When Fiction Bleeds Into Reality: A Cautionary Tale
/There’s a moment every writer dreads—not writer’s block, not bad reviews—but the quiet realization that the story you’re telling no longer feels speculative.
It feels familiar.
As I prepare to release the latest James Maguire book, Exposed King, I’ve found myself increasingly unsettled by the daily news cycle. Headlines that once would have sounded exaggerated now feel routine. Language that once belonged in dystopian fiction is now spoken casually from podiums, press briefings, and social media feeds.
And that should concern all of us.
Writing a Story I Never Wanted to Be Relevant
Exposed King follows NYPD Police Commissioner James Maguire as he investigates a disturbing pattern: criminals turning up dead, seemingly targeted, seemingly judged, seemingly executed. The city is already fractured—politically, socially, morally—and instead of unifying in the face of fear, its leaders retreat into tribal lines, rhetoric, and blame.
Maguire isn’t just fighting a killer.
He’s fighting paralysis.
He’s fighting politics.
He’s fighting the slow erosion of trust between the public and the system meant to protect them.
I began outlining Exposed King in 2019—long before the social fabric felt this frayed, before institutions were openly questioned at every turn, and before division became a political currency. At the time, much of what I was writing felt speculative, even risky. I remember second-guessing certain plot points, worried that I might be “jumping the shark,” pushing the story too far beyond what readers would find believable. Now, as the book nears release, I find myself unsettled for an entirely different reason: those same elements no longer feel exaggerated. They feel plausible. Worse, they feel familiar—like stories that could comfortably lead the evening news rather than live between the covers of a novel.
That growing sense of recognition is also part of why Exposed King took longer to finish than I ever anticipated. As the world began to resemble the story I was trying to tell, I found myself slowing down—not because I had run out of ideas, but because the line between fiction and reality had blurred. The story demanded more care, more restraint, and a deeper understanding of the consequences it was pointing toward.
Exposed King was intended as a cautionary thriller—a “what if.” What if leaders spent more time posturing than protecting? What if laws were enforced selectively? What if criminals were elevated as symbols while ordinary civilians were reduced to statistics? What if accountability vanished, replaced by ideology?
I never expected to watch those questions unfold in real time.
The Dangerous Game of Anarcho-Tyranny
There’s a concept often discussed in political theory called anarcho-tyranny: the idea that institutions grow increasingly oppressive toward the law-abiding while becoming increasingly permissive toward the lawless.
You see it when:
Crime rises, but consequences vanish
Civilians are told to “understand” while victims are told to endure
Violence is condemned selectively, depending on who commits it
Entire groups of people are demonized for their beliefs, their votes, or their skin color
When leaders fan these flames—intentionally or not—they gamble with something they cannot control: human breaking points.
History shows us, again and again, that when good people feel abandoned, ignored, or sacrificed for political optics, something snaps. Not in everyone. Not at once. But enough to change the trajectory of a society.
That’s the danger zone.
When the System Loses Moral Authority
One of the central tensions in Exposed King is this:
What happens when the system loses the moral authority to govern?
Not legally.
Morally.
When people no longer believe justice is possible, they don’t stop believing in justice altogether—they start redefining it. And that’s when things turn dark.
This isn’t an endorsement of vigilantism. Quite the opposite. It’s a warning. A society that pushes its citizens into corners—where law feels optional for some and suffocating for others—creates the very monsters it later claims to fear.
And here’s the part that should keep politicians awake at night:
Once violence becomes normalized, once dehumanization becomes routine, once “enemy” replaces “neighbor,” the crosshairs don’t stay fixed on the margins forever.
They move.
A Personal Unease
As a writer, I’m supposed to imagine worst-case scenarios. I’m supposed to explore uncomfortable questions. But I never wanted to feel like I was chronicling the present.
There’s a deep discomfort in watching scenes I labored over—conflict, distrust, political theater—play out not on the page, but in real cities, with real victims, and irreversible consequences.
Stories are meant to provoke thought, not serve as blueprints.
A Caution, Not a Call
Exposed King is not a manifesto. It’s not an argument for one side or another. It’s a warning about trajectories—about what happens when leadership prioritizes ideology over stability, messaging over lives, and division over responsibility.
The path we’re on is a dangerous one.
If leaders continue to sacrifice cohesion for applause, morality for momentum, and people for power, they shouldn’t be shocked when the consequences arrive uninvited.
Because once society decides the rules no longer apply evenly… everyone becomes vulnerable.
Including those who thought they were untouchable.
