‘I want to know how to assassinate somebody.’

  I’ve told Scott I’m visiting my mother, and, as I’m out east, I’ve dropped into a shooting range I found online. The deception suits my mood.

  My instructor, Chris, is taken aback, but I’m ready with an explanation and evidence on my phone screen. He laughs and tells me that he thinks his wife has read my book. He’s a big bluff guy with thinning blond hair who looks like he ought to have a moustache.

  We spend a lot of time on safety and the mechanics of the rifle, but I can use all of it. My terrorist is going to be a first-timer too. We do some target shooting, and I’m all over the place. I’m laughing, embarrassed, but Chris is all business. He hauls over a sandbag.

  ‘This’ll help you keep it steady. Cut the leg off a pair of jeans, fill it with sand and shoot from a prone position. If you’re within a couple of hundred metres and you’ve got a good weapon, it’s not that hard, even for a beginner.’

  Chris tries to explain how to get into position, awkward about making contact.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say, and let him move my arms and legs to where they need to be. Research.

  ‘We get a lot of women coming along for the half-day experience,’ he says, ‘but usually we do all this standing up. I’m not teaching them to be snipers.’

  ‘Isn’t there a laser dot?’

  ‘Yes, but you don’t need it.’

  ‘I can shoot? Now?’

  ‘When you’re ready, Lee Harvey Oswald. You’re closer, you’ve got a better rifle and your target isn’t in a moving car. Do what you came to do. And I hope you really are that author or we’ll both be in trouble.’

  It’s so easy to write. All the sensations, physical and emotional, are fresh: Chris’s steady instructions and presence, the reassuring clicks of the rifle mechanism, the punch of the recoil into my shoulder. I draft my story in three hours.

  I’m feeling strong, energised, and have a sense of how Americans feel about their guns. And I’m thinking: Scott gave this exercise to Piper. If he’d given it to me, it would have brought me to where I am now.

  He’s a good teacher and knows more theory than I do, which I’ve resented, not wanting to be bombarded with technical terms for what I’ve been doing intuitively since I was eight years old.

  But he’s that kind of person: doesn’t trust his instincts. He has a shelf of books on playing guitar and two full of screenwriting tutorials. Books on prose writing too: Introduction to Narratology, The Novel Project, Writing Fiction for Dummies. Just one novel: The Da Vinci Code, which he’s analysed, taken apart, like a mechanic trying to figure out how something works. On my shelves, I have only novels. And not that one.

  I’m finishing a second pass when Scott knocks.

  ‘You want something to eat? You can have it here.’

  A flashback to the days of The Girl, when Scott would bring me sustenance when I was buried in my writing. When he believed in what I was doing.

  ‘It’s okay—I’m ready for a break.’

  ‘Can I ask?’

  ‘It’s only a draft. You can read it if you like.’

  He looks surprised, as if I’ve offered him a gift. The novel, in all its incarnations, has never felt ready for another’s eyes.

  I stand and he slips into my chair behind the computer. It takes him a few moments to realise what I’ve written.

  ‘Piper showed you her story?’

  ‘I imagine she wanted some reassurance before she gave it to the expert.’

  He ignores the barb and reads on. When he finishes, he’s smiling.

  ‘It’s great.’ I’m waiting for him to say, ‘Just like The Girl,’ but he doesn’t. He stands up and puts his arms around me, and I kiss him, properly. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that, too.

  Later, I put my hand on his bare chest, feeling it rise and fall with his breathing as I lie beside him, both of us looking upwards to the inverted pink bowl of a light fitting that we might replace someday when we have time to do what normal couples do. ‘If you had to give up writing or sex, which would you choose?’

  ‘Ask me in forty years,’ he says. ‘I know your answer.’

  ‘I know you do. You shouldn’t be insulted. Writing is…who I am. I just wanted you to acknowledge that it’s different for you.’

  ‘If I had a choice between you and writing, I’d choose you. But I don’t think I could give up being creative in some way. Or, if the well dries up, teaching other people how to do it.’

  ‘What are you teaching Piper?’

  ‘Everything I know. Besides this.’

  I gaze into the light fitting like it’s a meditation aid. I’ve been holding out on accepting something he’s been trying to give me. Something that might make me a better writer and teacher, something that he’ll love doing, something that will surely strengthen our relationship.

  ‘You want to show me too?’ I say.

  ‘Creativity techniques?’

  ‘Whatever you teach. Structure and beat sheets and coloured cards. For when she starts asking me questions in class. Who knows: I might be able to use bits of it myself.’

  Scott sits up. ‘When do we start?’

  9

  Scott

  It was like a creative breakthrough: you push and push at it, then put it aside and a week or two later, out of nowhere, eureka. Suddenly, Emily wanted my help with what mattered to her.

  Planning a novel from scratch was new territory for us as a couple, and I had a decision to make: one I’d interrogate to death if I was putting it in a story. Would I ask to be recognised as co-author of Emily’s life-defining novel? What would that request say about my character? My ego? My commitment to our relationship?

  ‘I’m happy for you to be sole author,’ I said as I rummaged in the fridge for something to cook. ‘I’ll settle for a thank-you in the acknowledgments.’

  She looked surprised, possibly because I’d even entertained the idea of being co-author. Plot was always less important to her, less worthy of recognition, especially for a book like this.

  Turned out we had a little communication problem.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but there’s no way we’re using my book as a case study.’

  Which, when I thought about it, wasn’t such a bad thing. She was too close to the story. The job is hard enough without trying to work through your relationship with your mother at the same time. Plus, we could start with a blank slate.

  And, just to make the rules clear, she added, ‘I’m not silly; I know what you’re thinking. This isn’t going to turn into another joint book. If you want to write it when the lesson’s over, it’s all yours.’

  When people ask, ‘Do you have a writing routine?’ they’re thinking about drafting: getting words down. It’s only one part of the job—and, I’d argue, the least time-consuming. With a good plan, and the recognition that you can clean up later, you can draft a novel in a few intense weeks. Without a plan, and aiming for perfection first time, drafting takes much longer, but is no less intense.

  Emily spent a lot of time being intense. And she was missing out on the fun of planning, which can be done anywhere.

  So we went out for dinner. ‘We’re working.’ I waved my wine glass. ‘Creative fuel.’

  Emily smiled. ‘I did another draft of the terrorist story. I think it’s good, but where am I going to publish it? Not the right topic for…anywhere.’

  ‘Except books that sell a million copies and get adapted into movies. But you’re writing. You’re through the block.’

  ‘Maybe. But better do the lesson before we drink any more wine.’

  ‘Lesson One. Story concept. You’re about to put a year or two of your life into it—’

  ‘I am definitely not.’

  ‘Hypothetically. Let’s take that as given from here on. So it had better be as good and original as you can make it.’

  ‘How about Two mismatched cops go after a serial killer?’ Emily taking the piss out of my solo book. Or the exercise I’d set Piper. Fine by me. I’d have smart and sharp Emily over anxious Emily anytime.

  ‘Or boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl,’ I said.

  ‘Boy kills girl,’ said Emily. ‘Girl kills boy. Girl kills boys. If you make her a serial killer, you can have the best of both worlds.’

  ‘I was about to say that there’s plenty of room to be original within the rules of genre. But you’ve just demonstrated the Scott Solera technique for creating original concepts. Bring two apparently unrelated ideas together.’

  ‘You could call it a mash-up. Except that word’s already taken for…exactly what you said.’

  ‘The point is that any single idea’s probably been done before, but a combination…not so likely. So, what ideas for stories have you got lying around?’

  ‘To write when I’ve finished my life’s work? Actually, I’d like to do something about climate change. Set in a post-climate-change dystopian world. Will that do?’

  ‘Not exactly an unusual combination. Half the applicants for the mentor program want to write spec-fic about a post-apocalypse world.’

  ‘And the other half want to write about their trauma.’

  ‘Or their mothers.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Okay, what can we mash up with climate change? Forget the dystopian world for the moment. Give me something else. Woman explores her relationship with her mother; girl kills boys…’

  She put her hand up to shush me, glass halfway between table and lips. Then sipped anyway.

  ‘Nice use of suspense,’ I said.

  ‘Girl kills boys. Remember the short story? The shooting? Making her female. That was my idea, if you remember?’

  I did. Female was good, but Emily’s switching to the terrorist’s point of view was what would lift it above the cops-hunts-criminal plot I’d had in mind. ‘Not entirely silly. But not quite a mash-up.’

  ‘I haven’t finished. How about terrorists kill random people to force government action on climate change?’

  I’d been prepared to work for as long as it took to come up with a concept that had commercial possibilities. I hadn’t expected the inspiration to come from Emily.

  10

  Emily

  Having told me how important the premise is, Scott has decided that a random thought I had over a glass of wine will do. I know it’s only a case study, but part of me rails against writing being treated so casually. We’re in the art gallery, which is at least cool on a hot day, and quiet midweek. He makes a sweeping gesture with his hand. ‘Inspiration all around us.’

  It’s an exhibition of Noel McKenna paintings that to my naive eye are…naive. I interrupt Scott, who’s been drawn into a screed of handwritten annotation.

  ‘Shouldn’t we find somewhere we can sit down? To write?’

  ‘We can do this in our heads,’ he says. ‘Once you write something down, you’re invested. Let’s keep it loose.’ Then, the first tug of the straitjacket. ‘Three-act structure.’

  ‘So much for keeping it loose.’

  ‘I didn’t say to throw away all the rules. It’s a good way to tell stories. Same way quotation marks are a good way to show dialogue. Do you want to dismiss a few thousand years of storytelling or do you want hear how I’ve applied it to our concept?’

  ‘Between coming home drunk last night and walking here this morning?’

  ‘It’s pretty simple so far. Simple plot, complex characters, right?’

  ‘In my world, yes, but…’

  ‘So…we’ve got someone—a woman or a group—who wants to do something about climate change. They try something and it doesn’t work, so they decide they’re going to shoot one person a day—or a week, whatever fits—until whatever they want happens.’

  ‘Like the Joker in The Dark Knight.’

  ‘Good pitch. The Dark Knight meets…Erin Brockovich. Anyway, it’s all going well—I mean, if you call killing people going well, which we do, because it’s their point of view—but then something bad happens: bad for them.’

  ‘Would you like to be a little more precise?’

  ‘I would if I could. It’s the second-act turning point. Three-quarters of the way through. All is lost. The hero has failed. Then, she—they—realise that they’ve been chasing the wrong thing or going about it the wrong way…’

  ‘By killing random people. Big reveal.’

  ‘Except the reader’s invested in their plan. Thanks to your brilliant writing.’

  ‘Hypothetically.’

  ‘So they do something else and…you’re right: they’ll have to die. Or the story will be immoral and the reader will ultimately be unsatisfied. But maybe there’s some redemption first.’

  ‘Brilliant. Possibly a little…sketchy.’

  ‘It’s just the three-act structure plus a bit of hero’s journey, applied to what we did last night. People have written bestsellers with less.’

  ‘I thought your point was that writers should have more detailed plans.’

  ‘We’re not done. Admit it: we’ve got something to work on.’

  ‘I’ve seen worse.’ It’s true. Everybody hates synopses. Scott’s would be one of the more coherent examples in an around-the-room ‘one-minute summary of what you’re working on’.

  He does another circuit of the exhibition, stopping to glance at a map of Australia illustrated with tourist attractions, perhaps hoping the Big Pineapple will inspire some material for the second-act turning point.

  ‘Now, help me flesh it out,’ he says, still walking.

  He goes through it again and when he gets to the decision to start shooting people, he says, ‘Random. They pick the next city by throwing darts at a map.’ I know where that idea came from. Then, ‘They could announce the city, so there’d be a panic. Actually, they could just announce the first letter. So, everyone in a city beginning with B or whatever would be panicking…’

  ‘If you’re going to do that, why not just start with a city beginning with A, then do B, and let them work it out for themselves?’

  He stops. Turns for a moment at the painting in front of us—a graph of the artist’s mood swings. ‘That’s brilliant. Do you know how brilliant that is? No announcements, everybody’s panicking because nobody’s more than twenty-five days away, everyone’s guessing, it’s the definition of terror. What’s going to happen with X…the letter X…little touches like that. I can’t believe how much story you just generated.’

  He hugs me, not just theatrically. ‘It takes a truly sick mind to think of something like that.’ I want to tell him that he’s right, and I’m already feeling uncomfortable about it. And that it has absolutely no connection to anything I’m ever going to write.

  For two more hours in the gallery, we worry at the synopsis. After my alphabet suggestion, progress is more pedestrian. Perhaps they’ll start by agitating legally, but one of the group will be unjustly prosecuted and jailed. ‘In the belly of the whale,’ says Scott. They’ll argue against the shooting idea: Refusal of the call to adventure. Perhaps the second-act turning point will be some personal event that reminds them that the end doesn’t justify the means. Perhaps…I’m getting bored.

  ‘I know it seems slow,’ says Scott, ‘but every sentence could be a dozen scenes in the final mov—the final novel. But let’s switch to character.’

  ‘We’re done with plot?’

  Scott laughs. ‘We’ll go back and forth. Plot and character; character and plot. And they come together where?’

  ‘Everywhere. Character determines plot; plot demonstrates character.’ Every writer’s heard it—though it’s not exactly front of mind when I’m writing or teaching.

  ‘Right,’ says Scott, continuing the lesson. ‘The most important place they come together is decisions. Decisions create the big plot moments and tell us the most about the characters.’

  ‘I’m guessing there’s a book that says all of this.’

  ‘Lots: I’m giving you a synthesis. With an interactive case study, and my vast experience of one screenplay and a failed novel.’

  I don’t take the opening he’s offering me. His novel isn’t going to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award, but he created an eighty-thousand-word story that made sense. Hardly any of my students have achieved that, let alone had their book published and toured the US with it. My mother enjoyed it. And if I was flopped in front of the television watching the story we’ve been workshopping today, I’d probably be pulled in.

  We walk home, past the Melbourne Cricket Ground, talking about our lead character, who we’ve decided to call Layla, and acknowledge that we don’t know many people who’d pick up a gun and shoot random people in the interests of saving the planet. Maybe we’re living in a bubble.

  A thought comes to me unbidden, and I almost laugh aloud. My first encounter with Layla, albeit as a male, was through Piper reading her piece. And she is a bit of an activist.

  Scott takes my suggestion seriously. ‘Perfect. I can imagine her revving herself up to do it. Now I’m really looking forward to reading her take.’

  ‘I’m joking,’ I say. ‘We can’t put her in the book.’

  ‘She’ll just be part of a mash-up. Put her in a bucket with a few others and slosh it around.’

  ‘Maybe throw Gideon in the other bucket,’ I say. Gideon is our publisher, but he used to be a corporate lawyer. We’ve decided on a male driver (driver both physically and motivationally) who doesn’t have the courage to do the killing himself. I have a young Charles Manson in my head.

  Scott palled up with Gideon when they were doing the film course. When we were offered a contract for The Girl, Scott asked him to look over it. Gideon decided he could do better by setting up a business and giving us a profit share. I’d have been more comfortable with an established publisher, but now I’m probably closer to Gideon than Scott is. But still, he was a corporate lawyer. Not a big step to psychopath.

 

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