I need to write a story.

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I need to write a story. I need to write a story where the characters don’t die, or wind up ground on the pavement in a bloody mass – literally or figuratively. I need to write a story where everything works out.

But I need to write a story that’s real.

I don’t know how to fit those last two sentences together.

My story has already seen its characters die, so many now that I’ve stopped ticking off the number of funerals I’ve attended and let the number stretch vaguely into oblivion. My sto...