It is fiction because no one believes it.

“It is fiction because no one believes it.”

This morning, I was sorting my socks drawer, with the windows open, listening to the birds outside, when the phrase came to me as I was thinking about an opening phrase for a book that I’ve wanted to write for a long time. The socks are an integral part of the opening theme. I thought that if a movie was made of the opening scene, it would be in a quiet bedroom in the morning, with a person sorting/folding socks and neatly arranging them in a socks drawer. There would be a voiceover that talked about sorting/folding socks. Before this scene, when the screen is still black, the words would appear:

It is fiction because no one believes it.

My writing professor told my class, “Write about something you know.” Many of Raymond Carver’s stories, as well as Bukowski’s prose poetry, are straight from their own lives. But at a bookstore, you’ll find them in the fiction area. If I wrote a book that is exactly about my life, my ideas, and my beliefs, but the protagonist isn’t me but a made-up name, all of a sudden the book is fiction. I have a feeling that if all of us told our own stories, no one would believe that 100% of it ever happened.

It is fiction because no one believes it.