Media Reality and Writing

On a recent blog, the writer complained that the heroine in a novel didn't react as she thought she should. The heroine had a chance to shoot one of the villains but took cover when an unknown shooter shot the gun out of the bad guy's hand. Instead, she took cover.

Obviously, according to this blogger, whoever had shot the gun out of the bad guy's hand was on the heroine's side, and she finally had a chance at getting the bad guy.

I argued that in the real world, unlike the movies and TV, a trained marksman would never shoot the gun out of the hand because it is a near impossible shot. As my dad who was an expert marksman with a military background told me, "The Lone Ranger can shoot the gun out of a bad guy's hand. The rest of us mere mortals should aim for the center of the man's body."

In the real world with bullets flying, a smart person with even a little training would get the heck out of the way because it's likely that bullet that took out the bad guy's gun was a miss, not deliberate, and she would be betting her life by not getting out of the way of someone who may be after her.

In the real world, most people are bad shots with no training. Even in the Old West, very few people died in a gunfight and then only after an incredible amount of ammo was used.

I've always believed it's wiser to go with fact, not media nonsense, because I'd rather not have readers snort and toss the book down because they caught me in a stupid error. There's nothing I can do about people who don't know any better so I don't worry about them.