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Notes -
That’s not the value of lived experience in narratives. The value of having fought in a war (Hemingway for example) is that he understands the way war is in the real world and can thus create characters who feel like they’re fighting a war instead of characters that think and act like people who make movies think people in wars behave. Or if you want to write about life in a black ghetto, it’s going to feel more real if written by someone with at least some idea, even second hand, of what that life is actually like. There’s a phrase in philosophy that I think captures the idea. It is like something to be a person in any situation you come up with. It’s like something to be poor, or Palestinian, or a cop, or a soldier. And stories become much better is the author at least has some idea of what those things are actually like, rather than going off TV/movie tropes, or stereotypical ideas, or other sources with no real connection to the thing being described. It’s a fidelity issue. A copy of a copy of a copy eventually looks nothing like the original.
You all may be interested in this Critical Drinker video: Why Modern Movies Suck: They're Written by Children
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