The only rule I have in how I let characters tell stories is that they must always tell the reader their version of the truth. No one likes being outright lied to, even in fiction.
When our bodies are sick and people extend their sympathy, bring us soup, offer up solutions. When our minds are sick, people tend to shy away from you, be afraid, or call you outright crazy. I’m fascinated by the way society and individuals view mental illness, and most of my shorts comment on that.
When someone is outright nasty to you that hurts. I really try not to have a negative outlook. I mean, I’m not going to say I’m not disappointed when I read something bad about myself.
Millions of dollars’ worth of advertising shows such little respect for the reader’s intelligence that it amounts almost to outright insult.
You had eight years before President Trump, a situation where the opposition party basically ran in opposition to the president on a platform of thinly based racism. That doesn’t mean that the politicians themselves were outright racist, but when charges of birtherism came up, no one repudiated it.
It would probably surprise people how prevalent reading is in institutions – and the degree to which some states discourage reading by instituting draconian rules and laws that try to limit and outright roadblock books in prisons.
During the playoffs, some players have more second-guessing and outright doubt to deal with than others.
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