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The following came in response to the What's Fiction For? salon at Lit Fest, blogged here by novelist Nick Arvin. Ken Lutes has been taking workshops off and on for a couple of years now, and his groovy photograph -> pretty much says it all in the way of introduction. Thanks, Ken, for your thoughts! And any failure in terms of timeliness is my doing, not Ken's.
“I don’t read fiction. I don’t like fiction. I only want to read about life.”
This quote is from William Dean Singleton, the CEO of MediaNews Group, which owns The Denver Post. I lifted it out of Bill Husted’s “Bar and Grilled” interview with Singleton that was published in the Post (June 16, 2011).
Probably, what Mr. Singleton meant by saying he only wants to read about life is that he prefers nonfiction, but following is what first flashed through my mind as I read his quote: I write fiction. I write memoir (read: nonfiction), too. But my deeper writing passion always returns me to fiction.
I believe fiction and non-fiction alike blur the lines between what is real and unreal, and I doubt the brain knows the difference between fact and fiction, except through contextual analysis. What emotional impact do I experience when I hear or read that a man this morning accidentally sawed off his fingers in his workshop? How do I know if it’s fact of fiction? Only through context or corroboration.
Both fiction and nonfiction serve as windows to understanding something about our lives. My wife, Laurie Dunklee, says our writing is smarter than we are, by which is meant that channeling our subconscious reveals things about our characters that we didn’t know existed. While this process personally feeds my life, what I write may or may not connect with a reader. But when a connection is made, the reader in some way experiences life through the interplay of what is read and the meaning they receive from it.
Back to above quote, I was struck by the ironically simple inference that there’s no life in fiction, and I wondered whether any of my fellow Lighthouse writers might like to comment.
--Ken Lutes
What do y'all think?
