About fiction

I like writing fiction. For me, it is a way to express myself, and at the same time, it enables me to focus on one of my favorite time passing activities: to dig into people’s behavior and understand it.

I have studied some behavioral psychology in my life, in the form of courses, over the years. Not because I wanted to become a shrink, although people have been telling me I would be great at it for years and years, since apparently people like to lay their trust in me and tell me all of their darkest secrets.

The writing gives me a wonderful opportunity to think deeper about the behavior of people, and the results of their actions. It is one big game of action and reaction. Cause and effect. The universe is great that way.

Thrown into the mix are, of course, my own demons. Like I said last time (To write what you know), writing your personal stuff just like it is and feels, can be confrontational. But putting your demons, nightmares, mistakes and faults into a blender and mixing them with imaginary people allows you to find out what could have happened if you would have met these people in real life. Or not.

Life is one big chain of choices. Each and every one of these choices can result in a completely different result than you’d expect. One could say that there are millions and millions of scenarios available, and reality is just one of them. Game studios have understood this, but it seems that we, the people living these scenarios, don’t. Fiction is a great way to explore different scenarios, and has the added value of teaching the writer (and the reader, for that matter) about the choices he (or she) has made, and thus about the consequences that have led up to the current reality that sits in front of him or her.

It is a great world. So many opportunities. If we would just grasp the scenarios concept better, we would be able to achieve so much more in life, instead of just following the rest and be relatively miserable.