charloft | Munday Monday - Happening Truth vs Story Truth

There's an old saying that English teachers are overly fond of - "Write what you know." But if we only stuck to the familiar, how would we ever reach the fantastic? A mixture of what we know, and what we can imagine is often the best combination.

Author Tim O’Brien - speaking about his collection of stories, The Things They Carried - tells us about two states of truth -- the happening truth, and the story truth.

Here is happening-truth, I was once a soldier. There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and afraid to look …

Here is the story-truth. He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay in the center of a red clay trail near the village of My Khe. His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut, the other eye was a star-shaped hole. I killed him.

Today's assignment is to take a real life experience you have had, and turn a happening truth into a story truth. Take one of your own real experiences, and figure out how you will turn it into part of a story narrative for one of your characters.