Tag: Hollywood

Edging Closer To Wrapping Up Development On The First Draft Outline



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I talked to a FBI PR person today and it was a lot — a LOT — of help. He really opened my eyes to some things I was totally missing when it came to the actual meat-and-bones of why you would read a story like this: the actual investigation.

He didn’t like it much when I mentioned The Company, even in fiction. That was a tense, awkward moment in an otherwise very pleasant and informative hour-long conversation. Talk about power. The Company is a very, very powerful organization within the Federal government.

Anyway, even The Company would likely get a kick out of how I’m portraying they and the NSA in this story. I’ve come up with something that resembles a Donald Trump waking nightmare after he’s had one too many Diet Cokes before bedtime after having watched the latest James Bond movie. This whole thing is meant to be rather pulpy and with a dab of magical realism to it than anything else. Or, put another way, you might see it as a Coen Brothers interpretation of Stieg Larsson, if you will.

So the next few days I’m going to plunge into the outline I’m working on. Hopefully, I will finally wrap it up by just after the July 4th weekend. I really need to root around the story on a structural level to make it clearer some of the aspects of the investigation and where things stand when the FBI character appears at the midpoint of the plot.

Wish me luck, I guess.

Things Are Going Well For (At The Moment) With The Novel



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, things are moving fast with the novel right now. I hope to wrap up the outline no later than around the July 4th weekend. After that, I will start writing against in earnest.

I’m doing a huge amount of reading as well.

I probably have about 30 books to read and it’s unlikely I’ll read all of them, even if I read really fast. But I’m glad that I am, at last, doing what you’re supposed to do — if you’re writing, you’re reading.

There’s so much I don’t know about the process of actually getting a novel published. Maybe someone is going to “steal” my concept, or steal a march on me. That’s all very possible. But I know enough about how to tell a story now that after I stop sulking, should that happen, that I can use what I’ve learned to dive back into a new story pretty quick.

But I love, love, love this novel’s concept. I love the characters and I love the “big ideas” that it’s going to address.

I am still very nervous that someone is reading this blog with the hopes of “cherry-picking” what they can from it for their own, similar project. But, for me at least, what I’m doing on this blog is part of the developmental process of the project. You’re not supposed to be totally miserable when you create art, at least, not if you can help it.

Of My Novel’s ‘Tone,’ ‘James Bond’ and ‘Mission: Impossible — FallOut’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am not, by nature, a very dark and serious person. In fact, the fact that I’m writing a thriller meant to be an American answer to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is something of a fluke. It’s just that about two years ago, I came up with a really cool plot rather out of the blue and decided I loved it so much I was willing to put the energy into it to see it to completion.

So, here I am, getting ever-closer to wrapping up development and plunging back into actually writing the novel.

I find myself drawn a lot more to James Bond and Mission: Impossible than Stieg Larsson. I guess I’d rather write really accessible spythriller stuff than dark and scary police procedural. And, yet, I have a vision and I’m sticking to it. I’m going to write something of a police procedural, even though that’s not really what I’m all that good at for no other reason than at the moment I know nothing about it.

I say all of this because I’m listening to the soundtrack to Mission:Impossible — Fallout. I like how bombastic and accessible the music is. The thing about the novel I’m working on is I want everyone to have a good time. Maybe not MAGA, of course, because they’re American Nazis and can eat shit.

But otherwise, I want everyone to have a good time.

Anyway, the point is, I want this novel to be a lot of fun. It, hopefully, will present some “big ideas” in a manner that is so breezy that you won’t feel you’re being preached to. That, at least, is the goal.

A Quirk About The Nature of The Female Romantic Lead of The Novel I’m Developing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a lingering celebrity crush on Alexa Chung, so I’ve constructed the female romantic lead of the novel I’m developing who is something of a homage to her. But there’s a problem.

My female romantic lead has an Asian name, but doesn’t LOOK all that Asian, just like Alexa Chung. So, I could see hilarity ensuing as casting directors struggle to find someone who can “pass” for white but is actually Asian. Or, they could cast someone like Jennifer Lawrence or Phoebe Waller-Bridge who would fit the novel’s description of the character, but not be Asian.

It was just my imagination….

At this point, I have to note that the idea that I even sell this novel to a publisher is rather fantastical, so I’m doing little more than mentally masturbating to even broach these things. But I have to psyche myself up to finish the marathon of developing and writing a novel somehow, so this is one of the ways I do it.

Me talking about if Jennifer Lawrence or Phoebe Waller-Bridge was going to play the female romantic lead of a movie adaptation of the novel I’m working on right now is like wondering if I could score a supermodel after having won the lottery.

Anyway, it’s this type of quirk that makes the whole only-a-certain-type-of-person-can-play-a-role seem a bit ludicrous, even though it is, at least in my eyes, totally legitimate.

I am growing closer to getting back to actually writing on this novel, which is pretty cool. But I still have a huge amount of work to do.

‘The End Of October’ — Some Observations At The Roughly 100 Page Mark



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really, really like the novel The End of October so far. It’s very much a “dude” novel. It’s got stuff dudes like me like. It’s a little bit scifi and also very timely. I will notice, however, that it doesn’t follow some of the storytelling conventions I keep getting beaten into my mind with all these “how to write a novel” books I’m reading.

But, whatever, it’s a good story nonetheless.

It’s very timely, that’s for sure. Eerily so.

It’s about a pandemic. My novel is going to have elements of “panfic” to it, but more so in the second book in the two book story than the first, which is what I’m working on at the moment.

The End of October is a nice breezy read, much like how I hope my novel to come across. I’m reading it pretty fast, without even realizing it. That’s what I want my novel to be like. I want you to read my novel so fast you look up three days after you read it and realize you’ve barely slept.

That’s the dream, at least.

The thing about The End Of October is it’s focused on one thing and the novel I’m writing right now has a lot of different ideas jumbled together. I think the only way to flatten everything down is to be really character based. If it’s the characters who introduce various Big Ideas, then I don’t think the novel will lose focus.

But I think I have to give myself the right to fail when it comes to the first draft of the novel. There are just so many different parts to a novel that you can’t expect to have everything be perfect at your first attempt.

I really like The End of October so far, however.

An Update On The #Novel I’m Developing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The last few weeks I’ve felt a little tired. I’ve been working on this novel for so long, it’s warped the way I look at the world on an existential level. But I think I may have come up with a solution to this feeling — literally look at working on this novel as a job in the sense that I give myself a “weekend.”

The “weekend” that I give myself isn’t Saturday – Sunday, but more like late Wednesday through Saturday. But when I do work on the novel, I sprint. I’m like the least Type A person ever, so any work I do on anything is done in an erratic and eccentric manner — but it is often done in a very intense fashion when it’s done.

The next big step I have to get into is the outline of the second half of the novel. A lot of things happen during that portion of the novel, a lot of them I currently have no idea how to articulate. But I can, like, read. I can figure it out. It just may take me going outside my comfort zone to do it.

But I will, in fact, do it.

Developing and writing a novel is a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.

I have no idea how anyone does it without a huge amount of methodical developing and plotting. Things have started to move faster with this novel because I understand development and plotting a lot better — and I’m reading a massive amount as quickly as possible.

And this is just the first book in a two book story!

Idle Musing About Dave Chappelle & The Novel I’m Developing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I daydream a lot. I say this especially now as I develop a novel. And, truth be told, the more serious I get with this novel, the less I care about what happens to it once I should happen to sell it.

I just want to go through the traditional route of trying to sell a novel. If that doesn’t work, then, and only then, will I self-publish. Anyway, I do, however, on occasion, daydream about who would play certain characters in this story I’m developing.

I always had a vague notion that maybe I could come up with a Dave Chappelle-type character for the novel and it appears as though I have. The character comes in during the second act and is something of a mentor to the Hero. There’s a twist to the character at the end of the novel which makes it all the more interesting.

I really want to have a lot of representation in this novel on an organic, not self-conscious level like, say, Glee. This is meant to be a very American story — an answer to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series and, as such, it has to have a wide-spectrum of people in it to achieve that goal.

Anyway, I have several stars in my mind for different characters. I only do that simply to have a reference point, not because I think the novel will ever be optioned. But it is fun to think about during the long trudge through development and writing.

I Have No Idea What I’m Doing With This Novel



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really have no idea what I’m doing with this novel. But the outline I’m working on keeps drifting towards something I hope to be very pleased with, so I keep going. I’ve finally reached the point where I fully understand that writing a novel is a marathon, so just because a solution to an immediate problem won’t come to me right away, doesn’t mean it won’t soon enough.

Right now, I’m doing a lot of reading. They say if you have enough time to write, you have enough time to read. So I’m grazing a lot when it comes to reading. I have a number of books — a small library, in fact — of books I hope to read over the coming days to improve not just the general conceit of the novel, but the characters who in habit it, as well.

But, like I said, I have no idea what I’m doing. Yet I do hope to start writing again soon enough. Absolutely no later than July 1st. I am going to have to do a huge amount of reading to get to the point where even the outline is as good as I need it to be before I go to the next step of fleshing out individual lines in the outline.

I look over what I have done of the outline and I’m very pleased. I’ve made considerable progress on the outline in large part because I am no longer attempting to draft off of Stieg Larsson. I’m telling my story, not his (which I was doing on a structural level.) But I continue to use his book The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook” as to how to write a novel.

But I definitely need to read more novels, just in general. And watch more movies. A whole lot more movies. I saw Chinatown for the first time recently and the ending left me shook. Anyway, I really need to be willing to go outside my creative comfort zone more.

My Novel’s Female Romantic Lead As Twitter Liberal



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Every story needs an outsider to serve as the proxy for the audience. They ask questions that you need to answer for them. For my story, I’m using someone inspired — sorta — by someone like Jodi Kantor. I’m not a good enough writer to properly represent this type person, but in general the novel’s female romantic lead is meant to be, essentially, a Verified Twitter Liberal.

There are some problems with doing this. One is, I fear Twitter Liberals will like this character more than the actual Hero if I’m not careful. I know the mentality of Twitter Liberals well enough to fake it in a character, but I’m nervous that if i do too good a job, they’re going to be more interested in my female romantic lead than, well, my Hero.

But the point of using a Twitter Liberal as my female romantic lead is to prove a point — in the end, we’re all human. That, and the fact that having a character inspired by Jodi Kantor fall for a character inspired by bonkers me is very, very funny to me. It’s both a challenge and entertaining to me as I develop to see if I can pull this otherwise surreal relationship off.

But, again, it’s going to be a huge challenge. Everyone thinks I suck. Everyone wants me to fail. Everyone is looking for some reason to make this all moot. But I believe in myself, nonetheless. I think Ms. Kantor has looked at this Website and found me, shall we say, lacking. I can’t help what a kook I am (using her metrics). I am who I am. I try my best to be the best person I can possibly be.

Anyway, things continue to move quicker with development.

I’m quite pleased.

Building A Mystery



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After what feels like a very long time — but really is about 18 months — I’ve finally come to the make-or-break portion of development: the mystery. I know what happened at the center of this story, but now I have to figure out how someone would try to unravel it.

So I find myself cramming a number of investigative reporting. I’m reading Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s “She Said.” I’m reading Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill.” And I’m listening to the Crooked Media podcast “Wind of Change.” The latter is interesting because it involves music and the CIA. Which, given the conceit of the novel, is very useful. The more I listen to it, the more I feel I’m going to have to give it a shoutout in the Author’s Note.

But the major issue is I’ve come up with a very complex situation that I have to unravel slowly through investigation. I have to think of different ways to do all of this believably. But it’s also all very much outside my comfort zone. Even when I was a reporter, I wasn’t a very good one. So, I have to really learn a lot of things about investigative reporting that I know nothing about.

And, yet, that’s kind of the crux of the story. The part I don’t know anything about.

I have a huge amount of reading to do about character, investigation and leadership — just to name a few things. That is going to slow me down some, but hopefully not too much. I’m still on track to start writing again no later than June 1st.