When I read aspiring writers' stories, I often encounter the up-to-now plucky strong investigator who runs pell-mell into a burning building. Why? Because the author needs her to run into that building because a big fat CLUE (or victim) is waiting just inside.
Never mind that no one in their right mind runs into a burning building (certainly not a smart, plucky sleuth/protagonist). Sane people call 911. (Unless they know there's a mama dog nesting in one of the bedroom closets and giving birth to a brood of puppies (see my novel "There Was an Old Woman" in which two characters, decades apart run into two different burning buildings... and live to tell about it.))
I get a lot of wonderful ideas from the news. Stuff that would be hard to make up because people (in real life) do the most outrageous things that would never pass muster in a work of fiction.
Just this week, for instance, there's the story of the enterprising folks who staged fake bear attacks on their luxury cars (think Rolls-Royce) in order to collect over $100K in insurance payouts.
The best part of this story is the HOW.
It involved a person getting into a bear suit (yes, bear suits are available on Amazon), climbing into a fancy car, and scraping away at the interior with sharp kitchen utensils leaving scratch marks. Then filing an insurance claim.
The mind boggles at that clever ways one could work this scenario in a mystery novel. (What do they find when they pop the trunk??) (What happens if the horn gets stuck blaring while the "bear" is at work) (What happens if (real) bears emerge from the surrounding wood...)
But, as my reviewers comments taught me, Reality is no excuse. For a plot point to work in a novel, it has to be credible. The characters' actions need to be believable.
Most authors know: Just because something really happened doesn't mean readers will swallow it.
Are there moments have you encountered in REAL LIFE that, if someone put it in a book, no one would believe?
Wow . . . I can't say that I've had any real-life moments that would be unbelievable in a book, but that whole bear thing would absolutely top my list of things I'd never believe if they were written into a story . . . .
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