# Writing help: Give Truman a clue

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writing-help-give-truman-a-clue/332582>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [November 24, 2005, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writing-help-give-truman-a-clue/332582 "2005-11-24T13:36:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writing-help-give-truman-a-clue/332582/21 "2005-11-25T14:25:30Z")

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Somehow edited the rest of my post away.

**Baldwin** : you don’t know the premise. There are mainly two reasons I’m being so vague, and one is the one you hinted at - I might want to publish this. The other is that spelling stuff out for others before writing screws up my creativity. I’ve ruined a couple of good story ideas that way. Don’t know why I work that way, I just do.

What’s the name of the Fred Pohl story?

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**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writing-help-give-truman-a-clue/332582/22 "2005-11-25T20:48:29Z")

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> [@mobo85](#):
>
> Here’s a clue, Truman- FDR’s gonna die, and Hitler’s gonna surrender. That leaves Japan. You’re gonna have to do something, and do it fast. How about dropping a bomb on them? That always works.  
> Oh, wait a minute- wrong Truman.

You forgot the “weather ballon” at Roswell. First thing to do: Get a crate of “canned eggs”.

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**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writing-help-give-truman-a-clue/332582/23 "2005-11-25T21:13:03Z")

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Read the book that The Truman Show was based on (they don’t say it in the credits, but I KNOW it is!), Time out of Joint by Philip K. Dick. Actually, read a lot of Dick. He practically created the human-living-in-a-fake-society-but-doesn’t-know-it plot (and its corollary, the robot-who-doesn’t-know-he-is-one plot). Good stuff.

I don’t have any suggestions, because if I did, I’d want to use them for my own stories! I use these kinds of themes in my writing a lot.

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**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writing-help-give-truman-a-clue/332582/24 "2005-11-25T22:09:55Z")

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I’ve read _Time Out Of Joint_ and a lot of Dick’s other works. I love them.

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