Read Lovely Books
We seek fiction that fulfills our cravings for love, excitement, and adventure
Inside its lanes, we can be free, for just a time, from our boring existence
This is where our heroes often start — losers mired in mundanity and destined to wallow in miserable
Interstate Fiction is a reliable road that connects hoards of viewers with characters and stories
It is the property of an exclusive club that only admits certain archetypes
We like to see ourselves in stories — not just the selves we wish we were, but the
Though we love Interstate Fiction, it’s stories in which people like us survive and triumph that
These are the stories in which we are heroes, not just pathetic losers left behind by a
The soil here is rich with soap and drama, ripe for stories of scandal, competition, toxic culture,
Given the ubiquitous phenomenon of dying churches and high-profile sex abuse scandals in organized religion of every
Granted, some stories may require an author’s personal experience, but the abuse scandals? This is an
I know how common divorce is in real life, but it doesn’t even begin to compare
Writers and the entertainment industry seem to consider happily married people boring, or just a device to
Characters like us in any kind of story would bond us to them more tightly than we
But who are the vast majority of fiction readers and viewers? We are actuaries, administrative assistants, archivists,
We are the masses of people who get up every morning at the crack of dawn and
We are currently experiencing an enormous social upheaval in values and morality
The result of this line of thinking is a sameness and predictability in the fiction universe that
Many people can cite a list of cliches in various genres just off the top of their
And while plots can be quite creative and intriguing, the archetypes in which they unfold are conspicuously
Our continued patronage of fiction’s standard fare only counts how much we read and watch what
It doesn’t reflect how tired we are of the same old story molds
To gauge the scale what is being missed, we would have to first actually produce it
We would have to open the gates and let more and different heroes and archetypes into fiction
My favorite genre is mystery, and it’s a timeless one that will never lose its appeal
Innovation usually comes from self-publishing, which implies a small start
And in this age of stale archetypes and social upheaval, I’m betting on a win