FICTION

Why I chose Fiction to write my best mystery novels?

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”

 - Oscar Wilde

Fiction is one of the most popular genre and also one of the most difficult to tackle. The dilemma is this: as the word signifies fiction is not about true events and yet everything in it must ring true. How does one accomplish this is what I would attempt to disclose in this guide. In the words of Tim O’Brien, ‘The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human’. 

I wanted to write fiction. I thought fiction was the most appropriate tool to reveal the truth in its vivid (and not stark) form. The more I explored fiction writing, the more complex and multi-layered it became. Through the processes of reading, analyzing, brainstorming, outlining, researching, writing, and revising, I have discovered countless details that authors have to consider as they set out to produce a viable work of fiction. The information overload is prodigious.

Then I discovered "Voice". This is perhaps the most difficult concept to explain and yet absolutely critical attribute that a writer must have to succeed where success is measured in terms of differentiated values and not necessarily in monetary terms.

So what does having a voice means? When you are writing in third person point of view you may not get enough opportunities to offer yourself as a character and yet you are the one who is creating characters and through them telling your stories. So how do you find a way to make your presence felt? People suggest that you must write from your heart and not your head. But how does one do that?

The answer lies in finding your true voice. Don’t confuse your speech with your voice. In case of a writer, his voice is the strongest sense of passion and commitment with which he reflects his inner soul to his readers. The objective of your voice is not to craft well-formed sentences and immaculate, grammatically correct sentences but to allow your readers to see your reflection in your characters, to hear the cry of your soul, to hear the concepts of your mind, and to feel the joy and pain in your heart. You are your voice and your voice is you.

Confused? You won’t be after I further explain through an example. Poetry has always been the most powerful means of communication for romantics, and to express love, sadness and joy. Read slowly and carefully the following poem that I wrote recently:

DEATH OF LOVER’S LOVER 

“In the drifting mist of an empty graveyard,

I saw you light a candle with a trembling hand,

And I wonder why you were quietly crying,

Leaning over the grave of my childhood friend.

I shall be the one suffering from his loss,

Missing a caring soul and a helpful hand,

And I wonder why you were quietly crying,

Leaning over the grave of my childhood friend.

They say you have magic in your golden voice,

Even when you lied you were the sky on my land,

And I wonder why you were quietly crying,

Leaning over the grave of my childhood friend.

Fulfillment of your life became destiny of my journey,

Yet you turned my dreams into nothing but castle of sand,

And I wonder why you were quietly crying,

Leaning over the grave of my childhood friend.

I hope you can cherish the love of those who loved you,

For unfortunate are those who do not live for the moments

And I know now why you were quietly crying

Leaning over the grave of my childhood friend.”

 Now, in above example you do not know the character, you don’t even know his name, his physique, his background…nothing. And yet, you hear a strong voice. You feel the sadness and the pain of whosoever this character is. You empathize with the betrayal he is feeling. Do you know why? Because you are listening to the voice of certain pain that once the composer endured in his heart. In above example, the voice is not that of any character but its composer.

I bet you if right now the composer were in front of you; you would feel his sadness and possibly offer him a comforting hand. And it is all because you hear a voice that resonates with you. To develop a voice of your own, just remember there could be nothing superficial about it. It must reflect your true emotions. It must be genuine, pure, and truthful.

They say that like nature, love nurtures your soul. Well, nature could also be the greatest destroyer of humanity and so could be love. Yet both nature and love are essential ingredients in living a life for life itself is not a gift, living life is. So…like nature, like love, be true to your voice in your writing and then see magic being created. Because then you voice will be true and your readers will find you, your real self. After all is said and done, you are writing to let the world know who you really are and your true voice will help you get there.

Consider this. When someone asks you a question and you get ready to respond, your mind has already done a few ‘what ifs’ and selected what it thinks is the most appropriate response. You don’t feel it because it happens in your subconscious mind where things emerge without being prejudiced.

If you want your readers to understand what your writing is portraying then first and foremost allow them to listen to your voice. As they say honesty comes from within and not through manipulation of facts.

If poetry is not your strong suite then read some of the old masters. Read some of the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. What do you feel when you read them? You feel their presence in every one of their scene, you feel their voice as if they are talking to you. And the reason is that none of their fiction is truly fiction, they derived all their material from their life experiences. There characters talk of their pain, their sufferings, their joy and their expectations. If I wanted to make a bold but true statement about having to find a strong voice to be a successful writer, I’d say that don’t ever attempt to write fiction that has none of your life experiences, sadness, joy and hopes. To repeat, the voice is you and you, the real you are the voice. 

Having said all that, don’t expect it to be easy. Evoking your subconscious is not an easy task. It takes a lot of courage to face our fears, our past, and our subconscious mind. We like to portray ourselves to others as a loving person, a happy person, and an able and confident personality. We don’t like to admit our weaknesses. But we forget that perhaps one of the strongest strength a man could have is to admit his weaknesses. We don’t want to face our demons, our fears, and our failures. We are afraid of rejections. We forget that we are a product of our circumstances. Our character is based on certain values that we would like to be unwavering regardless of circumstance.

But then we are talking about a superman and isn’t he a fictional character? Be true to yourself. First open your subconscious to yourself before you expect the world to hear your true voice. Once you have done that I assure you then all your emotions will resonate with your readers. You may consider that you are an honest person and more like an open book. But remember even an open book hides its spine.

The concept of adopting your true voice is to do with learning about humanity. Clarity of such an understanding would only surface when your mind has no bias, no fences, and no boundaries. Just like failures teaches far more than success because while joy of success is momentary, the pain of failure lasts a long time, it is the sad experiences of life, the pain and suffering in your past that yields the true voice in you. Be prepared to embrace it.

When asked what would he do on his happiest day, Dalai Lama said that he would like to die. What he was trying to say that on happy days his spirit is joyous and demands nothing as if his destiny has been fulfilled. On his happiest day, he has no regrets. But what he didn’t say but seemed to imply that on a sad day, the day of pain and suffering, he would like to learn more about his ability to cope and grow, learn about being humble, and learn how to get over loss and grief.

A death in a family or death of a close friend is often a taboo subject. It frightens people to talk about it. And yet it comes to all of us. All life journeys come to an end when we meet death. So why not confront it, understand it, and embrace it as an inevitable. Because that, as many philosophers have indicated, would help alleviate the fear that we have of pain and bad things. That would allow us to write with our inner voice, the voice of the real person that we are.

When I was a little boy, I used to wonder what existed beyond my house, my neighbourhood, my town, my country, my continent, my planet, and eventually beyond my universe. My understanding could reach certain limits beyond which it was like a vacuum of knowledge. There were many lingering questions without even a trace of answer. Such uncertainties lead me to believe in some super being. It is this inexplicable feeling of divine presence, untouched, unfelt and least understood, that stirred curious thoughts in my mind and not fear.

Perhaps it is to do with the flow of energy that switches between our dominant conscious and dormant subconscious mind. And to activate our unconscious mind we have to energize it by sending more energy to it and yet maintaining the subtle balance between the two. The question is how do we do it. I found my answer in self-hypnosis. I found through self-hypnosis I could evoke all my suppressed feelings that I wasn’t even aware of existed in the deep recesses of my mind. The way I did it was that I got a paper and pen and divided my past live into segments of five years since birth.

I tried to remember whatever I could in a given segment and wrote it down. Well, first day I could not think of much. The first week was just as void of results as the first day. The first entire month was discouraging. But then one day something happened. I remembered my first day at school. That was over 60 years ago. After that there was no stopping. All I had to do is to sit in a quiet corner with a hot drink and think of my past and it was like floodgates had opened. My subconscious mind was fully awake and I re-lived every sad and joyous moments of my past 60 years.

You see the trick lies in just as much quieting your conscious mind as awakening your subconscious mind. In the world of writing, it is this flow of energy from conscious to subconscious minds that will yield some amazing experiences and emotions. With such ability your characters, as an extension and reflection of you, will be lifelike. Twists and turns in your intriguing plots will mesmerize you as you deal with situations in your novel as you would have dealt in your real life. The things that you thought you could only dream of before now could come alive in your writing in vivid details.

When Sigmund Freud began investigating dreams 100 years ago, he assumed that dreaming involved many parts of the brain. While the modern science of dreaming has disproved much of Freudian theory, neuroscientists widely accept his central premise that dreams are meaningful expressions of the mind-brain system, a state of conscious and subconscious mind.  With redefining the balance between your conscious and subconscious mind you can now write what you could have in the past concocted only in your dreams.

Remember that growing up we all had two parallel worlds. We had a real world where we did routine activities and an imaginary world where we lived our dreams. And if you care to remember, our imaginary world was far more colourful, it even gave us imaginary friends. Life of a writer is exactly like that of a little child full of imagination. In our imagination we create characters, our life experiences gives them life, and we give our voice straight from our soul to express emotions.

A fictional story written with a newly found subtle balance of energy between the conscious and subconscious mind will feel exhilarating and smooth in the way that a perfectly planned and pre-plotted story never will. Akin to a perfect golf swing, an exemplary tennis follow through, a perfect swimming stroke, a perfect note of a violin, writing requires the deep emotional echo of the subconscious mind. It requires a subtle yet stable balance, and only then will the reader feel the surge of power that a clever manipulated voice never achieves.

So, remember you need the self-hypnosis technique, a lot of practice, time and patience and firm belief that you have the ability to awaken your subconscious mind to find your true voice. Once you find that glimmer of hope that you can find your voice of past experiences, emotions and hopes then write and continue to write. Let your voice evolve with effort and time and let it get stronger. You will know when you discover who you are and have the strength to share it with the world.

Celebrate yourself, write fiction.