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Writer 2−2

September 16, 2013

The bestseller writer said:  "The most realistic thing is usual life.  But usual life is boring because exciting things rarely happen in usual life.  So if you insist on 'real' things, and　you write somebody's usual life, your stories won't be exciting and nobody will buy your books.  Readers want to read exciting stories, but at the same hand, they yearn to keep their ordinary peaceful lives.  Readers are totally selfish.  And you have to sell your books to those selfish people.  But you got an idea, right?"       He nodded and started to say:  "How about starting from somebody's usual life scene?  The protagonist was a common citizen, maybe he graduated from an ordinary college and became an ordinary worker like a teacher or a bank clerk or a shopkeeper, anyways, a salaried worker.  He married an ordinary woman and got ordinary kids.  But one day, he had a phone call from one of his high school classmates.  It had been a long time since they last talked.  The classmate said, 'I killed a woman.  I didn't intend to kill her, of course.  I accidentally killed her.  We had a quarrel and she was about to stab me with a hidden knife and ...'  The voice on the other end of the phone was crying.  His friend asked him to help him.  The protagonist wondered whether he should help him or not.  His friend was crying, and after hearing the sobs, he decided to help him to hide the dead body together.  Soon after the incident, the classmate announced that the killer was the protagonist ... "     He looked at the bestseller.  The writer didn't react at first, looking like he was thinking about something else.  He raised his voice, "Did you hear me?"   The writer looked upset, "Of course I did, of course I did.  Your idea is not bad.  Why don't you try to make a story following this story?"     He was very happy because the bestseller writer recognized his idea.  It gave him confidence and he finished his new story in a month.  He was satisfied with his story.  In it, the protagonist's usual 'real' life was threatened by his old friend's sudden appearance.  After meeting his classmate, his life was transforming from real to unreal, little by little.  So readers would not realize that their feelings were changing, and would begin to feel that the story is real.  "This was not bad," he said.  He felt that this book would become a bestseller.  The month after, his book was published.  It didn't sell at all.   (To be continued ...)

*ｔｒａｎｓｆｏｒｍ :ｔｏ ｃｈａｎｇｅ ｓｂ/ｓｔｈ completely, especially in a way which improves sb/sth (O)