I was thinking today as I pulled up to a stoplight about how over the last 30 years traffic lights have changed. Now, almost everywhere you have a left turn arrow to make sure traffic flows logically and safely instead of having people take risks and demand the right of way when they shouldn’t. Smart move on the part of highway planners, if you ask me. But then I drove through a traffic circle and immediately was confronted by someone who wrongly drove in front of me to take the right of way. I got to thinking how illogical it was to do such good planning for traffic safety by creating left turn arrows, and how bad the planning was for traffic safety by creating the chaos of traffic circles.
The world is illogical. Think about the things in your life you thought would never happen or you would never do. It’s the same way when it comes to writing. If you find yourself asking yourself, would someone really do this in a story, the answer is often yes even when you tell yourself, Hell no! People are messy and inconsistent. Just because it doesn’t seem plausible doesn’t make it unusable in a story. You may have to think carefully about how to use the idea, and you may have to spend some time setting it up, but don’t discard it completely without thought. If your story is about robots, yes, then they will always have left turn arrows. We’re humans…and we all live in the traffic circle, too! Happy Writing!
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Greg
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