This week: Reality vs. Fiction Edited by: Annette  
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| "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking." - Steve Jobs |
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Reality vs. Fiction
In this newsletter, I will explain why reading books or watching movies, or consuming the stories of others is bad for your writing. This flies in the face of the common bit of advice to "read to write." Read on to find out what this is all about and stay around for the conclusions you should draw.
A lot of fiction relies on tropes, archetypes, stock characters, plot devices, plot twists, and more similar pieces of equipment to tell stories. For writers, these building blocks are a huge help in crafting stories that are easy to consume, keep the story going, and make sense in the end. However, reliance on these bits of advice is stunting writers' imagination and keeps writing poor and one-dimensional.
Real life is nuanced and full of events, stories, people, animals, and natural occurrences that defy story telling tropes. Examples of how much the hero's journey has tainted storytelling are disaster movies. Whenever a natural or man-made disaster unfolds, humans react the way they do. Whatever that may look like. When it's all said and done and Hollywood makes a movie, the original events get distilled and reworked to fit the hero's journey. A simple line at the beginning "inspired by" grants blanket permission to change, alter, diminish, invalidate reality as it happened. Real life people get erased from the story to make way for one actor as the sole focus point. These movies can be fun to watch as long as we kind of push aside that real people died or were harmed for this movie to exist in the first place.
Life is not made out of one focal person who experiences everything with a few henchmen or stock characters around. Life happens to every single person from their own limited point of view. While it is completely unreasonable to tell writers to go out and try to get into harrowing situations to make their writing better, the advice should be to read the news, watch well-made documentaries, scour science journals for discoveries, and just go take a walk in the park to observe people in their real lives.
Even the most introverted writer has some people to observe. Family, close friends, coworkers, neighbors, or even the cashier at the supermarket have the potential for a better dramatic story that can be told with a fully fleshed out character who defies all character tropes.
Get your head out of the books and into life to write better.
Do you still think you should get your inspiration from reading others' books or watching movies?
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Replies to my last Drama newsletter "Damsel In Distress" that asked: Can you use a damsel without making her look weak?
oldgreywolf on wheels  wrote: Biggest damsels we had in the Army were usually male in dis dress, Battle Dress Utility.
Some of us NCOs started out in pickle suits.
My female characters have the better characteristics of the better soldiers, male and female, whom I worked with, but without some of the more disgusting habits.
And they're all human where they come from.
My experience is limited to what I see in movies or TV shows. From those sources, it would appear that the term "ladies" is liberally applied to everyone in the room. (What is NCO?)
Gaby  wrote: I'm not sure why women were ever portrayed as damsels in distress. Women were never weak nor incapable. It could have been the men writing - no offense men! - who needed someone to save. I also don't see women as equals to men. They are much more superior, but they have a more sensitive and gentle side. I don't like heroes, in stories or otherwise, male or female. Each gender has something to offer that the other can't. Oh, I could go on and on here. Having a strong female character but a weak male is also off putting. Just my two cents! 
I'm buying what you're selling. Weak characters are off putting.
Siobhan Falen  wrote: Aw, thank you for including my stories. Also, going to politely argue that Princess Leia was an equal member of the party in that she did help rescue Han, they all needed rescuing at one point or another, fought, and she provided a lot of the direction and drive behind their actions. I loved her as a kid and as an adult, I recognize that she did so much for women in the sci-fi world. Plus, Carrie Fisher was one awesome lady.
But this whole article cracked me up because my most involved stories include women, that as my middle daughter just recently told me, are "rebels". When I asked her what that meant, she told me that they were sarcastic, liked to fight back and had a ton of attitude. She meant it as both an insult (you should have heard the teen 'tude) and as a compliment but I hear nothing but a compliment. I like characters, men and women, that stand up for their beliefs and fight vs. retreat. No sleeping for thousands of years waiting for their prince to wake them up with a kiss.
I like that you cracked up. It would be terrible if you thought the article was just ho-hum. I also have a middle child (son in my case) who discusses fiction with me. So fun. |
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Drama: August 30, 2023 Issue [#12123]
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