I realized my last post about combat and writing about combat experiences wasn’t as clear as it could have been.  I didn’t mean to imply that you can’t write about combat if you haven’t experienced combat, though it probably came out that way.  I really hate the argument that you can only “write what you know” since I’m an upper middle class white girl who hasn’t been to Mars, or fought demons, etc. etc.  If had to write only about what I know those would be pretty dull stories.

What I was trying to say, and obviously failing was about was how the people I know who have actually experienced war and combat don’t resort to redemptive violence for solutions in their books.  

Bottom line, I’m really sick of redemptive violence as a plotting tool, and I have seen the tendency among arm chair warriors to rely on it.  As if violence is always the best option.  Just as new writers tend to write dark because going dark makes it easier to elicit emotional responses so I think violence is also an easy way to go in order to get a reaction from your readers.