More On Why I Write

"The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense."

~~Tom Clancy

I can't make sense of this. I can't make sense of this. Or this.

In fact, as a thinking person, there's a great deal of the world that makes no sense to me. When there is such abundance . . . why are people hungry? Why do people turn a blind eye to genocide, to poverty, to the unscrupulous nature of arms dealing, to . . . the list is neverending.

And so I like Clancy's quote. In a world that is, to my way of thinking, usually without sense, without reason, the world of fiction struggles to make sense of it.

We usually like our fiction to end with the good guys winning. With the world being saved. With the bad guys being robbed, a la Robin Hood. We like the mob to be brought down by the forces of its own greed and corruption. We want the real guilty guy tried and convicted and the innocent man on Death Row to be freed. We know that most of the time, things don't work out in reality. We know justice isn't blind. We know that people of peace--in Tibet or elsewhere--are often trampled by the people with the biggest tanks. We know landmines remain that take the limbs of innocents.

So fiction is a place to explore that and change the rules so it works out the way we want. At least for me.

I think that's sometimes why I write.

Thoughts?