#34: Then Everyone Clapped, Part 3
Here is a useful tip for anyone who wants to try to pass off a piece of creative writing as a true story on Twitter: stop while you’re ahead. This story was believable at first. That is genuinely the sort of conversation a person who works for a rail company might have, only even makes sense that she would tweet about this conversation because she wants the people around her to understand why they’re striking and stop complaining about it.
Where this goes off the rails, if you’ll excuse the pun, is at the end. She takes it too far. Look, we all like to imagine that our life is like a movie, and when we do something really cool or make a great speech or put a bully in their place, everyone starts applauding. But that basically never happens in real life, and as soon as you add it to one of your fake Twitter stories, you lose any credibility or believability that you might have had to start with. Just tell your story and leave out the fake applause.