Journalism, Creativity and Reactionary Creativity

They had stolen seven hundred fifty thousand dollars from a Blues’ father and had to dispose of the cash in a hurry. Waaala! They break into Bruni’s Pizzeria, put the cash in one of the ovens, set the temperature to five hundred degrees and evacuate the premises. The author had once read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and knew that books (paper) burn at 451 degrees, and naturally, the paper money in the pizza oven would disintegrate overnight at 500 degrees. "Reactionary creativity" had been employed.

In another scenario, the nefarious Blues capture two Reds and vertically attach the dual victims’ crucifixion-style to the Fairview Avenue’ railroad crossing gates. When a train zips by, the gates are lowered with the two peach-gang’ kids still attached. Whether or not this is possible in terms of engineering physics or mathematics is unknown by the author (or most of his readers). However, it is another example of taking familiar ordinary objects and ascribing a different function to them, or what I call "reactionary creativity."

In another chapter called "The Scavenger Hunt," two teams of Reds and Blues must visit fifteen places in 1960’ Hammonton and vicinity. Greenmount and Oak Grove’ Cemeteries, the giant Renault Champagne bottle on Route 30 in Elm, the Sons of Italy on 3th Street and Angelo’s Store in Rosedale (among other local places) must be visited in a competition to obtain information from inscriptions and signs. The data retrieved must be deciphered to solve a riddle encrypted inside the correct information that had been gleaned.

In conclusion to this brief writing seminar, I believe that writers pursue non-fiction and that authors write fiction, but in the final analysis, good fiction must read like it’s non-fiction and good non-fiction must read like it’s fiction. The last place I want to see fiction or creativity is on the front page of a newspaper or the first chapter of a biography. The non-fiction events on the front page and in the biography must be so sensational and so extraordinary that they sound like fiction. And oh yes, life often does seem ambivalent!

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To: The Hammonton Gazette

By: John Wiessner

January 5, 2002

Copyright: The Hammonton Gazette