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.