Ever have one of those times when you experience a light bulb moment over something obvious?  You know, you’ve grown up with it, so it just seems like part of the air you breathe, and you never thought of it before.  And then one day you notice it and think, “Why didn’t I see that before?”

Writing is broken down into two broad categories:  fiction and nonfiction.  Notice the distinction?  When something is the standard, whatever isn’t that standard is called not-the-something.  You know, like regular and irregular, or functional and dysfunctional, or ethical and non-ethical.

The dictionary I perused had three definitions for fiction, including “something invented by the imagination.”  But for nonfiction it simply stated “literature that is not fictional.”

Apparently Webster didn’t want to bother with delving into the obvious.

Stories have been with us for a long, long time.  Gilgamesh is the oldest one we still know about, but there are plenty of others lost in the mists of time (I could say midst of time, but that wouldn’t be as poetic).  They are the standard long used to explain our traditions and culture.

But that doesn’t mean nonfiction is chopped liver.  Many such books and articles help guide writers of fiction, providing the necessary facts we need to help make our stories relatable.  One can’t really exist without the other – even some of the most popular nonfiction gets enjoyed because people observe “it read like a story.”

Storytelling is innate to humanity.  Not everybody has to write the great American novel, but then not everybody has to invent the light bulb.  Or, to rephrase an old Bible school ditty, whatever light is thine, you gotta let it shine….