My Career as a Novelist starts right here, right now

I’ve been thinking about writing a novel. I mean it can’t be that hard can it? Loads of people do it, even Jeffery Archer! And they get paid for it! Even one of my colleagues, here at the Uni, is on her third one. Although I can’t understand why she isn’t in some beach hut in the Caribbean living the high life, while writing her next novel - I mean its not as if her books are in the bargain bins!

All I need is a good idea, and I could become famous and rich. I actually would prefer rich over famous as my pension plan isn’t doing so good and my retirement day, although not imminent is closer than it was say 20 years ago!

Look at it in a practical way, there’s loads of us frustrated writers knocking out these blogs everyday, never knowing really how many people are reading the stuff. Sometimes people comment sometimes they don’t, they lurk there in the background, just reading, we writers don’t ever get to know what they think. Here we are day after day trying to write about something in a witty and erudite manner and what do we get – the sound of silence and not even one penny for all this original work.

Anyway back to the novel idea. I’ve been reading the books of Dan Brown, you know the Da Vinci Code etc and I have come to the conclusion that basically, to follow his example, you find a formula that works and stick to it. That’s what the best authors do. Look at Ian Fleming and James Bond – formulaic, the bloke what wrote Morse – formulaic, the Sharpe Novels, formulaic.

Here’s a Sharpe Novel in a few sentences:

Sharpes in France or Spain fighting Napoleon
He’s got a chip on his shoulder cos he’s common
An Officer don’t like him
He meets a woman – probably foreign but mixed up with some foreign aristocrat
He disobeys orders but saves the day by killing loads of French soldiers
He loses the woman
Kills the aristocrat
Kills more French soldiers
The Officer what don’t like him turns out to be a rotten traitor
Sharpe kills him and more frogs
He gets the woman
Saves the day by killing more Frenchmen
The End

See it’s easy. Dan Browns are even more formulaic, I’ve just read ‘Angels and Demons’ and read 'The Da Vinci Code' a while ago.

He goes the plot of both

Old Geezer gets killed because he will not give over secret to hooded killer
Cryptology Prof woken up by mad idiot on the end of the phone
Prof gets taken to scene of murder to help make sense of it because someone has left a cryptic clue
Cryptic clue leads to other more cryptic clues which must be followed to find the truth/save the planet
Enter beautiful other scientist ( a woman)
Enter melodramatic evil criminal (a la ‘The Hooded Claw')
Time is ticking away as Prof and beautiful scientist run around a lot solving clues either being perused by Police or overly melodramatic hooded (probably Arabic or other foreign stereotype) criminal who is being directed by another even more melodramatic villain
Prof and beautiful scientist run around passages and old buildings solving things and narrowly avoiding being killed or captured by being brave and resourceful
Prof kisses beautiful scientist after a particular gruelling event and then becomes even stronger and resourceful speaking in a Loud and Deep voice
They solve all the clues, kill some of the criminals, and the melodramatic villain, who in a cruel plot twist turns out to be the person you first thought it was.
The world is saved, they find the truth, which turns out to be both an anticlimax for both them and you the reader.
The End

Actually I think this works for his other novel as well – 'Digital Fortress '– only the hero here is a beautiful female cryptologist, O and a handsome American who is a brilliant English Professor who gets embroiled in the plot to find a secret code – familiar huh?.

So all I need to do is to get me a formula and hey ho it’s the high life for me.

How about this right of the top of my head:

Title: The Prospecti Deadline

Brilliant Sociologist Dr. Rob Gets up and goes to work
He’s got a chip on his shoulder cos he’s common
His Boss likes him though
He meets a woman – probably foreign who used to be a communist (his wife)
Enter melodramatic evil criminal (a la ‘The Hooded Claw')
Melodramatic evil criminal tries to get Dr. Rob to skew his data about the prospecti
(the prospecti is a ancient document written in code that only 18 yr olds with 3 A’Levels can read)
Enter beautiful other scientist (a woman) (Don’t tell the wife)
Dr. Rob and beautiful scientist run around passages and old buildings solving things and narrowly avoiding being killed by being brave and resourceful and not running on wet floors and taking note of all the health and safety advice, like not eating peanuts and having 10 minutes rest after spending more than 40 minutes in front of the computer monitor.
Dr. Rob kisses beautiful scientist (please please don’t tell wife) after a particular gruelling event and then becomes even stronger and resourceful speaking in a Loud and Deep voice
The Boss what likes him turns out to be a rotten traitor and puts Dr. Rob on a written warning for sexual harassment of a colleague (i.e. beautiful scientist)
The world is saved, they find the truth which turns out to be both an anticlimax for both them and you the reader. (Yes you can enter Uni with less than 3 C’s despite the hidden code in the prospecti)

The End


Will all prospective publishers please form an elderly queue the ones with the biggest advances at the front – Thank You