"Everything's a potential scene; everyone a character'

 

“I don't enjoy doing a lot of research, preferring as a rule, to ‘make up my facts.’ That's why I write fiction. I firmly believe that if you want facts, you read non-fiction; you read fiction to discover the truth.” – Joy Fielding

 

Fielding, born in Toronto, Canada on this date in 1945, said she knew early in her life that she wanted to be a writer, and to date she’s followed through big time.  She is the author of 29 novels and 1 novella – many of them bestsellers – including the extraordinarily successful See Jane Run and her 2022 book The Housekeeper.

    

Fielding said she loves writing because she feels like she’s in complete control.  And, she looks upon everything around her as a potential scene and everyone as a potential character.  While snippets of her ideas come from magazine and newspaper articles, more often they are from things that happen to herself or someone she knows. 

 

 “I use whatever I can and nothing is sacred. Of course, nothing is exactly the way it is in real life. A writer borrows a bit from here, there and everywhere, and adapts it to her own purpose.  (But) I find that the more of me I include, the more successful the book, the more readers can identify with.”