What is really the purpose of writing a fiction book? Is it about escaping the life you are living? Is it about imagining things you wouldn’t dare do or that you currently can’t afford to do in real life? Is it about coping with the current reality of life and the world? Is it about saying something you feel passionate about, feelings, experiences and values that are screaming for release inside you? Is it a habit of imagining worlds and stories that are much more than this or offer a twist to the reality you know? Is it just plain simple fun, amusement and making yourself feel things? Is it about self-inserting possible scenarios, exploring ideal conditions and dreams you might want to make your goals someday?
This week I have been thinking about all the kinds of writing people do.
Journaling as a judgement-free brainstorming zone for expression, coping, and thinking on paper.
Fiction writing is creating spaces for the stories and characters that live in your head that you hope to share with a wide audience someday.
About niche blogs hidden somewhere deep on the internet that aren’t meant for the public eyes, but just for the chosen few who understand the twisted release you are seeking and can share the fun and experience with you.
The purpose of academic articles, where you sum up the results of your research and hope to draw some curious eyes to the topic that you love so much you devote your current academic life to it.
Each of these is very different, has their own books and tips dedicated to it, and yet all have lots of in common. Something psychic, something only inside your brain, is transported into words, means of communication, on the paper, and then published, online or offline, or just printed out or written down on the physical feel of paper.
Yet I’m wondering, are there fiction books that people write like diaries? Novels they use for coping and expressing themselves, for catching brief moments and thoughts from their daily life? The musings in their heads that they don’t want to lose, that could lead to something someday?
Does something like a personal daily novel exist?
There are memoirs, of course, that focus on some kind of specific experience from real life. But I was thinking about something more experimental. Fictionalising your personal experiences in some kind of slice of life novel, whose plot loosely metaphorically follows the author’s daily life. Anyone ever heard of something like that?
A self-development, personal novel that gets inspired by daily life, pieced together from snippets and conversations, little moments, deep thoughts and dialogues. Write that out for a few months until you get to a natural end. Then, start editing and rearranging it into a novel.
Maybe it would be kind of an experimental slow-paced character-driven book with a questionable plot if there was any. But there would be character arcs, relationships, observations. It would be personal and yet it would be fiction, it would be actual, but very individual and specific. It would be true in a way that the world wouldn’t understand, so your privacy would be protected, but open enough to resonate with.
Did anyone ever hear of a novel written like that? Or a novel that read like that?
I just feel that we are too shackled by plot constraints, structures and schemas these days, the debates circling around genre or literary, plot or character driven, selling or not selling, immersing yourself in your book for a month or three or writing everyday. In each of these you have to choose an approach and overcome some comfort barriers, which is okay, writing a book is work after all and to succeed at it, you have to be willing to put up with some discomfort, discipline and effort. But what if writing a book was like writing a diary, what if it was more natural, personal, what if it was about writing down your thoughts and processing life in a confessional, helpful, self-developing, pleasing kind of way? And then you would edit, order and delete to make it into a story. And maybe the first try wouldn’t be a story, and maybe each time, each little passage in life, from one month to half a year to a few years in a row would have a book to record that part of your life, the thoughts that run through your head, the ideas that you had mixed together?
Maybe it wouldn’t become a novel and the worth of it would be in a more peaceful, self-reflected life. Maybe it would be developing your skills or something to write on the days your other stories with vast worlds and characters take too much effort to get back into Maybe it would be just the story you would want to become a novel and publish, something you would be proud of to have under your name, whenever it would find 100 readers or 10.000.
In any case, what do you think? Wouldn’t something like that be fun to try?
I do think that would be fun to try! I love slower paced slice of life stories, and there aren’t enough of them outside of anime/manga. Plot driven genre tropes dominate fiction, but I get so tired of them after a while. They’re too formulaic, and they don’t allow for the character development I enjoy. I suppose it’s because fiction is primarily used as a means of escape, but I’ve been looking at it lately as a way to deliver important truths and universal messages. To have it be relatable to the human condition even if it takes place in another reality. Writing a diary slice of life story would work well for people who have small businesses, or who live in a rural community, or work at a bookshop or coffee shop, or keep a garden. Something that provides fun new experiences or interactions with others that readers would find interesting. That’s probably why blogs and Instagram are so popular -- because they provide a glimpse of another person’s life in a way that feels like fiction even though it isn’t. Maybe you should give it a try? 😄