Tough Day for the Army (12 page)

The next morning, Norman slept late, and when he got up and went to the kitchen he saw Ellie scrubbing at the sink. “You hungry?” she called out without turning.

He went to her and pressed against his wife from behind and she stopped scrubbing, clutching the brush in her hand. Norman paused until he felt their breathing join, and he slipped one hand around front and through her robe and cupped her breast and Ellie dropped the scrub brush. Norman's other hand rested on Ellie's buttocks and then began to bunch the robe higher and with it the nightgown. He ran a finger along the inside of her thigh. Ellie sighed softly under his touch.

“What's got into you?” she said.

“Something,” Norman replied.

I'm going to write a best seller.

Because women buy most of the books, my best seller will have a female protagonist.

I'm going to call her Greta because I've always thought Greta is a pretty name.

In addition, I have become aware that the supernatural is hot, that people enjoy elements of mystery and magic in their best-selling books, that otherworldly creatures have a romantic appeal while also providing avenues for surprising turns of plot since supernatural creatures, by definition, are not bound by our natural world. However, the most common supernatural creatures—werewolves, vampires, witches, elves/orcs, and dragons—while “hot,” are also said to be potentially “overdone,” or “spent.” Above all, my best seller will be original, so my best seller will not have any werewolves, vampires, witches, elves/orcs, or dragons.

Therefore, the protagonist of my best seller will be a female yeti, also known as a Sasquatch, by the name of Greta. The working title (tentative) will be
Bigfoot Woman.

Greta may or may not have a pet unicorn.

It has come to my attention that a good strategy for a best-selling book is to write in a way that will appeal to young adults and adults alike, primarily (though not exclusively) women. This makes sense when one realizes that adults are just grown-up children, most (but not all) of whom would prefer to return to their childhoods because deep inside we all retain a child's sense of wonder. If there's any doubt about this, go to the Fourth of July fireworks and tell me there aren't plenty of grown-ups going “ooh” and “ahh” at the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in the air.

So the protagonist of my best seller is now a
teenage
yeti named Greta who may or may not have a pet unicorn. For obvious reasons, the working title has changed from
Bigfoot Woman
to
Bigfoot Girl.

All good books have conflict, and one form of conflict is internal conflict, something that goes on inside all of us, unseen but also unavoidable. Often, writers draw on their own experience when developing conflict. An example of an internal conflict is a writer trying to decide what kind of book to write. I have decided to write a best seller, so I have no more internal conflict, thus I will have to look elsewhere for Greta's conflict. Since Greta is a teenager, and teenagers often struggle over issues of identity, I've decided that this is what Greta will struggle with. In order to make this struggle more apparent and accessible to my reading audience of young and not young— primarily but not exclusively—female readers, my protagonist will be a teenage
half-yeti, half-human
female named Greta.

I'm starting to have strong doubts about the pet unicorn, unless it can also talk, or perhaps read minds, or maybe change colors depending on Greta's mood, which would be an interesting way of symbolizing Greta's conflict come to think about it.

What you've seen right there is what we writers call “creativity,” real seat-of-the-pants invention-type stuff where you're just letting your mind go and seeing what connections it can make. I was about to ditch the pet unicorn, but instead I made it many times better. It's an incredible thing. This is one of the chief pleasures of writing, second only to getting official notification that the book you've written is a best seller. You should try it.

My half-human, half-yeti teenage protagonist Greta will be struggling over her identity: Namely, is she human, or is she yeti? Some reviewers will surmise that this internal conflict is analogous to someone's struggle over their sexuality or racial identity, and because I am savvy (a prerequisite for writing a best seller), I will let them say these things, even though they'll be wrong. Greta's internal struggle will be over whether she is human or yeti and nothing else.

Some things just are what they are.

My best seller will need a setting, a place for my character to engage in action. I am choosing the setting before I develop the action because good writers know that action does not come first. Action flows out of character, conflict, and place. The story of a half-yeti, half-human teenage female named Greta in outer space would entail very different actions than the story of a half-yeti, half-human teenage female named Greta in Mumbai, India.

I have decided that the setting for my best seller will be high school.

Instinctively I know that this is a good choice, for several reasons. One, my audience of young and not young—primarily but not exclusively—female readers will either currently be in or have been to high school and will instantly relate to the various goings-on in my best seller about the story of a half-yeti, half-human teenage female named Greta.

Two, I have been to high school and am therefore familiar with the setting, limiting the need for research, which would be intensive and time-consuming if my setting was something like outer space or Mumbai, India, places I've never been, nor particularly want to go.

Third, this adds an exciting new element to my best seller's continually evolving working title,
Bigfoot Girl Goes to High School.

And finally, even as I decided that the setting would be high school, I began to see potential for happenings that will transform Greta's internal conflict into external dramatic action. For example, because of her half-yeti heritage Greta will be quite tall and unusually strong, but she will also hate basketball and will therefore have to deal with the constant pleas to join the team from the coach, Ms. Franchione, who is convinced that with Greta patrolling the middle, her team would have a real shot at the state championship. Ms. Franchione will also recognize that being a basketball star would help Greta with her issues of identity, since Greta would then see herself in terms of her abilities, rather than her mixed genetic heritage— like how I self-identify as “writer of a best seller,” so anything else you may find out about me becomes irrelevant.

I am also envisioning a scene where Greta is publicly and humiliatingly ostracized, not only because it would be a manifestation and intensification of her internal conflict regarding her half-yeti, half-human status, but also because at some point during high school,
all
girls are publicly and humiliatingly ostracized, usually, and ironically, by their friends.

All best-selling books employ irony.

I'm thinking there will be a moment when Greta and Laura, Greta's best childhood friend and neighbor, will be entering a bathroom, and loud enough for everyone to hear, Laura will turn to Greta and say, “The sign on the door says ‘girls' not ‘freaks.'” In the moment, Greta will be shocked and silent, since the comment has cut to the core of her own doubts about herself. On the way home, as the pent-up tears flow down her cheeks, she will overturn several cars, which will cause her mother significant trouble because she will have to make restitution to the owners.

Notice how my choices of character—a half-yeti, half-human female named Greta—and setting—high school—for my best seller have given birth to several supporting characters: Ms. Franchione, Laura, and now Greta's mother. Of these, Greta's mother will be the most important, and therefore she will have significant conflicts of her own. Greta's mother will be an ex–beauty pageant contestant who retains traces of her loveliness, but has been mostly worn down by the struggle of being a single mother to a half-yeti, half-human female named Greta. Greta's mother will be named Tammy, because this is an appropriate name for an aging beauty who works waiting tables in a restaurant that is probably a diner.

I haven't forgotten about the unicorn. It's going to be half the size of a Chihuahua, and Greta will keep it in her backpack. This makes sense and will be compelling to my audience of young and not young—primarily but not exclusively—female readers because I will claim that unicorns are not imaginary at all, but rather quite common, and the problem is that we don't spend enough time looking at the ground to see them. I'm envisioning a product tie-in, which is not my area of expertise, but seems pretty obvious.

You know, plush toys.

I haven't forgotten about plot, either. Many books are published without plots, but very few best-selling books are absent plot. Plot is not to be confused with action or story. Action is stuff that happens. Story is the sum total of the action. Plot is action that happens because one action
caused
another action. The classic example to illustrate this distinction is that story is, “The queen died, then the king died.” Plot is, “The queen died and then the king died
of grief
(resulting in his kingdom falling into disarray until his brother, Yardrick the Somewhat Fair, makes a play for the throne which starts a war and other stuff).”

To apply this to the writing of my best seller, story is, “I wrote a bestseller.” Plot is, “Because of the writing of a bestseller, I got rich and had to hire an accountant to keep track of all of my money.”

An underappreciated aspect of writing a best seller is the choice of font. I choose Garamond, a very old typeface that conveys a sense of fluidity and consistency.

It looks like this.

Romance. I'm going to need a romance, since, after all, my best seller is intended for an audience of young and not young—primarily but not exclusively—female readers who like romance and have a thirst for love. (Male readers also have a thirst for love, but they're less likely to admit it. Very few males will purchase my best seller—or when they do, they will claim it is as a gift—but many more will read it, sneaking it off the shelves after the women in their lives have finished.)

Romance comes in two forms, requited and unrequited, and my best seller will have one of each since they both provide compelling emotional reading experiences, experiences that are further heightened when placed in juxtaposition.

The (ultimately) requited romance will involve my protagonist, the half-human, half-yeti female named Greta, and the high school's star athlete, Jimmy. In order to keep Jimmy from being a cliché he will be not a quarterback, but a running back, and also be up for the yearly science prize and an academic scholarship for his project on sequencing DNA. It is Jimmy's prowess with genotyping that initially attracts Greta to Jimmy since he may provide a key to unlocking her true identity, but mostly she likes how his eyes are kind, and she just wants to go to prom, where she, rather than Laura, will be crowned queen and have a dance with the smartest and handsomest boy in the school (Jimmy). My audience of young and not young—primarily but not exclusively—female readers will like this because it is a conclusion that implies a kind of cosmic order, a reassurance that love can conquer all in a frequently chaotic world.

The working title for my best seller is now
Bigfoot Girl Wants to Go to Prom.

The unrequited romance will involve Greta's mother, Tammy, and Greta's father, whose name is unpronounceable as it consists of a series of guttural noises generally not producible by the human anatomy, so we'll call him Phil. When Tammy was in high school herself, she became lost in the woods during a family camping trip. She had left camp to gather firewood, but soon found herself trapped, her foot hopelessly pinned under a log. As night fell, exhausted from her struggles to free herself and crying out for help, she lost consciousness, wondering if she'd ever awake. As she slept, Phil came upon her and lifted the log off her foot and gently carried her back to his lair, where he laid her in a bed of leaves near the fire and placed a poultice on her swollen ankle and administered drops of water to her parched lips from a hollowed-out log.

When Tammy awakes, she sees Phil and is not afraid, which is pretty much a first for Phil when it comes to encounters with humans. Tammy spends seven days with Phil in his lair, during which time they make sweet, interspecies love often, as though their coupling has been cast by the Fates themselves. Ultimately, though, the search party looking for Tammy comes increasingly close to Phil's lair and there is an increasingly serious danger that Phil will be found out, that he will be captured and imprisoned and become a permanent object of scientific study. Though Tammy and Phil cannot actually talk to each other because they do not share a verbal language, their touch and the looks in their eyes make it clear that there is only one, tragic choice to be made, that Tammy must leave the lair, allow herself to be found, lie about the circumstances of her survival, and ultimately, eleven months later when Greta is born (yeti gestation time is longer than human) say that the father is “just some dumb boy” she wants nothing to do with. Because Tammy has been through a terrible trauma, people will choose to believe her, even though when she is born, Greta weighs nearly sixteen pounds and is covered head to toe in a light fur.

Whoa. That even began to get to me a little. This is exciting. I can't wait to start writing my best seller. I think maybe I will tell the publisher to print my best seller on paper that is especially absorbent in order to sop up the likely tears of my young and not young—primarily but not exclusively—female readers.

One of the important things to do when writing a best seller is to decide which common elements of best sellers to
leave out
of my best seller. Therefore, my best seller will not have the following: sword fights, time travel, secret societies, clones, profanity.