Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction

I have been so bad about writing on here! Too much fun this summer? ;-)

I feel like my summer is slipping away, and I have barely reached the writing goals I had set up for myself. I do have a tendency to overshoot, though. So, I am trying really hard to just enjoy what I can get done in the next few short weeks before I go back to work.

I do have one completed short story that I wrote a some weeks ago. I have had people read it, and tweaked it. I still like it, even after letting it simmer for a while. It's loosely based on real life, as in the characters and the t-shirt that inspired its title. Working on it made me decide to revisit the first short story that I had written in a long time. I did it back in December. People liked it back then, but betas did have a few suggestions for it.

It is very highly based on a true story. One friend who read it said that she felt like she now knew the backstory behind the real story and loved it. Other people also had kind words about it, but I just don't like it as much now. I feel like I was recording a story, kind of like a diary or journal entry would be. So, now I want to rework it to make it more like a piece of fiction, which was its original intent.

I think my favorite comment that popped up from a couple of readers was how certain actions, pieces of dialogue, or other tidbits in the story couldn't possibly be true. They just didn't seem realistic. The funny thing is, a lot of the dialogue was verbatim from the situation. All of the actions happened. The people are all real. I just changed names and identifying details to protect the so-called innocent. And it made me think of that old line about how truth is stranger than fiction.

So, my new quest with this piece is to rewrite it. I am probably going to do it by hand, in a notebook, as I read off of the computer screen. I would rather print it off and decimate it that way, but I don't have access to a printer right now. I also love the feeling of connecting with the story as my hand touches the pen which touches the paper. Perhaps I will be able to make my fiction a bit more believable by the time I am finished with it.