Novel ideas.

Let’s check up on Arthur. He’s still in the Golden Bar, Soi 4, Sukhumvit, Bangkok and he’s starting on his sixth bottle of beer. He’s getting into the mood for a bit of writing. 

I probably mentioned this before. Like just about every other expat in Thailand Arthur is working on a novel. That involves a lot of thinking punctuated by occasional bursts of actual writing. It mainly means overcoming inertia. Sometimes  he feels like the only expat in Bangkok who hasn’t written a book. The bookstores are awash with them. The central character is invariably a retired CIA agent/ ESL teacher, seedy flat, exotic Thai girlfriend, who gets caught up in a predictable series of events, drug smuggling, gun running etc. His best friend is a crooked Thai cop who offers tedious insights into the Thai underworld. The genre needs a complete overhaul thinks Arthur.

But is he the one to do it? Ideas have been percolating at the back of his mind for some time. About thirty years give or take. There’s the one about the old English expat in Thailand who talks to ghosts… perhaps an old school friend shows up and they look back on their lives.  He’d even written a few things that might qualify as literature whatever that means these days. There’s still time before Simon’s arrival to knock something together out of all the bits and pieces. He’s got a lot of bits and pieces, some of them more or less complete in themselves, stuff he’s scribbled down over the years…but there’s no structure to hang them on. Perhaps he can even come up with some kind of synopsis. Then what? Should he show it to Simon or not? He’ll probably just say it’s crap. He’ll probably be right.

It’s not that Arthur doesn’t have a lot to say. He just doesn’t know where to start.  What kind of novel should it be? It could be one of those books where nothing much happens for instance. Something along the lines of ‘Dubliners’, or ‘Notes from Underground’, or ‘Catcher in the Rye’. Some bloke just droning on about his life and sharing his deepest thoughts with anyone who’s interested. That might work. There’s enough bored people around these days, surfing the internet for free entertainment. They’ll read anything. 

It certainly won’t be one of those post-modern books where all the characters are versions of themselves. Arthur has read enough of those. It might jump around in time and space a bit but the story will be fairly straightforward. He’s got nothing against non-linear fiction but there’s a limit. It’s easy to get too clever and leave any potential readers wondering what’s going on. Where are we? Who’s speaking? What day is it? Sort of an inconclusive whodunwat. 

On the other hand he wants it to make some kind of sense. Post-modern but linear. He wants to put everything in. All the ups and downs, all the people and places, all the memories and sidetrips. Why?  To entertain himself? To watch the words appear in some sort of order? To pass the time? 

Keep it simple that’s the trick. There can’t be much to this writing lark. Colourful characters that’s what you need. Get them doing interesting things. Lively dialogue. Interesting locations. Just a question of getting started.

Arthur imagines himself with a laptop somewhere…typing words in, moving blocks of text around. It would be a lot of work. And pretty futile when you think about it. Why would anyone commit himself to something like that? More to the point why would anyone want to read it? They’ll probably just skim through it looking for the rude bits. 

So many things to consider. Should there be sex and violence? Will anyone be offended? Should he even care what readers think or should he try to shock them? Should he try to appeal to younger readers? Those who missed out on the Sixties and Seventies for instance, but aren’t too bitter about it? Maybe throw in a few vampires and zombies.

Probably the biggest decision has to do with person. Should there be a narrator or is Arthur doing all this himself? Proper writers seem to glide straight into it but obviously things like person and tense have to be settled early on otherwise nobody knows who’s talking or when. Very difficult business this writing. Invisible narrator that’s the way to go. Invisible reader should just shut up and get on with it.

And then there’s the question of style. Beckett, Burroughs, Nabokov, Amis, Le Carre….Arthur absorbs aspects of them all. He reads too much.

What Arthur doesn’t mention for some reason is that he’s already posted a few of his literary efforts on a website for aspiring writers. The reaction has been quite encouraging. He uses the short story form but the hardest part is always coming up with a clever twist.

The strange thing about writing is that sometimes he just can’t be bothered. He has to force himself to do it. And there are times when he can’t get the words down fast enough. At least until the doubts appear. Words, words, words….slippery little things that always seem to be just out of reach, hovering on the edge of his cerebrum, never quite falling neatly into place. Hasn’t the world got enough of them? As for the bloody internet, it’s a Tower of Babel. 

You can’t beat old Arthur when it comes to procrastination. He’s no Stephen King that’s for sure. But hang on…..he’s just had a novel idea!!

Why not write it from the point of view of some old alcoholic living on a yacht in the Caribbean? He could be looking back on his life and some of the people he’s met along the way. Arthur being one. It doesn’t solve all the problems but it would provide a narrator and set the tone. 

That thought deserves another beer.