The Fictionist

Drew Leucopanazzi, aged three years short of three decades, is a writer. Like other writers, he invests on other people’s stories, scavenges on their anecdotes, draws inspiration from these and twists them to his own liking. Sprinkling little ounces of exaggeration and a little teaspoon of metaphors here and there, he comes off with a new story that soon meets the surface of the already over-used printing press.




Over and over, he made use of this formulaic strategy until he came up with pieces of sorts ranging from poems, short stories, vignettes, and haikus. He wrote about whirlwind love affair of his neighbors, the lanky street child who attempted to jaywalk despite the glaring (in hot pink) MMDA signage, and the hopeless case of drug-wired guitar player he knew from the university. A variable source of inspiration he draws his stories from!

But after writing all of these, his literary mind was left exhausted. Until such a point where posed a question to himself: “Where am I, the writer, in my own stories?” 

A trained writer who is grounded on literature theory would beg to disagree with the idea of searching for a writer’s active participation in a story. For the writer is supposed to be the passive story teller, the uninvolved director of the story’s flow, the regulator to the story's acceleration  towards its climax, and the homeostasis keeper who resolves the conflicts he himself had set up. Yet, in following this line of thinking, one forgets the salience of the supposed active voice of the writer in the development of the passage.

There, sitting in the old acacia desk, Drew Leucopanazzi realized that he had lost his self in his writings. A disconnected feeling that  allows the writer's character to be covered up by the personalities of his fictional beings – a writer who lost even the control of his own story’s characters.

“Why not cannibalize your own life for stories?,” suggested Clinx the Fictionist, a fellow writer who seemed not to practice what he preached and by description, a hypocrite blinded by his own idealism in writing, told him. He added, “…after all, life experiences contribute to a big part in the realistic feel of the story.”

“But sometimes, we cannot bear the things that can be brought about by telling the inconvenient truth in our daily lives,” Drew replied.

“Write it in fiction then…”, Clinx the Fictionist answered, “Like you had always done so in the past.”

“A safer alternative, yes, but you know that people ask and they assume. Thinking that stories are always about them, they think it’s some ploy to get your message across at a less straightforward way. There always comes a point where they would want to read more that what the writer wants to share. So they put more words to what that is written.” 

Clinx the Fictionist replied, “It happens all the time and it's nothing but just human nature. People want to know, they want to relate to it. It's their job as readers. Leave the story analysis to them, let them digest the material..."

"...for fictions are like open secrets that need no telling.” 

***

Title: Eet

Artist: Regina Spektor

Description:

Eet is a song from Regina Spektor's fifth studio album, Far. It was released as the album's second official single in October, 2009. In Europe it was released as a Digital Download on November 27, 2009.