Ars Poetica

I wrote this after taking a Creative Writing: Fiction course sophomore year of college. To this day, it still stands as my greatest testament to why I write fiction.

They say that one of the reasons there must be a God is because it is impossible to create something from nothing. If that is the case then people who write fiction must be part-God because they hold the ability to take a blank piece of paper and create whole other worlds, unique people and imaginative settings. These elements do not actually exist, but in people’s mind they will. They will see them; they will hear them; they will cry for their losses and cheer for their victories. 

In addition, you hold the future in your hands. In your fiction, your character could die painfully or live to see another day. They could be there to save the one they love or fail at the last minute. It is your world and within it you control everything. Perhaps this is why so many people enjoy writing fiction; because they can feel like God. 

For me, while I enjoy the God-aspect to writing, I also marvel at how a piece of paper covered with letters, words and punctuation marks can actually not be a piece of paper at; it is another dimension, someone’s life, people’s worst fears. You are not holding paper but life, death, bitter cold, mountain tops and ocean depths. You are holding leaves scattering in the cool breeze, hugs and kisses, or the raging inferno of an erupting volcano. The fact that all of this is not literally real, but is just as real to you as the sun outside or your own fingers, is amazing, beautiful, and the whole reason I write. 

Fiction is about taking a reader to places they may (or may not) want to go, to experience new things, to think or to simply escape. Maybe it is a control thing, or a God thing, or maybe it’s just a chance to experience more than what life has already lain out before you. Whatever it may be, writing fiction is one of the most liberating and exhilarating experiences someone can have in their lifetime.