Erin Lodes

There’s a quote in the introduction to The Fault in Our Stars by John Green where he’s talking about the time he spent working with kids who had cancer. Apparently a lot of people wanted to know how much of what he wrote in his fiction was based in fact. And I don’t have the exact sentence in front of me but within it is the phrase “made-up stories can matter.”

I’m getting that phrase worked into a tattoo of mine I’ve been planning that will also contain a tree and a book and will be freaking awesome whenever I actually get it — after my first book is published is what I’ve been thinking, whenever the hell that ends up being — but that is beside the point.

I went to go see Black Panther this past weekend and EVERYONE NEEDS TO SEE THAT MOVIE but I was talking to my husband about it afterward while we were waiting to get some ice cream fast food drive-in style, and I was talking about how sure it’s a superhero movie but they said so much good shit.

It isn’t just that the acting was incredible and the characters were badass and holy shit the women and holy shit the action scenes and holy shit the villain — anyone else think he made a lot of sense? It wasn’t just the incredible diversity and representation. It was what they said. They said shit that matters. It matters.

Talking about choosing to help where help is needed and sharing what you have even if that means you might have a little less is important. It seems especially important now.

And I’ll admit I went down (or up?) a little spiral rant about how stories matter, sitting there in the car waiting for ice cream. I mentioned The Newsroom and The West Wing and Wonder Woman. Stories that inspire, stories that question, stories that provide hope.

I can’t help but think of a tweet I saw talking about the students from Parkland from @JenAnsback that said: “I’m not sure why people are so surprised that the students are rising up — we’ve been feeding them a steady diet of dystopian literature showing teens leading the charge for years. We have told teen girls they are empowered. What, you thought it was fiction? It was preparation.”

It’s about someone watching The Newsroom and deciding we can do better. It’s about someone watching The West Wing and deciding they could make a difference. It’s about someone watching Black Panther and seeing themselves leading a country or feeling like they could make a change in their community. It’s about teens reading The Hunger Games or Divergent and feeling like they can change things, they can lead a revolution even though they’re young.

These are all made-up stories. But I think they’ve mattered.

The book I’m working on is important to me, it tells a story I feel needs to be told more, talks about a topic I think needs more light in its dark places. Sure it’s a made-up story. But I think it matters.

I think if it inspires or makes people question, provides hope or comfort, or if I even manage to say a single phrase that echoes with me the way so many phrases from Black Panther did, all the effort and hair-pulling and tears will be worth it. If it matters to even one person, it will be worth it.

The writing is hard right now, I’m pushing past a hump I think, so I have to keep reminding myself. Made-up stories can matter.

Anyway, that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think?