Thursday, May 28, 2009

When Life Imitates Fiction

I am a strong advocate of high drama on the printed page. There's nothing like a strong plot and fast action to keep a reader glued to a book. I also believe a story is only as interesting as its characters.

On the flip side, I'm blessed with a fairly mundane existence. My quiet life lets me focus on the drama in my manuscripts. The people in my family are interesting to me, as any reader of this blog knows, but I don't put anyone I know directly into novels.

Today my life had some excitement. We're having several dead trees taken down. Our ash trees succumbed to emerald ash borer, and several yew trees died as well. The tree guys accidentally let one tree fall on the house, but that's not the exciting part. According to the boss tree guy, my neighbor came out of his house carrying a gun and told the tree guys to keep off his property. (That's the exciting part.) I didn't see this episode because I was typing away on TAoCBS at the time.

The tree guys don't want to call the police. The description of the firearm grows with each telling, so I'm trying to differentiate between fiction and nonfiction.

Who would believe this story if I put it in a manuscript?

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