My Little Experiment

I take a creative writing class at school so I write a lot of stories however I've never once handed in a true story. I decided to change that and do a little bit of an experiment. A while ago I wrote a story doing an overview of my first relationship from the beginning to end in a story format. I was a bit curious if anyone would catch on that it was a true story but in order for me to get real results I couldn't give it to anyone who knows it's true. I let a good friend at school and my creative writing teacher read it, neither one of them knew it was a true story.

In writing, you generally can't tell truth from fiction (if you have good enough writing skills) but I made a few mistakes that could have given it away. I referenced events that I never explained in the story a couple of times, one of the big reveals of the downfall of the relationship was something I never even explained and didn't make much sense. I have since gone on to edit it and it makes more sense now.

I got really good feedback from my teacher about it the story. She said, "It really captures adolescent love with an admirable and brave honest and cander, well done." This kind of caught me off guard because the way she was talking about hoe honest and straightforward it was made me worry that she had realized it was real but then I realized she had no way of knowing if it was true or not. The comment that really punched me in the gut was when she commented, "What a nice guy she's chucking away." This is something I've struggled with a lot, feeling like I gave up on a perfect person and when I read that comment it hit me hard.

Overall I don't regret handing in the story. It was quite interesting to see that it really is impossible to differentiate truth from fiction. I know if I had given it to my best friend she would have figured it out right away. There is one thing I'm a little curious about, what would happen if my ex-boyfriend read the story? I'm pretty sure he would catch on but there's a little piece of me that wonders if maybe he too would think it was just a story. I don't think that experiment will ever be done though. I've learned to keep what's in the past, in the past. Of course, there's nothing wrong with using it in stories but I can't dwell on it anymore, I wrote it all out, now I'm done.