#5. And I Could Tell You...

I want to think alot of us have tried to write a novel of some sort during some point in our lives. Honestly, I have something like a novel that's about two years in the making. It's embarassing, really. It's about two-fifths complete. People say the first novel you write will always be the most personal. I think that's right in some aspects, in the sense that the emotions and some of the more major events have a basis in reality. So the basis of my work would have to be pieced together from things that have happened to my friends, my family, or me. But it can also be highly fictitious in other aspects of that realm.
I used time warping as I was trying to piece out my novel. I wasn't actually aware that time warping came from Vonnegut. I mean, I don't have flying spaceships, an abducted protagonist, or Tralfamadorians in it, but it's cuts and cuts of flashbacks told in real time. It was difficult trying to limit what I told, which character types I threw in, and where I would set the novel. I ended up creating a fictitious city close to Toronto as my setting, as I have lived in Southeastern Ontario for a very long time. I also tried adding in places I have visited or people I knew well have visited; cities such as Orlando and small towns such as Spring Lake. I didn't want to write about places I didn't know.
What I want people to learn from my novel is that there is no such thing as fairy tales in real life. There are happily-ever-after's, I won't argue with that. But I think that when I was a child, someone had forgot to tell me that storybook weddings weren't real. I think I would have come to peace with things (that have happened) years earlier had someone just told me so. I hate how exaggerated some television shows are, especially 90210 and Private Practice. I think a novel should have its awkward moments, scenes that don't make sense, and questions left unaswered. Because as trite as it sounds, that's what life is. So that's what my novel will be like. I want to say alot of awful things have happened to me, which I don't know if it's true in relation to other people's lives. I also hate talking about personal matters in person, which is probably why I text a whole lot more than I talk.
My novel would be realistic fiction. The general plot centers in on a girl throughout the first twenty years of her life, complete with flashbacks, a prologue, and (there will be) an epilogue.
That's all.