Never Let The Facts Get in the Way: Written by David

"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story"~Mark Twain

First of all, let me just say, I for one have always heard that quote given to Hemingway, but apparently it is Twain who first said it. At least according to the Internet.

One of the hardest things in life is to write the truth. Don't believe me? Try to write a story about yourself. Then, try writing the same story, except use a real person you know, a friend or family member. Then write the same story a third time with a completely fictional character of your own creation. Which one is the easiest to write?

Ignoring the fact that you've just written the same story three times, I'd be willing to bet it's the final one.

You might be wondering what the above exercise has to do with writing about your obsessions. Sure, creating a fictional character is one thing, but if you're trying to write about something you're passionate about, it should be way easier than trying to write about someone you know very well.

Here's the thing though, and the reason for the exercise. It's so difficult to write about ourselves because we know so much about ourselves that we feel awkward if we don't get all of the details into the story. But including all of the details is not writing. It's detailing. So when we write about someone else we know, we may know a lot of their habits but we tend to gloss over the unimportant ones, because we gloss over them when we interact with those same people. When we write a character out of thin air we ignore even more unimportant details. Does it matter that Jim has a scar on his left pinky toe or not? Unless it's important to the story, the author may never even think about Jim's pinky toe. Or any other unimportant details.

This same logic holds true for our obsessions. When you write something that includes a topic you're both knowledgeable and interested in, you run the risk of putting in so much detail that you feel is important, while ignoring the story. In the case of poetry, you might be including so many details that you focus too much on the trope, not on the poem itself. Either way, you've let the facts get in the way of your art, and at that point you cease being an artist.

However, don't take this warning to mean that you cannot include pieces of lore in your stories. If you look at some of your own favorite pieces of writing, they're probably chock full of specialized knowledge that the author has seamlessly included in order to strengthen the story. Let's look at Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. Included in this novel are fairly elaborate detailings of bomb making, film reel changes, and of course a lot of details on the process of fighting and the physical changes that happen. Notice though, that all of this detail goes into strengthening the story of Tyler Durden and the Fight Club. Never do the details overshadow the story.

While these details are certainly correct and show how an author can include their lore in their work, Fight Club also shows us something in its handling of Dissociative Identity Disorder, which we see other artists do in varying bodies of work. If an artist is doing their job, they don't even have to have the correct facts about their subject for their work to be exceptional\ and respected. We as an audience will always choose the story over the facts. If this wasn't true, Michael Bay wouldn't have a career, among many others.

So to come around full circle, let me reiterate that we as artists should never let the facts get in the way of a good story for two reasons. One, we risk letting the details overwhelm the story. But second, if we do our jobs well the audience won't care anyway!

David is one of the founders and editors of Obsession Literary Magazine and the maintainer of Obsession's blog.

Obsessions: What are they? Posted by David

What are obsessions? To go the typical essay route, the dictionary defines an obsession as "the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc" (dictionary.com). So, unlike when you like something and think of it from time to time, or love something and find it filling a space in your life, an obsession dominates our thoughts. Kinda scary when you think about it in that context.

But an obsession isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure, you may have found yourself obsessing to the point where you made yourself sick or worse over something. Often we even face ourselves during these situations and ask "Why am I obsessing over this?" We may find ourselves unaware of our obsessing over something but generally we are pretty aware when we're obsessing over something too much. But what about when we're not hurting ourselves with our thinking?

These bad moments don't detract from our good experiences with obsessing. Maybe you've found yourself reading a book and couldn't put it down. Have you found yourself waiting in long lines just to be the first to see a new movie, or play a new video game despite the fact that it won't matter when you actually experience it? Perhaps you've found yourself eating the same food for a week, or listened to the same album twenty times in a row or...

You get the idea. Almost every person could admit to having at least one, if not more good obsessions that help to define who they are as a person. Something which may not dominate our thoughts all of the time, but when we get onto the topic of them, there isn't anything else in the world to discuss. And sure, we may even know what our bad obsessions are and be unable to fix them. I for one tend to obsess way too long over conversations that haven't even happened yet, which in the end proves futile since the conversation never goes any of the ways I thought out.

Whether we recognize them in our lives or not, obsessions are something that occupy a great place in our lives, and which lend themselves greatly to art. For the sake of this post we're talking writing. What better thing to write about than the topics which you can't seem to stop thinking about? In writing as a medium, the cliche' obsession is love (especially with poetry) but to limit writers to one obsession is like limiting artists to one color. The world is filled with things that people obsess over that are easily transferred into writing!


It's one thing for writers to write, but another thing for writers to write about their obsessions. A different side of the process comes out when you're trying to put into words an emotion which we generally accept without analyzing. Why do we obsess over certain things? How are we changed by our obsessions? What do our obsessions tell the world about us?

There's a lot of discussions to be had, but we'll save those for the future. This isn't the last conversation that will be had on obsessions, but it sets the stage for what we at obsession literary magazine are looking for in the submissions we take, as well as the framework for the discussions to be had in the future. What are obsessions? That's what we aim to find out in the issues of the magazine we have published, as well as those which we aim to publish in the future.

David is one of the founders and editors of Obsession Literary Magazine and the maintainer of Obsession's blog.