Transitioning From Non-Fiction to Fiction

The other day, I published a poll on social media asking whether people would be interested in my writing some Fiction on my blog, rather than it being a focus on non-fiction and some poetry. Of course, I would be more than happy to continue to write solely non-fiction, but it is an interest of mine to expand my repertoire and try something different.

As it happens, the poll results advised that people would be interested in a mixture of non-fiction and fiction, so that is what I'm going to start doing from here on in. To be honest with you, fiction is something that has been playing on my mind for quite some time. I just didn't really know what that would look like, and how I would begin. I feel like my blog would be a low stakes place to start this. If I start writing something and it doesn't particularly work out in the way that I was expecting, then I can just put it aside, and put it down to being part of the writing process. Even if it doesn't become a piece of published work on my blog, it's still grist to the mill and development of my writing craft.

That way, it's a method of giving people what they want, whilst trying to experiment and develop my own writing. With that said, I have considered the idea of serialised fiction — which is essentially releasing episodes of writing. Rather than whole short stories, novels or novellas, they would be released in episodes. I feel like this would be particularly good — not least because blogs are released periodically — but also because it allows for there to be a focus on shorter fiction. At the same time, there is room to extend it to a longer piece if that particular series requires it. This is particularly important for me because I have been starting to think about — as I have said — expanding my repertoire, but also building upon my writing stamina. So, I can write extended pieces, rather than feeling as though I need to stick to blog posts or poetry because they are the forms of writing I feel most comfortable with.

Having said that, writing and poetry was the first form of writing that I came across, and it's what got me into writing in the first place. Unlike a lot of people I did find poetry to be the most accessible way of expressing very deep emotions very quickly. I feel like novel writing or extended writing, such as serialised fiction is kind of the opposite because, yes, you can incorporate and build in deep emotions and story lines that then build upon the emotion simultaneously, but that all has to be crafted slowly.

I think part of what scares me is my perfection; that I'm not going to get everything right and aligned the first time. When, in reality, I could allow myself to think about the story and what I want to accomplish in the story — and then everything that comes with that is pinpointed by the overall goal and purpose of the piece of writing.

All of that said, the fact that I have discussed producing more fiction does not mean that I will be giving up on poetry or non-fiction entirely, because it's something that I enjoy. It's just the introduction of fiction as part of my writing. I could also incorporate something like narrative poetry — so it's kind of a cross between the fiction and the poetry; it's delving into something new, but also not so new that it feels scary. I am also conscious that throughout all of my poetry there is certainly a narrative element. So, if I were to write some more traditional narrative poetry, there would be a focus on the narrative rather than the poetry (I hope that makes sense to people who are not me).

Like I mentioned above, I'm not entirely sure what this will look like, because I do have a few pot boilers of fiction pieces that I could start developing into a series, but that would also need some structural work and some development. So, it may be a case that I release some episodes periodically with some non-fiction pieces sprinkled in as usual. I have a feeling, to begin with, it will still be heavy on the side of non-fiction. Once I get to planning and writing the fiction, the fiction will become more of the focus, and then I will eventually implement a bit of a steadier rhythm.

Now would be an appropriate time to tell you that I am actually working on a non-fiction book. Hence why I also think that the transition to more fictional blog posts would be beneficial. The book is looking to be about my process using voice-to-text dictation, and how that can be useful to other people, and a little bit of an explanation around some of the misconceptions; how dictation can be useful. More on that soon.