MONDAY CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISE because it’s a good way to start the week TURNING FACT INTO FICTION

Anyone who survives beyond the age of twelve has enough fictional material for the rest of her life.
Flannery O’Connor

Take an event from your own or a family member’s life and turn it into fiction

• Write in the third person

• Consider cutting down the number of people involved – for example, instead of four sisters amalgamate the personalities into one.

• Consider enlarging, expanding, exaggerating – turn the mildly houseproud aunt into an OCD bathroom obsessive

• Consider adding new characters – if it helps the story

• Make things up? It’s up to you. If everything didn’t turn out the way you wanted now’s your chance to put things right….or you could keep faithfully to what you know to be true but invent the elements you could never research, such as conversations, how people felt etc etc

 ‘The good thing about writing fiction is that you can get back at people.’
John Grisham