Monday Writing Essentials - February 27, 2012: When Reality is Not Good Enough (The Author)

Challenge

: Write about the failure to understand and humanize our opponents. Know when to stop

Know when good enough is enough.

I cannot tell you how many times, I have tossed aside a novel or skipped a chapter because the author just could not leave well enough alone.

Gosh, we know the villain steals from the homeless and abuses his poodle – but does he really have break into villainous laughter as he does it?

*****

The villain was an author, Mr. X, competing for first place against one other man, Mr. Z. Mr. X knew he would lose without an edge, so he tweeted lies about Mr. Z, asking his many friends to go to the contest voting booth on the internet and vote for him. He tweeted that Mr. X had pirated and plagiarized his writing.

He should have looked at the voting form first. A large group of his friends voted for him and in the voting form where there was a comment section, they repeated what Mr. X had said – that Mr. Z stole his work. Of course, Mr. Z denied the allegations and the contest panel asked Mr. Z to prove his position.

Computers do have their value. Mr. Z was able to prove his work was authentic through email dates of his work to other friends. But, Mr. X suffered. His book sales were no more and he was forced into politics.