I had an idea for a book, a story, I'm sure everybody does, but we don't all actually write it do we? Well I was just trying to tell him, my drunken brother, my idea, you know, the general plot.
“This guy goes to America,” I started.
“Why?” he interrupted me.
“His wife left him.”
“Why?”
“She had a termination, didn't tell him, felt guilty.”
“Why?”
“She didn't think she could cope.”
“So how did he end up in America.”
“The marriage couldn't take the strain, he needed to get away.”
“Oh, right”
“Anyway, so while he's in America visiting his cousin, he gets shot and dies.”
“Why?” he took another swig of his drink.
“His cousin's a drug dealer, it's mistaken identity thing!”
“I see,” he said.
“So he takes the dead cousin's passport, assumes his identity and comes to England.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Because, he got revenge for his cousin's death by killing the dealers that shot him.”
“But why would he come to England.”
“He's murdered three people, maybe the police are after him?”
“Okay,” he muttered.
“Where was I? Oh yes, right, he meets up with his other cousin, the dead guy's brother. The brother loses his job as a barrister.”
“Why did that happen?”
“Because, they think he's on drugs but he's not. His girlfriend gives him alcohol while he's on medication.”
“She's not a very nice girlfriend then is she?”
“It was an accident! She didn't realise!” I was losing my patience.
It took me two hours to explain the simple outline of the plot. However, in the cold light of day I realised I had learned my first lesson. His persistent childish questioning combined with my stubbornness created the basis for a solid plot. I refused to answer any of his questions with 'I don't know.' If I didn't know, I made something up. I also learned not to put random elements into my work, somebody would always ask, why? So that was how it was going to work. Just to tell my simple story, I was going have to do an awful lot of explaining.
When I'd finally finished it and typed THE END. It was then that it dawned on me, my character didn't actually go to the USA until page 51. I thought that I had told a story from beginning to the end. I hadn't, all I had done was written 483 pages explaining why the events or event on page 484 occurred.
God dam the educated, for they are inherently stupid and left unchecked they would afflict others with their stupidity. They are the drones of society, idly spreading gossip and rumour. If I more educated than you, and held as educated in your mind. Do you not take my words as gospel and spread them as the only truth. Did someone not say the earth was flat, and were the others not educated to this fact? Surely an intelligent man would see the sky meet the earth before his eyesight did stop and say of his doubt.
Today the author, trained and educated in his trade, does not pause for thought. An intelligent man may ask. Why are book sales falling? Why are libraries closing? Why can't I get a publishing deal? Blindly, the educated man seeks more education from the educated. He tries harder to write to the level of his peers.
You learned to write along time ago though times have changed since then. You are no longer the market leaders in mental stimulation to the masses. In the house, you've competition from the TV and the Playstation. Outside, you're being assaulted by the walkman and the mobile phone. It seems you lack the intelligence or innovation to format a strategy for survival.
Refusing to accept 80% of the urban public, don't want to read the wares you pedal, your answer seems to be obsess over the arc of the second act. I'm inspired by the disparagement of me by the educated, and what's more you've left 80% of the market all to me. All those people capable of reading, but don't. My trump card – I'm one of them.
Not being a reader, I can only write what I know, TV. From the multi-protagonist serials, to the single camera sitcoms. I'm fully trained in them all, years of studying their construction. The question is, untainted by literature am I able to write TV. Not a screenplay, they are for actors. In literary style, I'm already part way there. In choreography, I already write of who walked where and personal imagery a little too much. In referencing I already favour the screen. “White like Casper,” is preferred to “A pale English rose.”
So while you 'authors' are claiming television (the screen) is for thick people. Here's expos latest top money earning writers. What do they all have in common?
1 JK.Rowling ?160 million [$283 million]
2 James Patterson ?26.7 million [$47 million]
3 Stephen King ?24 million [$42 million]
4 Tom Clancy ?18.7 million [$33 million]
5 Danielle Steel ?16 million [$28 million]
6= John Grisham ?13 million [$23 million]
6= Dean Koontz ?13 million [$23 million]
8 Ken Follett ?10.6 million [$18.7 million]
9 Janet Evanovich ?9 million [$16 million]
10 Nicholas Sparks ?8.5 million [$15 million]
They've all been to Hollywood, except Janet Evanovich but I have it on good authority she's on her way there now.
So there you have it, maybe I'm just trying to cut out the middleman on the road to success.
My last thought to the self-publishers. Public transport is your friend. Sod the editor. If the man on the tube or the woman on the bus likes you. - You have hope.
Now, I've educated you all.
I've got a full length mirror in my room. - It's important for you to know that. See, here's the thing! 16/10/2008 at 23.06 GMT. I have bowed down to my reflection and exclaimed.
“I am not worthy!”
It's goes a little something like this. A while ago I wrote in my blog. “Why can't novels have 'Editor's Editions' like movies have 'Director's Cuts'? You know, deleted scenes alternative endings – That sort of stuff. I did write it in 85% jest.
So I'm editing my soon to be published Absolution. I swear, I'd had no alcohol, no drugs nuffin'. But I did it.
Pulp fiction is a toy! Tarrantino is a toddler, trust me.
I'm weird, we all know that. So logic dictates I'm gonna write a weird book. All kinda twisted.
Absolution's opening scene is two people in a little room trying to contact anybody in the outside world on their mobile phones. One comments. “It's like everybody's just vanished.”
Scene two is the destruction of New York by nuclear attack.
Scene three is Helen turning off the television showing the movie containing the destruction of New York – fooled ya!
There then follows a 135,000 word story about gangsters and drugs and stuff. The only part that you need to know is that Helen's husband dies and she goes away to sort her head out.
The last scene is of Morgan and Brooke in her student room, trying to contact their friends to tell them that Brooke is okay. They can't get through to each other because all seven are trying to call each other at the same time.
You may recognise this as scene I (clever eh!) - The story ends there.
Now for the Director's cut!
In every scene containing a TV or small talk is the escalating friction between the US and China over the invasion of North Korea in the background.
In the second last scene Alex is about to assassinate somebody with a high powered rifle. In the 'Directors Cut', he's momentarily disturbed by the testing of London's flood defence sirens
Rather than end on the first scene, we roll on to the second scene (destruction of New York) and then add a final scene of Helen on beach in Florida.
If you really don't get it – Helen's not watching TV, she's not there to turn it off. So maybe this time it's real.
Come here, listen, this is just between you and me. We want to be authors, right? So, I've been thinking. You gotta have your own thing. I ain't never heard nobody saying how Mark Twain had great grammar. And like me or you are ever gonna out do Shakespeare on deception, I don't think so. So we got to have our own special thing. The thing that we do that's different to the others. The thing that's gonna make them talk about us, write about us even. If they write about us we'll be famous, people will buy our books, all we'll make cash.
If we wanna be big, we gotta write next season's 'black', you get me. Forget all that stuff you've learned about what Dan Brown did. That was then and this is now. You gots to do your own thing. Now, come closer. We gotta invent or pre-empt the 'New Black'. We don't know what the New Black is, so we gotta gamble. I got a hunch, swear you'll never repeat this. Backstory! Backstory is my tip for the New Black. Don't laugh, I'm serious.
People got the internet now, they got TV. We can't just tell them something and they believe it. You gotta explain stuff. Nothing can be taken as read. Back in the day, Germans, Russians were bad guys, nuff said. Your hero could shoot them for fun. The local priest used to be a good guy, now you wouldn't let your kids stay late for choir practice would you? Stockbrokers were upstanding members of the community, now you wouldn't lend one a tenner. The only things that haven't changed; All Colombians are cocaine dealers and for Marijuana you don't need to explain yourself if the character is Jamaican. Do you know how much the West spends on therapy? Exactly, things happen and they want to know why!
Have you ever tried to tell a kid a story? You can't do it anymore, they keep interrupting you with, 'Why'. And if you slip one tiny little of bit fiction into your fiction. They ask Google, and when they discover there was no Princess Henrietta of Angletaria. You're a lying bad parent and now you've got Social Services on your case.
Trust me, it's all about backstory and make sure it's bombproof. Don't tell anybody about our little chat. This is just between me and you.
Oh, and totally unrelated. I did some mini - microwave pop / flashfiction stuff.
A lesson for the old school.
Recently a more established writer reviewed of some my work. I was quite chuffed. In summary, he said he found it most enjoyable. But here's the interesting part.
“Karen was as Kate the shrew, needing to be tamed.” - He commented 'needing to be tamed' was not required.
As 'writers', everybody is educated a certain way, therefore we all know of Kate and what a masterful piece of imagery I've penned. - This is the core problem with the literary world. Writers are writing for other writers. Hence you're writing to a small section of a decreasing market. Author's are the engineers of their own discontent.
Another excerpt.
“How about me and you...” he tried to touch her face.
“Step back!” she scowled, pulling away before looking him up and down. “You don't know me like that.”
To you, the 'author'. Clumsy dialogue perhaps. But to a whole market / generation that's some wicked imagery, innit! They've no clue who Kate was and Shakespeare's boring, but she (the character) has just quoted 'Ludacris' – They know exactly what type girl she (the character) is. To them I have pulled off a master-stroke in dialogue.
The problem comes here, should the first draft contain footnotes for the editor?
From school, I vaguely remember a person claiming to be a careers officer. I cannot remember what the dickens his name was. What I do not remember is any child aspiring to be an Editor when he or she growd up.
Best say then, in my most polite terms, the position of literary editor may be a fall-back position. In terms less polite, most editors are educated but failed authors. I have heard aspiring novelists refer to their work as their baby. Would you put your work in the hands of one whose own offspring were so sickly they did not reach maturity?
Perhaps it is madness to allow one to apply his own failed methods to your art. The question must be raised. Within the mind of the editor, does any bitterness of his failure remain?
Would the editor see a beauty in your art greater than he could achieve himself? Is it possible through editing he may try to plant his own seed within? Should you beware of the hand that rocks the cradle. If you did search his domain, I suspect you may find hidden inside a vault of steel the bodies of many infants. After all is said and done, is not an editor to literature as a butcher is to meat?
I'm not really going on strike. I'm just going to cheat. I've declared this week as epiphany and 'Ism week'. So I'll just add little bits as I think of them rather than write a whole new blog.
"I've realised modern writers are all crap! Therefore I'm now qualified, I am no longer a novice."
"The educated are stupid, they believe the things us wise people them to."
So there we were, smoking and being happy, and the green people said to the government.
“These people are unhealthy, in years to come they will clog up the NHS.”“Discourage them, tax the tobacco the heathen peasants smoke!” cried the Prime Minister.” And it was done. The Chancellor lined his pockets and with the Prime Minister they danced and drank wine.
So we moaned as we sat and drank our beer, vodka, and white wine spritzers. And the green folk hailed the government saying. “These people and their liquor, they will cripple the NHS.”
“Discourage them, tax the alcohol the heathen peasants drink!” bawled the Prime Minister.” And it was done. The Chancellor filled his boots and opened a Post Office account and with the Prime Minister they danced, drank bottled water and called up some premium rate chatlines.
So we drove our cars to work, moaning in the traffic. The green lot emailed the government saying. “Those people are polluting, killing our children and ruining the planet.”
“Tax tax and tax again! We shall not have this behaviour!” chanted the Prime Minister. And it was done. The Chancellor opened a safe deposit box in the Northern Rock building society in which to store the riches. With the Prime Minister they danced, drank alcohol free lager and paid ladies of the night to entertain them.
And then came the credit crunch and we could smoke and drink no more. (We became healthy and bought bicycles) – We moaned at the Prime Minister, we were poor and would lose our homes. “Give the peasants money!” he ordered.
“I can't.” shrugged the Chancellor. “All the money's gone.” So the the Prime pointed to the Green People and screamed “Blame those bastards, it was all their idea!”
Maybe because my main source of input is from the TV - I do things differently. I'm now making extreme characters. They can pop into any novel at anytime. Maybe the annoying guy on the train or in a bar. Or like Harry, he's an East London cab driver. Colin is a new character, he can make a conspiricy out of anything! But as with Harry, it's not bullshit. The facts are accurate, they're just linked in a unique way.
Colin explains the sabotage of the Britsh Motorcycle Industry..................
I awoke this morning with a tune playing in head. It took me some time for me to place, it was an apparently insignificant tune from an old television advert. Nevertheless it provided me with the necessary clues to recognise another conspiracy, the size of which astounds me. The sabotage of the British Motorcycle Industry.
Once upon a time as little boys we all wanted motorbikes. As we grew older into teenage youths we aspired to possess a large beast of a motorcycle. It was obvious motorbikes were sexy, girls loved them and therefore they would love us. Loving us, involved giving us what we were after. I never knew what that was, but whenever I walked my girlfriend home. Gangs of younger children would chant 'We know what you're after.' In retrospect perhaps I should asked them what that was.
The desired bike had to be big sexy and British. This could only mean one thing. The last surviving truly British beast was a Triumph. A Triumph Bonneville was the ultimate two-wheeled passion wagon. I'll give the German's their due, VW, Mercedes BMWs, handsome automobiles but when it came to bikes they couldn't touch us. Us lads worked hard paying our parents board, and saving the pennies left over towards our dream.
Meanwhile, in Heubach, Germany the German's were plotting against us. They were developing their own 'bouncing bomb', it was to prove twice as powerful as ours.
At 7.14pm BST, (the first commercial break during Coronation St.) On the 1st February 1977, two weeks before Valentine's Day. The German's dropped the bomb. I can vividly remember the panic and confusion it caused. Ruthlessly targeted, the bomb had a devastating effect. It would shape the future. Disoriented by images of cleavage, breasts and bare thighs we didn't know what had hit us. And then the killer blow, the propaganda, we were defenceless. 'Triumph has a bra for the way you are.' It was cunningly embedded into our brains with that catchy tune. Every time we looked at the balance in our Post-Office savings books, the tune would play in our heads. 'Triumph has a bra for the way you are.' We were convinced, buying women lingerie was a quicker way of getting whatever it was that we were after. Later that same year, NVT the owners of Triumph motorcycles went bust and we've been buying lingerie for our ladies ever since.
I swear, I'm telling the truth.
Yes we've established I'm different to most of you and define 'good writing' in different ways.
A member of a site commented on my work saying P5 'A woman wouldn't do that'... BINGO! That's what I'm after! I want to be able to write from any POV with any amount of bias. We are told to engage the reader and allow them to empathise with a character. In a rapidly contracting world empathy takes on new meaning. Look at other 'Art' industries to see the effects.
The Spice Girls couldn't actually sing, however care was taken to ensure the line up included at least one band member every young girl could identify with. - Massive success.
From the Telly:- Heroes, massive $$$ global success. In the cast you've got more races than the opening ceremony of the Olympic games. If we want to use these characters, we need to get them right.
You can always stick to what you know and remain within your comfort zone but here's the problem. While we've been frantically bashing away at our keyboards a whole generation has passed believing books are boring! You all want a book deal in an ever decreasing market. Maybe we (authors) must force the editors and publishers to expand the market.
Whenever I bring this up (colour), people get upset – I used to read as a teenager, in retrospect I may have stopped because in all the books I read. I wasn't in any of them.
I've also realised the cocooned authors who don't get out much, limit the dynamics of their own writing. Maybe there's a whole new style of dynamic writing which gives the more worldly TV addicts an advantage.
“Why you got to be coming all up inside here, bringing up old shit. Y'all have keep doing that. Every time up in here with old shit.” - New York African American.
“Is difficult to know, is best I call five-o? Jesus, we don't see im for 2 days. I think maybe is a problem.” New York – Hispanic.
“Excuse me young lady, I think I know you, or your mother or your sister, how are you? Have you seen my briefcase. It was here only a moment ago.” - Nigerian.
Having been fed samples of these characters by other media. Can a TV reader hear these characters better when reading than the classic bookworm?
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