The hyperactive presidential campaign with its debates and exposure dominating the media provides enormous grist for the novelist’s mill. The array of characters throwing their hat into the ring to be the next president offers a cornucopia of humanity: ambitions, obsessions, biographies, anxieties, and yes, cunning, deception, hypocrisy, braggadocio and every other trait associated with the acquisition of power, prestige, celebrity and historical immortality.

Observing these people en masse with the novelist’s eye for insight and observation tempts the writer’s inner motivation, both conscious and subconscious to visualize potential protagonists for serious storytelling.

I am not confining such observations to the crowded rostrum of Republican wannabes but also the Democratic side with the primary candidate debating with her younger self and the other active candidate recreating a familiar character from the thirties. CONTINUE READING ON AMERICAN THINKER