write without weaving themselves into the letters? I don't mean any kind of writing, like scientific lab reports, or set equations. I mean expressive writing--journals, fiction, nonfiction, poems, songs, and school essays analyzing someone else's work of literature ('cuz those do indicate opinion). Even if someone wrote a bunch of lies about him/herself, there's still that inevitable grain of truth latched on and hanging haphazardly off the end. In such a case, the truth isn't in the content. It's in the intent. It's in one's attempt to hide oneself, to cover oneself, one's fear of being discovered. And if a reader is able to understand those lies, it's true for the reader, too, or at least I think it would be, because all people have tried to hide things about themselves before, right? (i'm not the only one, right?)

I'm going off on a lot of tangents. I need to set some things straight before I go on. There's two types of truths in all writing, including in fiction. The writer's truth and the reader's truth. Of course, the writer's truth is the strongest. The writer is the one who knows the story inside and out, the thoughts behind writing the story, the reason for the story. The writer is the one who went through the pains of making the story, loving the story enough not to abandon it, molding it, shaping it, remaking it, hating it, but coming back to it every time.

The reader's truth is the understanding the reader reaches while reading (alliteration!). The reader's interpretation of the story reflects the reader's own personality, experiences, and beliefs. Two people look at two different sides of a statue. One person sees white and the other sees black. But both are right because it depends on where you're standing in respect to the work. The sculptor knows both sides, and therefore has a general idea of the two different views the viewers possess. But even the sculptor doesn't know precisely how the two sides are being seen. What is it like to look at the white side at a 45 degree angle, and what is it like to look at the black side while being upside down like that ridiculous chap over there?

So the understandings and truths overlap for everyone (or it wouldn't be the same book!), but no truth is exactly the same between two people. I reallllllllly hope this made sense, if it didn't, either you're the ridiculous chap hanging upside down, or I'm the idiot sculptor making my works whilst hanging from the ceiling.

Now to answer the personal parts of the prompt. eh.

Truth in my writing is a problem I deal with constantly. I can't even put all of my secrets into my own journal (that NO ONE GETS TO SEE EVARRRRR EVAR EVAR) because seeing them smack-dab on a sheet of paper gives me heart palpitations. I'm afraid to write semi-personal stories because I'm paranoid and I keep imagining some guy twirling his mustache and asking "Which character are YOU liekkk? This actually happened, DIDN'T IT."

OHGEEZPTAS;DFOIJA;SDLKJFLDFJASLDJ;K.

BUT guess what, I'm workin' on it. sorta. when i feel like it and have time :)
Despite my desperate, and admittedly dumb, attempts to hide myself in my writing, I know that my personal self is always somewhere in there. How much of myself? A lot, actually. It's just that I never show my writing to other people, so I'm the only one who knows about it :p

I journal to put myself on paper. I said that gave me heart palpitations, right? But still. Though I flip out while doing the writing, I grow when I do the reading. I decided to start keeping a journal at about the end of 8th grade to the beginning of 9th grade after I cleaned out my room. There's a connection. BECAUSE i cleaned out my room, I found my little stories and my "장혜지 ONLEY. DONT REDD THIS." diary from when I was...4/5? Probably when I was four, considering i had a 50% spelling rate. But reading that little book with the Winnie-the-Pooh cover was amazing. By reading it, I understood exactly who Diane Jang, age 4, was. Then there were the letters.

Birthday cards, cheesy valentines, passed notes from class, everything...in a Ziplock sandwich baggie. The idea of corresponding through letters and the personalities those records revealed was overwhelming. So I started writing letters again, too. Locker-buddy letters, BFF letters, Pen-Pal-in-Texas letters, sometimes letters to myself in my journal, letters I never ended up giving, letters where I messed up and had to start all over again....And I made copies of everything I wrote, for the record.

Considering how much I now understand of myself by reading from the past, I'd say I put myself completely into my writing. I dig a pit for myself and I can't get out, but I trick myself into thinking I'm covered by popping myself deeper into the soil of what I write. But when the reader digs deeper, I'm still there. Nowhere to run. All of me, splattered on the pages like a Rorschach test. So I eliminated the reader from the equation. I've never shared anything I've really, truly, purely written.


But English class doesn't give me a choice, right?

....scary, but I guess that's cool too.
:)