Reality Check: Sometimes a Writer is Better Off Not Knowing the Truth
Recently a teenage boy has been showing up on the corner across from our house. He sits in the grass by the side of the street for half an hour or more every day.
He doesn’t bother anyone, just sits there, tapping away on his phone. After a while he gets up and ambles down the hill.
Sitting at my desk, I look directly out at the spot he’s claimed as his own, and over the time he’s been doing this, I’ve concocted a whole scenario in my head about him.
In my mind, he was being homeschooled, and his mother was sending him out every day to walk for exercise. Not liking physical activity, he walked down the hill away from his house (I have no idea where he actually lives), until he was out of sight. Then he hung out on his little corner until enough time elapsed for him to go home without being questioned. He’s figured out how to access one of the neighbor’s wifi signals, making this particular corner even more convenient.
The other day my husband made a point of walking over there and talking with him, and the truth (if truth is what he was telling) is far less interesting than the story I’d concocted — he’s older than I thought, already finished school. And he likes to take long walks, but also likes to stop and take a breather halfway through. My husband didn’t ask him about the wifi.
I was almost sad to have actual information about him. The story I was making up was far more interesting. I’ve filed the whole thing in the “truth is more boring than fiction” folder.
It reminds me of a short story of a sculptress who was using a beautiful young woman as a model. She’d seen the woman on the bus, and persuaded her to model for a bust she envisioned to depict a blind character from classical literature. But the woman, although she had a beautiful face, was very common. The sculptress is initially happy with her work, but the more the model talks, the worse the sculptor becomes. I’m sketchy on the details because I haven’t read the story since I was in middle school.
I’m no sculptor, but as a writer, sometimes it’s better for me to know less about a person than more. For example, a few weeks ago I wrote in this newsletter about the young barista I met who used the word “dearth” in conversation. When I commented on it, she told me about her father, a journalism major.
I’ve now turned that brief encounter and description into one of the more important characters in my WIP. If I met the barista again, and asked about details of her father’s life, I’d probably be disappointed.
What I’m Reading
Murder in Moscow by Kelly Oliver
Murder in Moscow is the fifth book in the Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane series, and a new Fiona Figg is cause for celebration.
This book features Kitty more prominently, and we learn a lot more about her history and training, which is nice. And Fiona desperately needs her expertise because she’s in quite the fix.
Stranded in Moscow during the height of the war and the Bolshevik Revolution, she’s imprisoned by the thuggish Checka, manages to escape the prison, and then is nearly killed when, disguised as a governess, she tries to infiltrate the home of the head thug.
As if that weren’t complicated enough, there are romantic entanglements as well.
Murder at the Leaning Tower by TA Williams
Dan and his sidekick Oscar are at it again. Dan is hired to provide security for a top-secret business meeting being held in a large house within viewing distance (well, it would be if that blasted hill wasn’t in the way!) of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Unfortunately, murder ensues. Did Dan mess up? Or was the killer one of the invited guests? Even worse, his girlfriend Anna’s daughter is one of the guests, and she refuses to speak with him or acknowledge that he’s important in Anna’s life.
An entertaining sixth book in the Armstrong and Oscar series.
Side Note: A while back I mentioned some issues at Goodreads, and ran a brief poll asking whether you think I should leave Goodreads because of it.
Sentiment ran toward leaving Goodreads, and I’ve been exploring other possibilities. None of them are very satisfying, though. I’ve started to post on BookBub regularly, and you can follow my reading and reviews over there.
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Notable Quotes
The low wooden gridded ceiling and the brown-and-gold checkered floor tiles arranged in boxy cross patterns made me feel like I was inside a waffle press.
- Murder in Moscow by Kelly Oliver
Oh, the images this conjures! I’m picturing a cartoon of a waffle iron (waffle press? what’s the difference, I wonder) with a little person peering out and holding it open with one arm.
And anything that brought Marietta grief soon brought everyone in the family grief. Marietta wasn’t exactly a stiff-upper-lip, bear-it-all-with-quiet-dignity, keep-your-troubles-to-your-self sort of girl.
- Cereal Killer by GA McKevett
Marietta’s a total drama queen, and I love the way McKevett describes that in just a few words.
Or how about the description of the narrator, from the same book?
Although she had spent her childhood wandering among the peach and pecan orchards of Georgia, she had abandoned the Nature Girl routine and switched her relaxing, get-in-touch-with-the-inner-spirit walks to the local three-story mall. It was safer and you could stop for a peach milkshake or a butter pecan cone at the Baskin-Robbins.
- Cereal Killer by GA McKevett
Wise Words
Game time again! Here’s a quote, and you fill in the blank with the correct missing word.
Overexcited barks and yips filled the air, the small pack of dogs attempting to ________ in different directions at the same time which caused multiple collisions and pile ups.
- Dangerous Secrets by Steve Higgs