10 reasons fiction is better than reality

Ten Things I Dig in Fiction That Make No Sense in Reality (Or Why Fiction Is Better Than Reality)

1. Good guys always get shot in the arm or leg, and it's never fatal. In real life, a leg shot can absolutely be fatal. Shoulders, too. I highly suspect that if I were shot in any part of my body, I would not continue to chase the bad guy to the final showdown scene. I would call 911 and leave the thrilling heroics to someone else.

2. Bad guys just as often are terrible marksmen. Okay, I think the fantasy demands that assholes cannot be competent. It offends our sense of justice. But also, stormtroopers.

3. Psychopaths are geniuses. A prosecutor came and talked to my local writing group once, and one myth he was quick to dispel is that criminals are smart. He said, basically, you wouldn't believe how stupid most of them are. The geniuses are the exception, not the rule.

4. If you're captured and imprisoned or stranded on a desert island, your makeup will stay perfect as long as necessary without having to reapply anything ever. It's like cosmic justice for kidnapped (fictional) folks. Exhibit A: Princess Leia's lip gloss. Exhibit B: Every female character (and male beard, for that matter) on the TV show Lost.

5. In olden times, nobody ever had to shave, they were just naturally depilated. Because we don't want to imagine hirsute heroines. Adjacent truth: heroes never have back hair. They just don't.

6. If one has curves, they are always in the right places and never in the exact wrong places. My arm jiggles especially appreciate this one.

7. When dismantling a bomb, no one is ever color-blind and neither must they whip out reading glasses to even see those tiny wires. Their vision is 20/20 and color-perfect. Meanwhile, I carry three pairs of glasses so I can read restaurant menus. Conclusion: Do not put me in charge of defusing the bomb.

8. "No one is ever really gone." I like how some movies even have that as an actual line. I guess it's the Terminator fantasy in all of us. Or the one that's still salty about Han Solo.


9. When protagonist gets into a terrible situation, some barely remembered childhood skill will enable them to escape, defeat the baddies, and win. Like Rose Tyler's gymnastics in Doctor Who, right. Am waiting for my super spelling abilities to shine.

10. It's amazingly easy to run in high heels. Lie. It isn't. But that scene in Jurassic World was still
pretty badass.

Bonus: When a fictional contagion spreads over the globe, some scrappy, good-looking scientists come up with a vaccine in like three days. If you find said scrappy scientists in real life, please nudge them toward some heroics. In the mean time, I'll just sit here in my comfortably fictional world a little longer, 'kay?