I haven't been reading much except blogs and online articles lately, but I found some quotable lines in this article from Salon.com:
The evolutionary argument for Dr. Seuss: Why do we often care more about imaginary characters than real people? A new book suggests that fiction is crucial to our survival as a species
by Laura Miller
Her opening sentences really hooked me:
Why do human beings spend so much time telling each other invented stories, untruths that everybody involved knows to be untrue? People in all societies do this, and do it a lot, from grandmothers spinning fairy tales at the hearthside to TV show runners marshaling roomfuls of overpaid Harvard grads to concoct the weekly adventures of crime fighters and castaways.
Miller's article is actually a review of a new book called On The Origin of Stories by Brian Boyd, professor English at the University of Auckland. This is a subject of endless fascination to writers, especially those of us who write popular fiction which has its roots in mythology and fairy tales. Popular stories are timeless and, despite their fantastical elements, sometimes reflect reality. Miller mentions the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf', something we've all witnessed in real life, and which I believe led to the familiar dictum "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
I really enjoyed the first part of the article, but will admit to getting a little lost toward the end, maybe because I wasn't a lit major or maybe because I don't know much about "evolutionary biology". (My B. A. is in Social Science with emphaisis in History.)
I didn't write anything new this week, so I'm going to pull a few sentences from a published e-book, Ilona's Wolf, my first erotic fantasy story. Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of Velosia, magic was more precious than gold. The few who possessed it were highly prized, for not everyone could learn to wield the magic, only those who were sorcerers born.
Please forgive the blatant self-promotion, but I'm including a buy link, and there's a longer excerpt at my website.
Linda / Lyndi
Check out the wondrous Women of Mystery blog for more Two Sentence Tuesday posts.
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