Assumptions People Make About Fiction Writers

Hello, Arts students.

A fiction writer must be an Arts student. Period. The fact that you could have a Science background, even excelling in it and simultaneously write stories other than science fiction is just absurd to them. If we take a bit of time researching about well-known writers, we’d know that a lot of them majored in STEM or other subjects. Want examples? Google Vladimir Nabokov, E. L. Konigsburg, or even our own Humayun Ahmed.  But even then, the label of being an Arts student is that easily stuck to your image just because you write.

How much did you cry?

No, only melodramatic souls don’t write fiction. Fiction is not just sad stories, it is something that incorporates a wide spectrum of feelings. Not all stories have tears as their backdrops or an agonising separation as the inspiration.  So if you ever say that you’ve actually never had a heartbreak or never been sabotaged but you still love writing rueful pieces, they won’t ever believe you.

Wow, how does it feel to be an Oxford Dictionary?

If you are a writer, you must legitimate be a living, talking, walking Oxford Dictionary Latest Edition, right? No. To a certain extent, for writing you must know a handful of synonyms, antonyms and catch phrases but that doesn’t mean you have the vocab of a dictionary. This is also one of the misconceptions people carry about writing that using complex, difficult words enhances your write-ups. But actually, writers are people who can and do write “I went to the park today” instead of “My bombastic feet dragged me to my recreational respite today”.

Are you a daydreamer?

We all are, yes. For writing fictional pieces, you must know and swim through the canal of imagination and colours. But that necessarily doesn’t mean you’re someone who wears mismatched shoes to work. People also tend to think that writers only write. But a fictional writer can quintessentially maintain his or her personal life with the same degree of sanity that non-writers do. They might have their certain charms of being naive and forgetful, but that doesn’t establish all writers as a categorical klutz.

Maisha Nazifa Kamal just doesn’t get why all black cats meow at everyone else except her. Send her ways to communicate with them at 01shreshtha7@gmail.com