In which there was a whole lotta this:
and a tremendous amount of this:
Category: By Guests
Ken Levine Sees LIZ AND DICK
Kathy Fuller: Fictional Realism Required?
So even though I refuse to watch the Walking Dead, I saw this on Pinterest today:
which spawned a little nine comment discussion on realism v. escapism. Your mission as a writer is to make your made-up story as “real” as possible. Some people, including a few folks on Pinterest, don’t think that’s necessary, while others get highly annoyed when something implausible occurs and takes them out of their suspended reality. This basically happens all the time in the action genre: the bad guys can’t shoot the broad side of a barn while the main character is always dead on accurate, for example. That’s become an action staple, so no one questions that leap in logic anymore.
Peggy Bechko Strikes Again! Getcher Writerly Advice While It’s Hot!
Four Simple Successful Writer’s Suggestions – by Peggy Bechko
Many times I’ve heard the questions, how do you write? How do you learn to write? How can I learn to write (or write better)?
Good questions, and believe it or not there are some pretty simple answers. Much easier than finding your way through a maze.
Invisible Mikey: Into Sure Wood
I grew up loving stories about Robin Hood. Were these tales based on the exploits of a real outlaw? There might have been a number of Robin Hoods in the original region, including some women. It’s an open question if he really lived or not, but what an inspiring symbol. Each of us knows someone, or about someone who’s been dealt an injustice and had to go into some sort of hiding. Many of us become outlaws ourselves, as children or as adolescents.
From the safety of the dense woods, Robin and his band lived simply in Sherwood Forest, shared everything and redressed the crimes visited upon local peasants by an unjust elite who support an illegitimate ruler. That “rob from the rich, give to the poor” catchphrase isn’t entirely accurate. The rich in these stories got rich through unfair laws and taxes they alone benefit from. The serfs and villagers do all the work farming, maintaining the estates and manufacturing goods, and they are starved and thrown in jail if they object to the injustice. It’s a situation begging for revolt, and always relevant, especially in our age of Capitalism, Corporatism and heartless avarice.