Election procedures as source of fiction

mhfm1's Channel - YouTube  

I've said any number of times here that the essence of fiction is conflict.

I found this video by accident

http://www.youtube.com/user/mhfm1?v=OynCgwmD-HM

It's about the possibility of election rigging using computer programs that count the ballots and make the tallies to just pick the final result and report that result regardless of the actual votes cast.

I posted a long critique of why this video makes an argument that's just plain full of huge logical holes. 

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.tumblr.com/post/19631507748/via-mhfm1s-channel-youtube-i-cant-believe-a

You can't prove that something has been done by showing that it can be done. 

HOWEVER, that makes this video a marvelous source of FICTIONAL CONFLICT -- plot ideas just abound in almost every line of narrative, and every video clip included. 

To see them, though, you must leap out of your everyday real-world mindset and look at this as if you had no clue what a human being is, and have never heard of "Earth" and wouldn't want to ever, anyway.

Become alien enough and you'll jump up and down with discovery of new and fascinating plot ideas.

While you're doing this mental exercise, read this Huffington Post article -- they are running an experiment in their Books section where they are presenting arguments and seeing if the arguments change people's minds.  The arguments did not change my mind - on the subject of Chick Lit and genre.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/19/chick-lit-literary-category-debate_n_1365545.html 

In the course of my response to the arguments I pointed them to this link:

http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/mashup-of-art-and-business-part-2-a-guest-post-by-jaqueline-lichtenberg/

If you've been reading Editing Circle carefully, you already read both parts of that guest blog I did on genre and pitching.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg