Journalism, Creativity and Reactionary Creativity

On January 1, 2002 I had finally finished authoring my latest fiction book, which is titled The Great Teen Fruit War, A 1960’ Novel. The work was quite a Promethean task to complete, having 162,000 words on 468 pages presented in 46 Chapters. When I read my final draft, I think I felt a little like Victor Frankenstein must have when he first fully viewed the monster that he had created.

The Great Teen Fruit War is set in 1960’ Hammonton and involves conflict between the Blues, the sons of blueberry farmers and the Reds, the sons of peach farmers (please remember, a novel is fiction). The Blues are the antagonists and wear button-down blue denim jackets, and the Reds are the protagonists and wear zip-up red James Dean’ jackets like those worn by the famous actor in the 1955 classic film, Rebel without a Cause. The Great Teen Fruit War is the sequel to Black Leather and Blue Denim, A ‘50s Novel.

In the Great Teen Fruit War, Bellevue Avenue is the dividing line between blueberry country to the east and peach territory to the west. To spice up the story, the Reds have one "antagonist" named Ronald "Goose" Restuccio, the son of a Mafia kingpin. Complicating matters even further is a third gang, The Ramrodders, a group of greasers that interact with the Reds and the Blues.

Now here’s the essential difference between fiction and non-fiction. The Fruit War’s setting is real, but the story and the characters are not. Most of the "characters" are composite, a combination of two or more people I have known. I have taken elements from these past acquaintances and synthesized each of them into a new person just like Victor Frankenstein had done with his monster.

In all due respect to Hammonton Gazette writers Gabe Donio and Gina Rullo, front-page journalism or news reporting is relatively easy compared to short story or novel authoring. Newspaper journalism is basically accurate descriptive narrative’ writing that involves answers to the questions Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? and then the reporter provides a few direct quotes and a first paragraph hook that captures the reader’s attention. The hook is the only element that really requires any degree of imagination.

Now Gabe Donio and Gina Rullo take the Hammonton Gazette to a higher level of thinking when they write the Editorial Page, because now we have opinion based on fact, which involves interpretation, analysis, problem solving and controversy. These are "higher level’ thinking skills" where some local citizens might become inflamed because they didn’t savor the way certain facts have been interpreted, analyzed or problem solved.

However, Gabe and Gina are still honoring their oath to good journalism by basing their judgments and conclusions on fact, even if they adroitly employ persuasive writing techniques.

Short story and novel writing use facts as their basis also, but then they deviate from factual writing (journalism, biography, etc.) when the author creates imaginary characters, plots, situations, subplots, themes and conflicts. Novel writing requires the highest forms of thinking skills, a continuous combination of creativity and synthesis.

It is always easier to borrow than to invent. Most authors know this very well since just about all plot ideas have already been created. It is hard to be absolutely creative where everything or anything in your book is entirely original and invented. And so, most authors depend heavily upon "reactionary creativity," combining personalities we have known into a new protagonist or new antagonist (synthesis) or taking ordinary objects and attributing to them extraordinary functions.

For example, in The Great Teen Fruit War the Reds had a problem.