Lost The Plot

By Kirby Gate

A satirical piece about the process and rules of creative writing in today's climate.  It not only breaks the rules on novel-writing but breaks the rules of the benefits system as was, as well as the taboo of ergophobia and agoraphobia – fear of the market place.

The narrative sets out to examine some of those rules in relation to novels eg plot, length, characters, tense, climax, endings etc in an off-the-wall way. It unashamedly loses the plot and doesn't stick to the knitting pattern but deliberately exposes the seams it's tacked together. You as reader are invited to collude with this approach to see whether, and for how long, it can be sustained. This is one of the central challenges for this anti-novel.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Draft2Digital
• Release date: Aug 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502201935

Book preview

I

Lost the plot and proud of it.  Correction.  I never had it to lose. 

Is that a good beginning?  Beginnings are dead important, they say.  Like shop windows.  Do feel free to come in and browse, no obligation.  But I should make it clear, we don't stock plots if that's what you're looking for.  Everyone's asking for them like they're going out of fashion.  We used to sell characters galore, but now there isn’t the demand.  It's all plot plot plot.  I don't know about you but I need a breath of fresh air.

Well that's it.  We're closing until further notice.  I fancy going on a journey somewhere, anywhere.  Care to join me?  I don't know where. I don't possess a route-planner or map and if I did I'd bin it.  You might call it a mystery tour, though even mystery tours aren't a mystery to the driver.  This is a complete mystery to me.  I'm making it up as I go along.

Maybe it’s a protest because they keep telling me what I should and shouldn't sell, and they keep telling you what you will and will not buy.  And I know all this talking to you stuff has all been done before.  I know you'll think it's just a device and you're so right, but can I sustain this?  How far can I push it without the usual rules?  It's one thing to lose the plot but can we dispense with characters?  Mine are all gathering dust in the bargain tub.  We marked them all down, you see, two for the price of one, because customers only like characters with brand names these days.  It used to be Quirky and Feisty. But now it’s Urban Fantasy, Steampunk, Historical.  They're some of the most popular.  But if they'll buy your characters, they'll buy your plot (or lack of it), perhaps? 

Anyway, we already have one character: me, and of course there's you, the passenger - even passengers - if you've got this far.  Others may climb aboard on the way.  And in place of narrative thread, just my split-end thoughts brushing against you, tickling you, making you itch.  Or maybe like me when I picked up a book in a bookshop not so recently, just to see what was being published, you'll just read the beginning and throw it down in defiance.  Maybe that's where I got the idea about talking to you direct.  But then the author didn't sustain it.  Not that I read on.  I flicked.  And then it seemed to fall into the usual novel pattern by the looks of it.  Nothing that different at all.  Just an eye-catching intro to catch the publisher's attention (and subsequently yours.)  And I was disappointed.  Well, to tell you the truth I was relieved.  Thank God she didn't keep it up, this one-way conversation with you, because that's left the way clear for me. (Though doubtless, some bright spark's gone and done it before, they always have, haven't they?)

OK – let’s do some time travel, to help you out; that may even please the sci fi lovers, a tad, who knows?  Fast forward from circa 2000 when I first wrote the former paragraphs.  It’s evolving, I’m stitching in patches here, cutting out old bits, because the publishing world is another country now.  Many of the old rules, don’t apply. But just imagine the world as it was back then, see it as a bit of social history, if you like. I could put some of the later paragraphs in italics.  There. Done.  But maybe I won’t employ italics every time.  So as to create a bit of mystery.  Because Mystery sells.

As I was saying - before my future self rudely interrupted my 2000 self - let me tell you about some of the things we sell in the shop.  We sell themes. Themes are two a penny.  Lack of theme is a sort of theme, don't you think? 

I make most of the products at the shop with my own fair hands.  From scratch.  You have to cast on, like when you knit a jumper.  Knit one, purl one.  Knit a word, purl a word, and now we’ve got a few tiny rows twisting around the needle, not long enough to swing yet.  But they say you have to have at least 50,000 words, preferably 70,000+ and that's an awful lot of knitting.  They say you won't pay for anything less.  So it's up to you again.  I can break the rules but only if you collude with me.  You have to say, yep, I'll buy that.  I'll buy something short and pithy. (Or just short and over-with).  A fat book stuffed with tiny print doesn't always make for a better read.  Doesn't ever.  It just makes for a better hit on the head.  This friend of mine once said that thick books are for thick people.  (A few more of you may have exited at this juncture.  Stop I want to get off!)  But you know what they say. If you jump off while the bus is still moving you do so at your own risk. 

But.  Do people really say, I'm not going to buy that painting because it's too small; that record because it's too short?  If you like something, you like it.  If you like it enough, you'll buy it.  Won't you?

It's finished when it's finished.

Less is more, isn't it?  Slim fits in with busy lifestyles.  Something relaxing to read on the train to and from work.  Something that'll slip into your briefcase or carrier bag between your chocolate bar and your mobile.  Easy on your back.

Isn't everyone being advised to lose weight? 

So why not our books too?

50,000 words is not anorexic by any stretch. 

But you have to get past the publisher.  Some are constructive, some destructive, but better to have any sort of feedback than none at all, no matter how brutal.  But you get those who don't even reply.  And there's you, took two years writing your book, two hours printing it off.  Then there was that trip to the post office, getting it all weighed, making sure you secured the return postage under the paper clip before cellotaping it all up.  Four months later you've still heard nothing and you can't afford to keep phoning London long distance in the daytime when you're on the dole, but you do phone up, you did without that bar of chocolate, except you can never get hold of the person who's looking at the manuscript.  Or isn't looking.  It's probably just getting dusty in the slushpile.  The slushpile.  Says it all, doesn't it?  Anyway, the telephone-answerer takes your name and number, but they never phone you back.  Except I've got this strategy you see.  What you do is you say, no, I'll phone you back in ten or fifteen minutes. Or, no it's OK, I'll hang on. (If you can afford to).

Though it's not even the publisher's approval you need - he or she's as much a victim as you are - it's the accountants.  They're the ones who hold the power.  Same in music.  The accountants will tell you which boy bands, which girl bands to listen to, you just have to lie back and be told.

Hang on, the world’s moved on. We can email now, if that’s not considered old hat.  We have Print On Demand - POD for short. Pods are in.  Power to the people, we can all get published and buy our books ourselves and give them as Crimbo pressies to our long-suffering friends, those who’ve not emigrated or taken a Sabbatical to one of Saturn’s moons, just to avoid yet another POD book.  We can upload parts of our novels to Social Networking sites for writers (like Authonomy) and by fair means or foul (usually foul) make a race to the Ed’s desk only for the Ed to reject you, if kindly.

For those of you still aboard, rather than bored, take heart.  I couldn't continue with this tour if it was that boring.  I'll take you behind the seams where it's bumpy, where bits of thread are snipped untidily.  You see, I've been thinking.  So far this has been a cross between a novel and one of those books about writing.  How innovative!  Why