Homework for this week was to write two stories in the first person in the past tense, max 500w each. One should be totally true and one totally fiction. The audience will decide whether the story is true or not.
True to form I wrote my stories the day before class. I did think about them a lot beforehand, but last minuteitis is a habit that's hard to break. It was only on the morning of the next class that I 'got' the point of the exercise. Thinking back over my stories that had seemed so similarly written at the time, I realised that if I read both it would be very easy to pick which was real and which fiction. The fiction was too polished, had too many explanations in it. It missed the emotion and wasn't really written in my 'voice'.
We only had time to read out one of the stories and I chose my true one. Not that anyone picked it as true! Nothing to do with my event, more the style of writing. All of the feedback of others' and mine was extremely helpful.
Some notes from others' feedback:
Direct dialogue is believable
Having a precise ending makes it unrealistic
Don't worry about writing 'I said' 'she said' a lot as it gets absorbed in the reading
Make sure any of 'it', 'he', 'she' relates to the last thing in the reader's mind
When people know something really well they don't describe it - this makes it more authentic
Story telling needs less explanation and wrapping up at the end. Try not to get into 'god-like' mode
Don't be too authorial or complicated
Be clear on time refs - e.g. 'that morning' is specific
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