The Value of Fiction.

I didn’t finish the first draft of the new short story last night. I wrote a bit more, but mostly did the first edit on what I’d done so far.

It’s turning out to be longer than I expected. I originally thought it would be very short at around 750-1,000 words, but it’s up to 2,000 words already and there’s some more to come yet. Seems I had more to say about the state of mental incarceration, co-existing age categories, and the role of women in such a disturbed context than I realised.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that fiction has two purposes:

One applies to the reader, to whom it suggests things they might care to think about. The other is to the author, who learns a bit more about himself than he knew yesterday. Being a near-loner, that’s the one that’s important to me. (Although why I should care remains unclear.)

I wrote some more tonight. I expect I'll get there eventually.