When Fiction Won’t Let You Lie to Yourself

Why do we incorporate our personal lives into works of fiction? And how do we know when to stop?

In a post for the New York Times‘s “Draft” series, “about the art and craft of writing,” Rumpus columnist Peter Orner recalls a long-ago event that his psyche can’t shake: as a child, he stole a pair of nice gloves from his father.

He’s tried for years to let his brain turn the troubling memory from a grain of sand to a pearl by reimagining it as fiction, but so far, it just stays sand:

This is where the truth of this always derails the fiction. I can’t give the gloves back, in fiction or in this thing we call reality. If I did, I’d have to confront something I’ve known all along but have never wanted to express, even to myself alone.