It’s Never Really Fiction

Everyone writes at some point in their life. Whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, or something in between, we all end up putting our hearts somewhere on paper. We call it imagination, but really, it’s memory in disguise—a thousand tiny truths wearing different names. 

I took a class during my sophomore year of college, which was literally called Fiction Writing. Every two weeks, we had to create something new. New characters, new beginnings, and new endings. 

It sounded easy until I actually sat down to do it. I stared at the blank page and realized I didn’t want to make anything up. I didn’t want to build castles or chase dragons. 

I wanted to write about things that already existed. 

The moments that kept replaying in my mind long after they were gone. 

So, I started with something simple. A breakup story. It wasn’t dramatic, just honest. My name was still there, tucked between sentences like a secret. I waited for someone to notice, but no one did. 

They read it, analyzed it, and moved on. Not one person realized it was all true, that it was me they were talking about, not just some girl on a page. 

That was when I learned something. Fiction isn’t about creating lies. It’s about finding new ways to tell the truth. 

My next story came from somewhere softer, a moment that wasn’t painful, but almost was. A memory of almost falling in love. We never said it out loud, but I wrote it as if we had. I let the story live the way I wanted it to. I gave us the ending that reality never really did. 

Maybe that’s what I love about fiction the most, it lets me rewrite what’s already gone. 

In my stories, a glance can mean forever, a touch can turn into a promise, and a half-hearted smile becomes the start of something that actually lasts. I take the small, unfinished moments from my life and twist them into something bigger. 

I wrote about the way love feels when it’s still new, when it’s not even love yet, just a possibility. The way someone’s laugh can make you feel seen. The way a single night can feel like a lifetime when you want it to.

That story wasn’t real, not exactly. But it could have been.

It was stitched together from what-ifs, from conversations that never happened, from the kind of longing you can only admit to on paper. 

And that’s the thing.

Fiction is just love stories we never got to live. That’s why I adore them. Because they give me permission to believe in something bigger than what actually happened. 

Maybe that’s what draws me back to writing again and again, the chance to turn fleeting moments into forever ones. To take something that was temporary and let it live on the page, unspoiled, and never-ending. 

Because in fiction, every almost becomes an always. And every heart, no matter how bruised, finds its way home. 

• #fiction
• #love
• #romance
• #writing