What *not* to do when reality interferes with your story.

So. Let’s say that you sat down to write a story on the topic of… oh, say, how infuriated gay people are that Chick-fil-A is opening its first site in Manhattan*.  You write about forty percent of it, and then you think OK. Time to get all the outrageous outrage.  Only… it turns out that the the LGBTAlphabetSoup community is reacting sanely to the marvelous, wonderful news that Chick-fil-A is gonna be in Manhattan: which is to say, they’ve thanked God and marked the day down in their calendars.  

Well, what does one do in these circumstances?  There are two options. Option One: you throw away the unfinished story. You made a bad call in how people were going to react to this triggering event. It happens. No biggie. Option Two: you torture the existing story until it sorta-kinda fits the existing narrative that you wanted to push.  Because God forbid that you admit that you’re holding a fringe opinion on something.

The Daily Beast went with Option Two.

Don’t be The Daily Beast.

Moe Lane

*Not that I’d go to Manhattan on a bet these days. I find The Taking of Pelham One Two Three to be a quaint historical artifact of a rather grungy time period. I have no desire to experience it in real-time.