Tag: novel

I Think My Novel’s ‘Hero’ May Look Like Bill Hader

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I really hate it when people in the so-called “writing community” on Twitter and Instagram preen about how many words they’ve written or what their hero looks like. Fuck that. Serious novels, at least in my experience, have far more intangible metrics. A novel needs some serious development before you worry about things like that. While I have the utmost respect for “pantsers” who just dive into writing a novel, I’ve discovered that I’m the exact opposite. Because my internal editor is a vicious, brutal and sadistic taskmaster, I’ve spend a year in breach-birth development hell. But things seem to be stabilizing — maybe — so I thought I’d allow myself to indulge in a bit of preening of my own.

The thing about Hollywood actors — who I’m using for inspiration for my characters’ physical appearance — is the guys I like, like Daniel Craig — are way too old. My Hero is 40 when the story opens and as such I need someone about that age to study to use as inspiration. One issue is my Hero is Southern. So the ideal person to play him in my mind is Matthew McConaughey, but he’s 10 years too old, just like Craig. Given what I imagine my Hero looking like, I think Bill Hader is just the right age and has the right countenance to be who I think about when I am writing my Hero. Hader is also from Oklahoma, so he might have some sense of Southern life and where the character is coming from. But, again, that statement is more a testament to my personal daydreaming than anything connected to reality.

But that’s simply a general guide in my mind. I *am* writing a *novel* and *not* a screenplay. While I may write a screenplay at some point, I want to write a novel because I have absolute control and I can simply sit down and start writing without worrying about buying Final Draft. The real issue for me at this point is establishing tone. I, by nature, want to write an early John Irving novel. But I need to read Gone Girl and Girl On The Train to hone closer to the tone needed and expected in the type of novel I’m developing.

Wish me luck.

Writing About Writing: ‘Existential Angst’ #AmWriting

Shelt Garner

by Shelt Garner
@shelgarner

I am toying with the idea of having a num de plume. For me, it’s proof to myself that I’m taking the development and writing of this novel seriously. If I’m able to think up a new, better name — inspired by my legal name — then there’s not more can I can do.

I’ve been in development hell for about a year now. I am giving myself the deadline of Jan 1st, 2020. Whatever I have done in development at that point I’m going to use to either start working on a serious first draft or turn my attention elsewhere. I’ve learned a lot over the last year and could easily use the skillset I’ve developed to write a much simpler novel far quicker. And, yet, I’ve invested a year of my time into this — and I’ve actually reached the point where the framework exists on a structural level to tell my “Apocalypse Now” for the Trump Era that it really doesn’t make any sense to stop at this point.

Two things stick out. One, I simply did not think through this novel very well when I started. In fact, it was so poorly conceived a year ago that had I had anyone in my life to talk with about it, they would have either told me to not do it, or they would have had to have been very active in the development process. As it stands, I had no one to tell me “no” and so I spun my wheels for a year because I have a very brutal self-editor and I my hatred of MAGA is so intense that whenever I felt like dropping the novel I realized there was so much I could do with it that I kept going.

But I am going to make some changes in an effort to be more “serious” with this project. I have half a dozen novel writing “how to” books to read next to my computer. I need to start reading them in earnest. I also need to start thinking outside the box. I’ve already had to change some major structural aspects of the story in the last few days simply to get past the inciting incident.

One issue with this novel is it’s too grounded in reality for it’s own good. I never mention Trump in the novel, simply saying it’s “a” president, not “the” president. But, really, anyone who reads the novel will check when it’s set and know who “Individual #1” is. So, in a sense, that’s my Fleabag risk. I’m taking a pretty big risk that since I’m essentially attacking a real administration that could still be in office when I try to sell it that anyone will take it seriously. If someone had written a political thriller during the Obama Administration that made it clear he was the president in question, people would think the author was a nut.

And, yet, I think if I am careful that there might be “serious” Verified Liberals who might at least give me a page or two to make my case. I could probably strip the direct attack on Trump out of the story, and, yet, given that was the whole point of writing a novel to begin with — and, well, I’m not that smart — I guess that’s a risk I’m willing to take going forward. Though there is still a chance that if I do really well with the first and second draft that a Beta Reader my take pity on me and suggest how I could do that very thing and still stay true to my original vision.

I really love several of the characters I’ve thought up. I love them so much that I’m willing to keep going, to give them a chance to at least stand on their own in the marketplace of ideas.

The Dream Of Being Joshua To Stieg Larsson’s Moses

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am fully prepared to die of consumption — or a Stieg Larsson-style heart attack — just as the novel I’m developing is sold — if it ever is. But there’s a little part of me that thinks maybe I’ll at least get to be Tom Clancy in the end. He was a bit older when he sold his first novel and lived long enough to enjoy some of the success generated by it. But it’s Larsson to whom I feel a real kindship on a number of different levels and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to live the dream he was never able to.

I have been developing this concept for about a year now and it’s time to put up or shut up. So, I’m giving myself until Jan. 1st, 2020. I have to accept that whatever I draft I finish by my deadline of about April 2020 is NOT going to be a second draft. It’s a first draft and, as such, something I can’t really share with a lot of people.

The major problem I’ve faced for a year is I came up with the plot really fast and was so ill prepared to give it the structure necessary to support. I spent a year pretty much just running in place as I came across existential problem after existential problem. If I had a wife or a girlfriend — or, hell, just a friend — they would have either told me the whole thing was way beyond my ambition or would have at least been my “reader” to speed up the process. But as it was, I had no one to tell me “no.” I dove full steam ahead into a project that I simply was not prepared to complete with the skillset that I had at the time.

Now, a year later, I finally understand some pretty basic elements of the story. That it’s taken so long to get to this point is really, really embarrassing. Now, at least, if I do manage to finish this novel, I’m not going to embarrass myself. The only difference between this novel and Gone Girl, or maybe Sharp Objects, to be more realistic, is my native writing ability. And Gillian Flynn’s background is such that Verified Liberals on Twitter instantly give her a lot more credit than they ever will me, the middle aged white man hayseed rube crackpot failure dreamer loser in the rural part of a purple flyover state.

Anyway, I can only hold this particular pity party for so long. If nothing else, relative my native writing ability this specific debut novel might be seen as my Reservoir Dogs-Sharp Objects to my second novel’s Pulp Fiction-Gone Girl. Or, maybe, just maybe, it’ll enjoy the I’ll get to enjoy its success. Maybe I’ll, for once, get to enter the promise land of commercial and artistic success, a place that not even Larsson lived to see.

Why Phoebe Waller-Bridge Is Such A Creative Inspiration

Yasss queen.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

All my heroes are dead. Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, John Lennon, Steve Jobs and Prince. All. Dead.

But one person who is alive who I get a lot of creative courage from is Phoebe Waller-Bridge. That woman has creative ovaries of steel and so as this novel’s development begins to quicken in pace (at least for the time being) I ask myself, “What would Phoebe Waller-Bridge do? Would she go there? Yeah, of course she’d go there.”

So, whenever I come up with an issue I, myself, have about the scenario I’ve come up with, I now address it head on. I wallow in it. I say to the audience, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But we’re going to talk about it so much that any worries you had about that possibility are eliminated.”

It’s wild how two things have really, really helped speed things up: establishment of a canon and pretty much totally flipping the script on some huge influences on this novel. A lot of problems have been fixed rather abruptly, so — for the time being –development is rushing full steam towards the end of the first act. I’m just letting my mind go down the rabbit hole of the most extreme possibilities to make a point about how fucked up the Trump Era is.

This helps the plot because it adds both drama and obstacles to the Hero and Heroine’s goals heading into towards the second act. A lot of avenues I had not really thought about have opened up and they’re organic to the concept and universe, so it’s really just a matter of free styling as I think up what would happen as part of the most obvious sequence of events.

The plot, characters and universe are getting far, far better because of this so, at a minimum, I feel cautiously optimistic that I won’t — at the very least– embarrassment myself.

Let’s rock!

God, Part 3: ‘Spooky’

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I don’t really believe in a God, but this evening something really fucking spooky happened — just casually looking up something small — but important — for the novel, I found a crucial conceit-defining plot point that would make any Beatles aficionado sit up and take notice. It was an eerie “ah-ha!” moment that made me look around to see if I wasn’t in like, the fucking Matrix or something.

I think some of it has to do with once you establish the core of one of your two “main” characters, then the rest takes care of itself. Or, put another way, I’m well on my way to having a “canon,” rather than simply a series of plot points created out of thin air for expediency sake.

But let me be absolutely clear — I have been here before many, many, many times. The next milestone is what happens when I push my Hero and Heroine into the “special world” of the second act. If the whole thing doesn’t collapse at that point, then, well, we’re rockin.

In a sense, this novel is what would happen if you poured Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity” into a Stieg Larsson novel that was having a Vulcan mind-meld with Network, Columbiana, Gone Girl, All The President’s Men, Fargo and maybe a little bit of Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood. But that’s simply some of the influences I see on my side as I develop the novel. Should anyone actually ever read this thing, that might not be as clear.

And, remember, I’m a pretty good storyteller, while generally my writing is generally derided as piss-poor for various reasons. I would temper your expectations until you actually held some semblance of the finished product in your hands and could make your own judgement.

The whole thing could collapse pretty easily. But, for the moment, I’m cautiously optimistic.

Flip The Script!

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

This weekend was a real struggle. But by Sunday evening I had managed to come out the other side and figure out some semblance of a game plan for the novel. There are still a few tactical — but existential — issues with the plot, but the characters are very strong as is the macro plot. There’s a lot of very interesting things I can hang on the plot.

One issue, of course, is I hate MAGA and the Trump Administration with a creative white hot rage and so, well, I can’t help that it’s pretty obvious who is floating around the plot like a super massive black hole — Donald John Fucking Trump. I don’t plan on ever mentioning his name, but given when the novel is very specifically set, there really isn’t anyone else “the president” could possible be. But this is meant to be a scenario, a modern political fairy tale along the lines of Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood.

But the crux of the solution I’ve come up with for the weaknesses of the plot is to simply flip the script at every opportunity. It’s working out reasonably well as of right now. It affords for the Heroine to have a huge amount of agency. She came up with a plan and she’s on the cusp of seeing it work out as the novel begins — then all hell breaks loose (as is necessary.)

A lot of my problems in development come from how much the benchmark in my mind keeps moving. That, and I keep finding massive plot holes or poorly thought out plot sequences that are so bad as to be existential and I spend a few days struggling with how to solve these issues as quickly as possible.

I have no idea if this is all just a massive waste of time or what. For once my obsessive personality is coming in handy.

Novel Status Update: The Influence of SNL & Pitchfork On My Political Guilty Pleasure For Woke Park Slope Moms

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Today’s big concept is something very obvious and simple: “plot” is a verb. This has been a major problem of mine since I starting developing, then writing, the developing again, this novel. In the past, I’ve thought up scenes that were static. They presented information, but had zero action or connection to other scenes.

Now, as I have repeatedly said in the past, I have no friends and no one likes me. I didn’t have a wife or a girlfriend to point out some massive problems with the universe I’d thought up and so I’ve repeatedly wasted months of my time by not seeing the obvious, only to abruptly have to re-calibrate the entire novel. I am functioning in a complete vacuum, with only seeing the occasional movie being any outside source to help me with this obsession.

But things are slowly beginning to bounce back. I have vowed to myself not to start writing again until I have some semblance of a complete scene summary that I can use as a guide to write the next draft of the novel. There’s a lot — a whole lot — going on with this novel right now. While it has a lot of layers (if you know me well enough and know how I think) it also has ZERO literary aspirations.

I’m graze-reading an essential book — at least for me — on scene and structure that I need to snort if this novel is to be any semblance of a success. Knowing how to develop both a scene and the plot that it would be a part of is crucial.

Having said all that, two things are really beginning to influence this novel, which I jokingly within my mind call a “political guilty pleasure for woke Park Slope moms.” This is not at all a real description, for no other reason than my background, personality and political views are maybe not Ken Bone bad, but they at least don’t easily fit the narrative that Blue Check Liberals are so fond of on Twitter. In fact, on an emotional level, this novel is essentially me running around naked to see if anyone notices what’s going on.

Two things are really at the forefront of my mind as I struggle to finish a second draft scene summary as quickly as possible so I can get back to writing — SNL and Pitchfork. SNL is important because it’s an organization that has a storied history and legacy that people love, love, love to hear about. I’ve only encountered one place in my life that was as intense about something creative that a team did together — in a sense — and so I’m leaning into that as the heart of this novel. It’s the thing that connects the whole universe together, at least from my point of view as the “prime mover.” It has to do with music, so maybe that might catch someone’s eye at some point when such attention is needed.

Meanwhile, I’m also interested in using the music Website Pitchfork as a cheat sheet for the musical aspect of this novel’s plot. I haven’t done it yet, but given what’s going on in the novel and when it’s set, it would make sense if I started to study Pitchfork to get some sense of what people who read it would think is “good” modern music. If I don’t do that, I really risk being bit too conspicuous about what I’m REALLY doing with this novel and that might be off putting. If I can hide behind updating the musical reference, that might help a lot.

Again, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m operating in a complete vacuum. This novel’s problems are MY problems. It’s just I’ve gotten better as a storyteller and so I’m growing a little bit more confident that at a minimum I won’t embarrass myself. The great irony is I do have a few very, very, very tenious connections to showbiz…but none of these people take my seriously and think of me as just a dreamer loser. So if I have any type of success with this novel, these people might have a few eyepopping surprises down the road.

I’m being really delusional on that one as of right now, though.

It could be that at the end of this process I still suck and I have to self publish. At least I will have gone through the entire process and can say I’ve written a “real” novel on my own terms.

Maybe I’ll write a screenplay next if that happens.

The Female Persuasion — SNL, Feminism & The Novel I’m Developing

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am — by nature — a generalist. I know a little bit about a wide spectrum of things. So, I am often fascinated by people who know a lot about one thing. I also find the passion that things like Saturday Night Live can generate very intriguing. There’s only been one time in my life when I felt that much passion for a group of people and that was in Seoul. With that in mind, I’m at least trying to lean into that experience as the cornerstone of the novel I’m developing.

It’s a prime example of “write what you know” in action. But there’s a fine balance between writing about a fictionalized version of a place that you love and writing a lot of verbiage that many people in your potential readership will find tedious, at best. But I think if I really go into what makes the place special and how it has come to change the lives of the people connected to it and the community around it, then I think potential readers will enjoy it once they get into it.

One thing I have to really think about it establishing that such a place actually believable exists in the first place where I am determined to put in in my universe. My hope is that if I write about the place with a lot of obvious love that that will come across on the page and people will get into it. Or, put another way, I don’t care. This novel is for me and fuck you you don’t like it. Wink.

The universe I’ve created is very detailed and well thought out. Extremely so. Like, we’re talking Star Wars levels of backstory on the interaction between characters. But that comes more from how personal the story is than anything else. In a way, the plot of this novel is me running around emotionally naked. That is, of course, if you understand the inspiration for the people and places I’m writing about.

One fun part of all of this is having a vast amount of information that I have to explain to the reader in a simple, cogent fashion that makes the premise of the novel believable, even though, in a sense, it follows some of the conventions of science fiction. You might call the novel a “political science fiction novel.” I have referred to it as a “political fairy tale guilty pleasure for woke Park Slope moms” in the past. But I’m not a woman and don’t pretend to know anything more about women than any other man. I’m not an “ally,” but I am good-natured and empathetic. I try not to get too wrapped up in how you might suggest I have a vested interest in the patriarchy given that I am a member of it. Meh. I generally believe the more agency and happiness women have on a personal level the better off society is. If that makes me some sort of feminist “ally,” so be it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like T&A and won’t try to chat a woman up with sex on my mind if she’s hot.

I have numerous political views that don’t fit the narrative advocated by Blue Check Liberals on Twitter. Fuck that and fuck them. I’m my own person and I know what I believe. But I am generally compassionate and empathetic — or at least try to be.

You can’t please everyone.

Novel Re-Calibration Today

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have no idea what I’m doing. Not only that, I have absolutely no one to talk to about what I’m doing. So, the learning curve has been brutal. Every so often, there’s a major re-calibration of the novel. Sometimes it’s existential and I get nervous that the whole thing is a fool’s errand. Then, there are days like today when I’m stoked.

The last 48 hours I’ve been weighing different character names over and over and over and over and over again. I think, finally, I’m just about where I need to be. Almost. Then, also today, it really hit home how important theme as well as cause and effect are. This definitely sometimes gives me the feeling that I’m running in circles and, yet, I also sensed a major improvement in the specifics of the story.

As long as I’m moving forward, I’m happy. The better my canon & scene summary are, the quicker I can actually write the next draft. It’s just what I’m seeing is how poorly thought out the original idea was. Also, my personal editor is growing more brutal in my mind every day that slows things down some.

But there is significant forward momentum.

Wish me luck.

A Personal Challenge

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It’s extremely amusing the paradox I find myself in. On one hand, I simply need the opportunity to gauge how well I’ve managed to reverse-engineer the life of modern women by, like, talking to a modern woman (I have no friends of any sort) and, yet, the very type of person who could help me out in that regard is the absolute least likely to help me in any way without getting some money as part of the event. And that’s before they do their due diligence and instantly see that to their eyes, I’m just another bonkers Internet weirdo. (Ugh.)

So, all I got is simply Twitter, YouTube and my own capacity for empathy. That’s it. There’s not a notable professional woman on the planet who will help me at all, for any reason, to produce better female character in the novel. Just by asking, I come off as a kook looking to flirt with them or something.

Shrug. This is why we can’t have nice things. And, really, the issue is more about things I can’t control at this point. I’m old. Didn’t go to a good enough university. I don’t live in NYC or LA. I have very strong political views that can unexpectedly not fit the media narrative you find smashed into your head on Twitter. As such, in a way, even if I end up writing the novel I hope to write, I’m pretty much just always going to be a more woke version of Ken Bone in the end.

Lulz. I guess.