Sometimes it can be difficult to determine when a story, or an occurrence, becomes fiction, and perhaps when it is considered nonfiction, or memoir. A straightforward way of thinking about this might be that nonfiction seeks to maintain truth, accuracy, and facts while fiction bends the rules; the borders of trust, truth, and self awareness blurred and distorted like the crumbling relationship of the characters in ‘Florida Lives’ and the encroaching and “tacky” neighbors. Though in both fiction and nonfiction, we, or our characters, can become the thing we have come to judge or detest. A former mentor and professor of mine, Simon J. Ortiz, had the saying: “If it’s fiction, it better be true.” Which I’ve taken to mean that the emotional resonance of any piece of writing should ring true with regard to human emotion and experience. Often, when we write, we write from our own experiences and can use the form of fiction to examine what could have been or what went wrong or what went right, blurring the lines between reality and imagination. Chilean writer, Roberto Bolaño, has said: “In fiction, anything is possible.”
First published in The Missouri Review, September 2010. Collected in The Islands: Stories, Catapult 2022
A Personal Anthology 