One of the more enjoyable moments of writing fiction comes
in exploring a topic. Finding a topic is just plain fun—you get that spark,
that idea, and then take the need to flush it out and explore it to the written
page. With that in mind, I like to write about real life, but not typically the
everyday events, but rather the weird and the strange—the things that occur in
Florida. Florida offers a rich selection of the odd and perplexing—flesh eating
drug addicts, priests who induce overseas riots by threatening to burn the
Koran, people who wrestle alligators, that time it rained iguanas in Miami
(freak cold snap forced them into a point of stasis and they fell out of trees
and off houses, cleanup crews were startled when they sprang back to life hours
later, jumping out of pickup trucks into traffic), and of course the large
shipment of cocaine that washed up on shore during a storm just yesterday
(5/3/13). These things are splendid fodder for writing, but only a small means
to an overall end.
In writing fiction, the end (in theory) is partially a well-constructed,
entertaining and stimulating story. At the same time, a writer is often
exploring events of his own life, coming to grips with the bumps in the road,
the aging process, the inevitability of death, or getting a hangnail. As one
writes about the dangers of bath salts, they could be exploring their
indecisive nature or their need to rebel against the powers that be. Drug
induced Zombies are only the orifice used to arrive at a destination, a place
that they may not have even set out to explore.
This whole ramble sounds a bit cheesy right now, but my
overall thesis rests in the idea that writers need to be interested in,
entranced by, and familiar with their topic. Familiarity can come from
research, but either throw experience or Google, they need to understand what
they are talking about. Thus they should pick the topics that scare, disgust,
or irk the reader, and present them in such a way that the reader will not
abjectly run from them, but rather will cling to them in squeamish delight. Entertain,
inform, explore—write about Floridians.
Side note: My short piece, "So Much Like You," will appear in the Fall issue of
Emerge Literary Journal. The flash fiction deals with the mental trauma of losing a limb. Another short work, "Cow Dog and Swift" has been accepted by
Fiction Southeast for one of their next two issues.
