Fiction rules  simply because it doesn’t have any
April 29, 2007 | 12:00am
This Week’s Winner
Dimpy Jazmines, 34, is a corporate writer and current president of Mensa Philippines. He enjoys raiding the bookstores, reading books, and writing all kinds of stuff, some of which drifts towards fiction.
Fiction is my friend. If my life were a book I would like it to be fiction. I imagine I would be too bored or disinterested to read it otherwise.
Fiction passes the time during long bus rides, during waits in a restaurant, or during those moments when you’re in bed straddling the fine thin line between being awake and dozing off to dreamland.
In fiction, anything can be an inspiration. Anything. I have yet to find something that does not inspire me to appreciate its possibilities in fiction. For me, everything has a story, and fiction helps bring it out. Therefore, fiction can be action-filled, fantastic, romantic, awesome, or even downright moronic on occasion. And sometimes it can be funny.
Fiction, unlike non-fiction, is also more forgiving (didn’t I tell you fiction was a friend?). Try to pass inaccurate, sloppily researched or unverified information in your non-fiction work and, at best, you’d be a laughingstock; at worst, you’d lose credibility or even face a serious libel suit. In fiction, anything goes. There’s no limit to what you can include or not include. Imagination soars. It keeps you guessing. It keeps you on your toes.
There’s no authority to tell you what should be and what should not. In fiction, you are the authority.
I often find myself not liking conventional limits and always yearning to explore new ideas. Maybe that’s why I like fiction so much. Or maybe I just get bored too easily.
One more thing. You may not know it, but works of fiction can also give you a lot of information. When you include some nuggets of fact or trivia in your fiction, you educate your readers while you entertain them.
For instance, did you know that in 1964, Disney released the musical movie Mary Poppins, starring Julie Andrews, wherein one of the more memorable songs was the oddly titled Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Appearing in the Oxford Dictionary, the word itself, which means "good," is considered one of the longest in the English language.
Why do I mention this? Apparently, anything under the sun (or even beyond it when what you’re dealing with is science fiction) can lend itself well to a number of quirky stories when it comes to fiction  even the S-word. Which brings us to my case in point…
The Hendersons belong to a prominent line of dog breeders that goes back to four proud generations.
Great-grandfather Henderson produced such fine greyhounds that Czar Nicolas II of Russia himself was said to have been a satisfied customer, having bought a number of pups for the price of a small fortune in diamonds and Fabergé eggs. Grandfather Henderson bred dobermans of such feisty caliber that the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, commissioned him to provide hounds for the Hundabteilung, the feared canine corps of the German Nazi army. Henderson the Senior, upon immigrating with his family to America in the 1960s, immediately notched a place in the Guinness Book of World Records by breeding, at that time, the most massive St. Bernard, which measured three and a half feet on all fours, and seven and a half feet when made to stand.
Pinckus Henderson Jr., the latest of the Henderson dog breeders, decided to specialize in collies. With his childhood fascination for watching Lassie’s adventures on TV, Pinckus never outgrew his love of collies and relentlessly worked day and night on his mission to perfect the breed.
Pinckus believed that the key to breed the perfect collie was to start with perfect parents. It was with this idea that Pinckus worked separately to breed a super-male collie and a super-female collie in the hopes that the offspring they produced would be the perfect collie he so feverishly sought.
Muscular and strong, the super-male collie parent, which he naturally named "Super," had all the traits of an alpha male dog. Capable of producing irresistible dog pheromones and very, very fertile, the super-female collie was every male dog’s dream come true. As acknowledgment to the she-dog’s obvious feminine charms, because "Superbitch" was so distasteful and as a tribute as well to his own name, Pinckus named the female dog "Pink." At last, with his two parent dogs, he had the components to produce his perfect collie.
Breeding super-specimen collies such as Super and Pink from a multitude of other collies was a huge effort by itself for Pinckus. It went without saying that it was a very expensive process, too. In order to support his studies, Pinckus had to part with his heirloom Fabergé eggs, invest most of his fortune and mortgage his house.
Reading the paper, however, he saw the perfect opportunity. The Mayor’s Invitational Dog Contest was to be held and the pot was a million dollars. Pinckus knew without doubt that Super and Pink, with their luxurious coats and flawless bone structure, would bring home the award. He called the organizers and registered without a second thought.
On the day of the contest, Pinckus knew that he had the competition wiped out. Compared to Super and Pink, the other dogs looked mongrel-ish, ugly and pathetic  it was now only a matter of standing still until the ceremony was over and they would be the winners.
It was then that disaster struck and there was nothing Pinckus could do.
Super, with his enhanced sense of smell, probably caught the scent of the delicious cocktail food that the caterer was bringing in, and at that moment suddenly launched his massive body from the stage into a tray full of cheese sticks, bringing down a very wide-eyed waiter in the process.
Pink, her super-senses also in a frenzy, bolted and attacked the most attractive object she could chew on: unfortunately, this happened to be the mayor’s wife’s shoes.
The Mayor’s Invitational Dog Contest was thrown into chaotic disarray. Security was called and Pinckus and his dogs were thrown out, jailed in the city jail and dog pound, respectively, and banned from ever joining any dog contest again. An old lady’s chihuahua was declared the winner after a week.
Alone in his jail cell, the despondent Pinckus had little to do but pick up the newspaper and read. How he loathed the headline:
"SUPER COLLIE FANCIES
CHEESE STICKS AS PINK
COLLIE CHEWS SHOES."
Dimpy Jazmines, 34, is a corporate writer and current president of Mensa Philippines. He enjoys raiding the bookstores, reading books, and writing all kinds of stuff, some of which drifts towards fiction.
Fiction is my friend. If my life were a book I would like it to be fiction. I imagine I would be too bored or disinterested to read it otherwise.
Fiction passes the time during long bus rides, during waits in a restaurant, or during those moments when you’re in bed straddling the fine thin line between being awake and dozing off to dreamland.
In fiction, anything can be an inspiration. Anything. I have yet to find something that does not inspire me to appreciate its possibilities in fiction. For me, everything has a story, and fiction helps bring it out. Therefore, fiction can be action-filled, fantastic, romantic, awesome, or even downright moronic on occasion. And sometimes it can be funny.
Fiction, unlike non-fiction, is also more forgiving (didn’t I tell you fiction was a friend?). Try to pass inaccurate, sloppily researched or unverified information in your non-fiction work and, at best, you’d be a laughingstock; at worst, you’d lose credibility or even face a serious libel suit. In fiction, anything goes. There’s no limit to what you can include or not include. Imagination soars. It keeps you guessing. It keeps you on your toes.
There’s no authority to tell you what should be and what should not. In fiction, you are the authority.
I often find myself not liking conventional limits and always yearning to explore new ideas. Maybe that’s why I like fiction so much. Or maybe I just get bored too easily.
One more thing. You may not know it, but works of fiction can also give you a lot of information. When you include some nuggets of fact or trivia in your fiction, you educate your readers while you entertain them.
For instance, did you know that in 1964, Disney released the musical movie Mary Poppins, starring Julie Andrews, wherein one of the more memorable songs was the oddly titled Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Appearing in the Oxford Dictionary, the word itself, which means "good," is considered one of the longest in the English language.
Why do I mention this? Apparently, anything under the sun (or even beyond it when what you’re dealing with is science fiction) can lend itself well to a number of quirky stories when it comes to fiction  even the S-word. Which brings us to my case in point…
Great-grandfather Henderson produced such fine greyhounds that Czar Nicolas II of Russia himself was said to have been a satisfied customer, having bought a number of pups for the price of a small fortune in diamonds and Fabergé eggs. Grandfather Henderson bred dobermans of such feisty caliber that the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, commissioned him to provide hounds for the Hundabteilung, the feared canine corps of the German Nazi army. Henderson the Senior, upon immigrating with his family to America in the 1960s, immediately notched a place in the Guinness Book of World Records by breeding, at that time, the most massive St. Bernard, which measured three and a half feet on all fours, and seven and a half feet when made to stand.
Pinckus Henderson Jr., the latest of the Henderson dog breeders, decided to specialize in collies. With his childhood fascination for watching Lassie’s adventures on TV, Pinckus never outgrew his love of collies and relentlessly worked day and night on his mission to perfect the breed.
Pinckus believed that the key to breed the perfect collie was to start with perfect parents. It was with this idea that Pinckus worked separately to breed a super-male collie and a super-female collie in the hopes that the offspring they produced would be the perfect collie he so feverishly sought.
Muscular and strong, the super-male collie parent, which he naturally named "Super," had all the traits of an alpha male dog. Capable of producing irresistible dog pheromones and very, very fertile, the super-female collie was every male dog’s dream come true. As acknowledgment to the she-dog’s obvious feminine charms, because "Superbitch" was so distasteful and as a tribute as well to his own name, Pinckus named the female dog "Pink." At last, with his two parent dogs, he had the components to produce his perfect collie.
Breeding super-specimen collies such as Super and Pink from a multitude of other collies was a huge effort by itself for Pinckus. It went without saying that it was a very expensive process, too. In order to support his studies, Pinckus had to part with his heirloom Fabergé eggs, invest most of his fortune and mortgage his house.
Reading the paper, however, he saw the perfect opportunity. The Mayor’s Invitational Dog Contest was to be held and the pot was a million dollars. Pinckus knew without doubt that Super and Pink, with their luxurious coats and flawless bone structure, would bring home the award. He called the organizers and registered without a second thought.
On the day of the contest, Pinckus knew that he had the competition wiped out. Compared to Super and Pink, the other dogs looked mongrel-ish, ugly and pathetic  it was now only a matter of standing still until the ceremony was over and they would be the winners.
It was then that disaster struck and there was nothing Pinckus could do.
Super, with his enhanced sense of smell, probably caught the scent of the delicious cocktail food that the caterer was bringing in, and at that moment suddenly launched his massive body from the stage into a tray full of cheese sticks, bringing down a very wide-eyed waiter in the process.
Pink, her super-senses also in a frenzy, bolted and attacked the most attractive object she could chew on: unfortunately, this happened to be the mayor’s wife’s shoes.
The Mayor’s Invitational Dog Contest was thrown into chaotic disarray. Security was called and Pinckus and his dogs were thrown out, jailed in the city jail and dog pound, respectively, and banned from ever joining any dog contest again. An old lady’s chihuahua was declared the winner after a week.
Alone in his jail cell, the despondent Pinckus had little to do but pick up the newspaper and read. How he loathed the headline:
"SUPER COLLIE FANCIES
CHEESE STICKS AS PINK
COLLIE CHEWS SHOES."
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