Dear John Green,

    I have always wanted to write a book.
    I’m not entirely sure why, exactly, or what I would want to write about, but the idea has always appealed to me. But my relationship with writing is ultimately complex, and I assume that the same can be said for many people, even you at times. The fact of the matter is that timing is a crucial component of writing, and when you hit that road block, sometimes you just need to take a break. I guess that’s why I haven’t written a book yet, as that roadblock is surely persistent. Roadblock or not, the glory, accomplishment, and joy that I dream of feeling is always in the back of my mind.

    So I want to write a book. A fictional book, specifically, with detail and excitement and figurative language falling out of the pages. A book with creativity embedded in every word, and the kind of imagination that can only exist on paper. But they tell you that this kind of book is the most difficult to actually write. Because the life of this kind of book is determined by the reader. With nonfiction, the story exists in reality. But the life of a fictional book is in the hands of the person reading it, and if that page isn’t turned, the story dies where the reader left off. It’s a lot of pressure, to write a book like this, they say. Because fiction is fake.

    Emotion is key in any fictional book. It brings the characters to life and keeps them in a light that people can relate to. Two contrasting yet equally important emotions that can make or break a book include fear and the concept of hope or happiness. With the proper balance of such emotions, a book has the potential to flourish.

    The concept of fear is the most complex emotion anyone can possibly experience. This is why reading about someone who is completely and utterly terrified can give you chills. It’s relatable, intriguing, and ultimately what makes a reader want to turn the page. After all, the fear can’t end until that page is turned. Some could argue that the reader has too much power for this reason.
Since reading about someone who is experiencing fear is so interesting, I can imagine that writing about it is too. So when I think of a moment of fear, I think of the right setting. Perhaps taking place at night, specifically an unusually cold summer night. The main character, let's call her Evelyn, is biking with her friend Sally Seeshell. She is on vacation, on a small island, new territory, and the moon is barely visible through the eyes of the threatening dark clouds. Even the moon is in hiding.

    So Evelyn and Sally are biking down the unpaved road, the sun slowly sinking into sleep, like a guard getting off duty. The tires cut through the ground, sending dirt into the wind behind them. With the sky growing darker, clouds began filling the few patches of sky still lit up. As Evelyn and Sally were frantically pedaling to get home before the darkness ate their guiding light, it began to rain. Within minutes it was pouring, and their clothes were drenched. It's amazing how quickly sunshine can transform into downpour. Not knowing what else to do, Evelyn and Sally pulled their bikes onto a nearby piece of land with enough trees to act as a giant umbrella.

    Throwing their bikes causally to the side, the girls decided to sit under the trees and wait out the storm. Walking closer to the group of trees, Evelyn and Sally realized that they had stumbled upon a naturally-made tunnel. The leaves of the trees curled on top of one another, forming a roof, as the trunks stood as tall and sturdy walls. The tunnel was dark and quiet, and Evelyn and Sally could barely see one foot in front of them. Suddenly, out of curiosity and some kind of rush of adrenaline, Sally ran through the darkness, gaining speed with every step. When she came to a halt, Evelyn shocked at the action, Sally started screaming. Evelyn, who could only see the outline of a shadow, saw her frantically trying to wipe something off her face, doing what looked a terrifying dance. Pulling out the flashlight app on her phone, Evelyn lit up the tunnel. And the result was terrifying.

    The inside of the tunnel, what in the dark appeared to be a beautiful, naturally occurring shelter, was coated with a lining of spider webs. Hanging from the trees were dangling knots of more tangled webs, and the ground held ruined clumps. The spiders themselves were everywhere. There were thousands of the black, beady-eyed creatures, each about the size of a quarter. They crawled up and down the tree trunks, making them appear black and hairy, and every leaf that made up the roof of the tunnel came with a group of the spiders, who together made this eerie buzzing noise that Evelyn didn’t notice until just then. Evelyn, whose skin was crawling almost as much as the thousands of spiders in front of her, and only able to see what the boundaries of the flashlight allowed for at a time, suddenly came out of her initial shock. She realized that although she was near the exit of the one-way tunnel of spiders, Sally was not. Shrieking and peeling the countless spiders off her skin, Evelyn realized that there was no way Sally was going to run back toward her. So she did the opposite.

    Holding her mouth and trying to ignore the tiny legs moving against her skin and the shield of the webs in her way, Evelyn kept running toward Sally, slightly irked that she had run this far in the first place. “Curiosity killed the cat I suppose,” Evelyn whispered to herself. “And now Sally and I.” Approaching Sally, and hearing thunder in the distance, Evelyn grabbed her shaking friend’s arm and pulled her toward the exit. Now running side by side, the pair sprinted until they reached the familiar hole that they had recently walked through to find shelter from the rain. They quickly grabbed their bikes and threw them out the door along with themselves, letting the rain wash away the spider webs and fear from their skin. Relieved to be out of the tunnel of spiders, yet still shaken up, Evelyn and Sally hopped back on their bikes and raced home, eager to tell the tale of the rainy day to their clueless family members. Fear is a weird concept. And can even come with a side of relief and accomplishment that can only be described as something positive. I guess we need a little fear, in our book and in our lives.

    Several days later, when Evelyn and Sally had fully recovered from their jarring experience and were telling the tale to anyone who would listen, the pair had a new kind of adventure. Because the thing about fear is that the experience itself is terrible, but after, when you are able to tell your friends and family that you ran sprinting through a tunnel made of spiders in the dark, pouring rain is pretty great. A good story is the benefit of such an adventure. But fear isn’t the only emotion that sparks an interesting tale. Sometimes its entirely different, unexpected, one of a kind, and beautiful all at once. The kind of experience that you can write about complete with a cheesy life lesson and smile on your face.
   

So Evelyn and Sally, still on vacation, were riding their bikes to the beach this time. It was after dinner, and they just wanted to walk around on the cold sand and watch the gentle waves coat the shells in a layer of salt water. Walking down the shore, Sally noticed a small group of people crowded around something a little ways down the beach. This time, Sally and Evelyn ran down there together.

    Slightly out of breath, Evelyn looked up at what the rest were crowding in front of, simultaneously grabbing Sally’s shirt and pulling her toward the amazing sight. What she saw was a carpet of sand, strategically carved to be slightly higher than its surroundings. And all the way down that carpet was a hole, filled with broken eggshells.

    They were baby sea turtles, just recently hatched and beginning to make the long trek to the ocean. Watching in amazement, Evelyn and Sally saw the little creatures, each about the size of a quarter, make their first steps. The little turtles found their way as they slowly advanced forward, walking by instinct to the vast ocean ahead of them. And it's amazing, is it not, that sea turtles know exactly what they are supposed to do from the second they hatch? They leave the broken eggshells in the dust and head straight for the ocean they will soon call their home and automatically know where to go. It's just instinct, just turtle nature.

So Evelyn and Sally sat on the sand, watching the gentle waves coat the shore, welcoming the turtles, who were almost in the water. They watched as the first turtle stepped foot into the ocean, first flipped over by the water. But soon, the little guy got back on his feet and disappeared into the glimmering sea. As Evelyn and Sally watched in awe as the rest follow the leader, it began to rain.

So it was raining, but it wasn’t scary. They were witnessing something beautiful, something hopeful, and something that they will probably never see again. And yes, it was raining, pouring, actually, and lightning was tracing the sky, but it wasn’t scary. It wasn’t scary. And as that rain hit Evelyn's skin she realized that symbolism can be a little too convenient at times. Because it’s easy to see darkness and thunder and flashes of light as the setting for horror, but that’s not what is terrifying you. Rain doesn’t have to be tears from the clouds as you run screaming through a tunnel of spiders. Maybe rain is just rain and spiders are just spiders and turtles are just turtles. And maybe a book is just a book. But they all have different significance in my life, and I look at them all with different eyes. Because in the end you’re left with a million memories, so the ones that you can recall are the memories worth preserving. The memories with the potential to move that persistent roadblock that prevents books from being written in the first place.

So I’m writing to you, a person with a lot of experience writing books, to let you experience the opposite perspective for a change. Yes, you are usually the writer, but right now you’re the reader. I’m allowing you to take on this huge responsibility. I’m also writing to prove to myself that maybe creative writing doesn’t have to be so hard. You just find a topic that you like, and move on from there. You develop your characters, and write about something that means something to you. Maybe fictional writing complete with fear and figurative language and characters and descriptive emotions doesn’t have to be as hard as they say.

Because maybe fiction isn’t totally fake.

Sincerely,

Someone Who Wants to Write a Book