I've just today started a free Open University course titled Start Writing Fiction. While I know I can write well, I've always wanted to write a novel but fear I lack the necessary imagination. I'm hoping this course will unleash the creative beast within me and have me writing, if not no entire novels, then at least some satisfactory short stories.

Anyway, the first exercise was two write two paragraphs, one containing three fictions and one fact, and one containing three facts and one fiction. Can you spot the fact and fictions in my efforts?

3 fictions, 1 fact:

I'm not a very adventurous person but one of the most exciting things I ever did was a parachute jump. The exhilaration I felt as I leapt from the plane took my breath away. It was scary, but not nearly as terrifying as the time I was kayaking down the Zambezi and a crocodile attacked my canoe. Within seconds the inflatable vessel had deflated, leaving me thrashing around in the water, not knowing whether or not the crocodile was hanging around waiting for his dinner. My fears were answered the second I felt its teeth rip into my arm. But I guess if I was to pick the most frightening thing that's ever happened to me, it would have to be the day I met the Queen.

3 facts, 1 fiction:

The girl handed over her CV with some trepidation. She knew she had a chequered work history, and she wasn't sure which of the rather mundane jobs she'd mentioned would be treated with the most derision. Would it be the part time job in the old people's home, loading the dishwashers after their evening meal? The paper round, where she collected the money from under her customers' doormats? The waitressing, curtailed after she threw soup in a diner's lap? Or her most recent job, stacking shelves in a small hardware store?

So which is the true fact in the first paragraph, and which is the work of fiction in the second?

If you want to join me on the course you'll find all the info here: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/start-writing-fiction/