Fiction! Fiction! Fiction!

For the past year or so, I have been looking for a place to share my fiction writing. Do I create a website? Blog? Self-publish?

When I joined Medium and started publishing non-fiction pieces, the idea grew in my head that Medium is the place to share my fiction work. For the past week, I have been collecting and organizing all the fiction I wanted to share with others. Going through and editing is a long, tedious process. Thankfully, that process is over, and I can start publishing here on Medium.

Woo!

However, before I do publish, I just wanted to explain myself in regards to these stories.

Folk tales have always been my favorite story to tell. From haunted houses to mythic creatures, folk tales are living, breathing history. The emphasis of folk tales is not whether if the story is true; rather, did the story grasp your sense of wonderment? Did it entertain you? Did you takeaway something from the story?

Folk tales are important because they are great way to explore history. Whether the story is about Mad Anthony Wayne’s lost bones or a lonely traveler known as Resurrection Mary, we learn about our past through re-tellings of these stories. Even better, they leave us with questions. Who? What? When? How? Really? They lead us to investigate and research in various ways.

Typically, we hear these stories in 3rd person. The stories I am sharing tell the tale through a new angle: via the point of view of the subject of these stories. Now, 99.9% of the time, there is no record of the subject’s actual words or thoughts. I have made up those completely. In storytelling today, you see that all time. (See: Boardwalk Empire, history fiction). The stories I have written about are stories I have read/heard many times through various documentaries, interviews or books. They are stories that I have tell when someone asks, “Hey, tell us a great story.”

Hopefully my re-telling does the original story justice.

So, expect fiction to be posted on this week and the weeks the follow. If you know a fascinating folk tale, please share. I will still be posting movie/TV pieces to CineNation — check them out.

Happy reading!