Fact or Fiction?

Which is harder to write, fact or fiction?

Sometimes, fact is easier because it involves less imagination. You don't have to worry about what the motivations of characters are or think up ten different scenes that reveal a motivation and then pick the one that works best.

But sometimes it's so much harder because you have to check all your facts and do a lot of research. Two paragraphs of text might represent two weeks of reading books and internet sites just to properly understand the topic or to double-check you've really understood the issue. And then there's the hard task of presenting sometimes really boring but necessary facts in an interesting way.

Fact can be hard.

So sometimes, moving into fiction is a lot easier. You don't have to do research, just make it up in your own head and write it down. But where is the structure? Writing loads doesn't mean it's worth reading. Two paragraphs might represent two weeks of re-editing three pages down into just those two paragraphs.

Then you can get to a point of conflict and have no idea how to proceed. Perhaps the hero's got a gun but can choose to side with the good guy or the bad guy. Now you wonder what your novel is really about. You spend days pacing up and down, soul-searching. What should the hero do?

Fiction can be hard.

What I've discovered is that writing of any type is a million times harder if you don't know what you're trying to say. So whether it's fact or fiction, know what you want to say in advance before you write.

Easier said than done, of course. And then there's the unexpected that appears, whether in fact or fiction. Writing is like that: you start off doing one thing but discover that to do it, you need to go down three other paths too.

Knowing what you want to say can help you decide which paths can be treated as small detours and which are the main routes you need to take.

But there's no getting away from it: writing can be hard.