Secret Power of Pretending
From Page to Play: The Art of Bending Reality
Digging in with Joan Fernandez is a weekly newsletter with ideas for you on shattering limits to reaching your true potential, told through bits from the life of Jo van Gogh (the woman that would not allow Van Gogh to die twice). Please sign up here.
I’ve been bending reality.
You can, too.
I guess it’s common knowledge that imagination is a must-have tool in the novelist’s bag of tricks. All those scenes and dialogue and thoughts come to life by little sparks flying in a writer’s brain.
But lately, I’ve been having fun seeing how this often underused skill has been handy for creating and transforming reality too.
No rules.
Check it out. First, a scene from my book using imagination as a tool for character development.
And then my own silly imaginative exchange with a grandson sidekick.
From Jo’s World
There’s a scene in my novel when Vincentje, the son of my heroine, Jo, is ecstatic when his Uncle Cor makes a surprise visit to his school.
Young Vincent is the namesake of Vincent van Gogh and the only son of Jo and Theo van Gogh. The boy was only a year old when Theo died.
[When Theo passes on just six months after his brother Vincent, all of Van Gogh artwork passes to Jo and her son. The problem is that in 1891 the endowment is basically worthless. No one is buying Van Gogh art. My book, Saving Vincent, is the story of how Jo converted an inheritance worth nothing into today’s priceless legacy.]
At this point in the novel, there’s no Van Gogh fame on the horizon. Jo is managing a boarding house in a small town, raising her son on her own, when Cornelis “Cor” Van Gogh arrives. He’s on a short visit home after emigrating to South Africa in 1889 to fight in the Second Boer War. Five years earlier the reader knows that he left to attempt to make something of his life.
I chose to create a scene in which Cor goes to the schoolyard to surprise his nephew. My goal was to explore how hungry Vincentje might be for a male relative and so acknowledge how Jo was trying to run a boarding house and promote Vincent’s art while also raising a son on her own.
Here’s a snippet:
Schoolboys crowd around Cor asking about him being a soldier.
“You weren’t afraid, were you?” asked Vincentje.
Cor rested his hand on Vincentje’s shoulder. “Brave men are always afraid. Fear is your friend because it makes you more alert. . . When you’re afraid, your physical senses grow a thousand times sharper. When I was afraid, I could see the barrel of a gun across the schoolyard. . . I could hear the faintest footstep on the town’s square. I could smell the lye soap a man had used a week ago underneath his sweat.”
“His stinky sweat?”
“His very stinky sweat. But you know what?” Cor paused. “I had the stinkiest sweat of all!”
Cor punctures a hole in the notion that men are never afraid. Instead of weakness, he says, fear sharpens into a sensory superpower. I imagined it being a manly lesson Cor could credibly tell his nephew to challenge a common perception and offer an alternative idea.
Vincentje would later become a man who challenged many societal ideas, especially latching onto improving workers’ rights.
My Yarn
On a lighter note, I have another story about imagination. It came up this past weekend.
I’m washing up a few dishes when my 5-1/2 year old grandson is pretending to be asleep several feet away in the nearby great room. He’s faking he doesn’t hear his mom asking him to pick up his scattered toys.
As my savvy daughter-in-law heads up the stairs, she ignores his playacting and instructs, “Pick everything up before you come upstairs, please.” Motionless, he waits until her voice is at a distance. He cracks open an eye.
We make eye contact.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re awake!” I say. “You missed a lot.”
“What?” He sits up, suspicious. I mean, he’s been laying still on a sofa within ten feet of his mom and me talking and it was all typical grownup chatter.
“You’ve been asleep a long time,” I say. “When you fell asleep you were five. Guess what age you are now?”
Curious, he sits up. “What age?”
“Ten. You’ve been asleep five years. We owe you four birthday parties.”
He’s grinning, paying attention. “Five! You owe me five parties!” Abruptly he bounces once then flings himself down on the sofa cushion, shutting his eyes. Seconds later, they pop open when he jumps up. “I fell asleep again!”
“You’re awake! I’m so glad! We missed you! Oh my gosh, do you know how old you are?”
He’s skipped across the room to me, shaking his head, smiling.
“Sixteen. We couldn’t let you drive with your eyes closed, so you’re going to have to hurry and learn now.”
Laughing, he sags where he stands, closes his eyes and drops his head until seconds later, his head springs up. “I fell asleep again!”
“Oh, wow.” I shake my head, hands on my hips. “You missed a lot. Now you’re forty years old! Did you know you got married?”
“What?!”
“Who did you marry?” I bite my lip. “I forget her name.”
“Melanie?”
“Yep, that’s it. Oh, and you sleep in the garage now. Your dad took over the entire second floor as his man-cave.”
He nods. That makes sense. Now his shoulders slump, his head drops and—you know it—a few seconds later, his eyes are already open and he’s grinning at me. “I fell asleep and woke up 5 years old again.”
I’m smiling with him. “Good job!”
He bounces across the room. I forget to remind him to pick up his toys. It was just a quick, fun exchange. No grand lessons. . . unless.
Maybe, just maybe, it subtly conveyed to him a little of life’s unpredictable possibilities.
And at least for me the memory of a shared experience with my grandson sparked by imagination.
How to Bend Reality?
Challenge existing perceptions. Create new possibilities. Inject wonder into creative endeavors and everyday lives.
Life is fluid and open to interpretation.
I’m up for imagining grand possibilities.
What about you?
Warmly,
My Book
Saving Vincent, A Novel of Jo van Gogh, is about the woman that would not let Van Gogh die twice. This biographical historical novel is based on a true story.
In the early twentieth century, a timid widow—and sister-in-law of the famed painter—Jo van Gogh takes on the male-dominated art elite to prove that the hundreds of worthless paintings she inherited are world-class in order to ensure her young son will have an inheritance.
Grateful to be honored to win the 2024 American Writing Award in Art; the Bronze Award in the 2025 IPPY Book Award in Popular Fiction; and Finalist in the 2025 American Fiction Awards, 2025 National Indie Excellence Awards and 2024 American Writing Award each in Historical Fiction.
For book clubs and community groups looking for speakers, Complete this to connect and let me know your ideas of how I can share Jo’s story.
Book Recommendations: Imaginative, Time-bending Books!
Order on Kimberly Sullivan's website
What a fun time-traveling ride (especially for Austin fans!)
Oh, what incredible fun this book is to read! Jane Austin fan? Check! Time-traveling fan? Check! Romantic romance fan? Check! This lovely story elegantly braids references to art, music, poetry and architecture with a light fluidity that caused me to marvel more than once at how the obvious love the author has for 19th century culture must have propelled her research, and surely, must be personal passions. Yet the book is equally at home in the past and today’s time period. Sullivan’s subtle switching between 19th century and 21st century structure of speech in her character’s dialogue appeared effortless. Each set of characters is true to their times. I loved how Sullivan cleverly incorporated references to Jane Austin’s work and so grounded me in this story. It’s bold to derive a story around a device like time-travel and construct the rules to make it plausible, but Sullivan has done it.
Order Kelly Harms' website
Body-swapping mind-bending fun
I loved the premise – body-swapping! And being able to voyeuristically experience another life in another body while observing your own. Things are not always what they seem on the outside. This story is a mind-bender. It’s well-crafted, clever, with lots of snarky and sly humor. Harms’ writing style is easy to read and covers family drama, whimsical body-switching, mom guilt, infidelity, and suburban parenting wars gone nuts.
Oh how funny, you and your grandson. What great inspiration he must be!
Love this, Joan!