After so many years of writing and editing non-fiction, and technical non-fiction at that, why am I interested in writing fiction? I guess there are multiple answers to that question. One is that as an avid reader it is natural to consider writing some yourself. Another is that I feel I have something to say that others have not. Thirdly I feel that others have made mistakes that I want to correct. Lastly being a storyteller is, I believe, an inherent part of myself, so why not exercise it?
I went through a period of what I would call unfocused daydreaming about writing fiction. I’d get some decent ideas, perhaps write a page or so, but nothing much beyond that. Then recently I was doing some serious soul searching and decided that it was time to get serious. So some careful consideration later and I realized that, whilst I could write, I had no real experience writing fiction. So I mapped out a plan of action to remedy this. I decided that two things needed to happen: I needed to build fiction-writing skills and I needed to read good examples of fiction not from the perspective of entertainment but from an analysis and learning perspective. So I decided to start alternating between reading books about writing and reading fiction books.
My real interest in fiction is what could loosely be called horror, but that also encompasses some types of science fiction and thrillers as well as horror. So I started out by mapping out a list of horror titles that I considered good that I wished to re-read to study and learn from. I also researched horror writing and turned up a book that sounded perfect: On Writing Horror, A Handbook by The Horror Writers Association, edited by Mort Castle. This provided the starting point in my quest.
Something unexpected has happened: my reading and work on writing fiction is making my non-fiction writing better.
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