The participants wait until dinner to ask what I’m working on. I find I don’t want to talk about my novel. Piper’s implicit criticism about self-indulgence and the tonic of Michelle’s writing are part of it, but I think it’s more the general sense of freedom to do whatever I want.

  Was Scott stopping me doing that? Scott keeping me tied to my novel? Because it gave me something that was mine alone? It doesn’t matter now: everything’s mine alone.

  ‘I’m thinking about expanding my Old Men and Guns story,’ I say, which has become true in this moment. They’re excited and full of questions. Impressed that I’m making an important statement about gun violence that needs to be heard, especially in the US. I’m drinking wine, and two ideas come together in my head. Scott isn’t here to turn it into a lecture on creativity, and, anyway, the ideas are related.

  ‘I wrote a short piece about a terrorist shooting her first victim,’ I say. ‘I think I’m going to replace one of the three stories with that—introducing something that I know is pure fiction will free me to add my own details to the other stories.’ This is exactly what I’d told Scott I didn’t want to do.

  I outline the four stories—a little focus group to see which one to take out—and they’re surprised I’d drop any of them.

  ‘Rule of three,’ I say. ‘Like when three men walk into a bar…’

  ‘Except your novel doesn’t have to follow the rules of a sexist joke,’ says Katja.

  Michelle offers a more Scott-like analysis: ‘I was thinking the stories would be interwoven, rather than one after the other. The rule of three wouldn’t apply then, would it?’

  Intuitively, I think she’s right: I interwove the stories in the New Yorker piece. I’d like to know what Scott thinks. As a fellow writer who specialises in that sort of thing, okay? I just nod to Michelle and Katja, and change the subject.

  After dinner we sit on the sofas, drinking sparkling wine and talking about writing, and I’m reminded of the writers’ group I belonged to for a while. I dropped out when it became more of a social club, but maybe I need that in my life, as the others seem to. This feels good.

  Katja brings up the shooting story again. ‘I guess you want it to appeal to a wide audience,’ she says. ‘I mean, literary readers are going to be anti-gun already. You want it to be well written, but…’

  Here it comes.

  Michelle finishes the sentence for her: ‘…accessible, like…The Girl. That’s what you’re so good at, Emily.’

  I can’t sleep. I really want to write this. I’m not sure why. It’s the sort of thing that Scott would want me to do, and that I’d reject. So I could get on with my novel, which I’ve put aside, as Scott would want me to do. And it’s technically problematic. I’ve already got short versions of the stories I want to tell but I’m not sure quite how to go about breaking them up and reassembling them with the new material that’s already flooding into my head, and how to weave the three—or should it be four?—story strands together.

  These aren’t my strengths. And, as I told Piper, there are a thousand unemployed screenwriters out there who live and breathe this nuts-and-bolts stuff. Unfortunately, I only know one of them. Who happens to live with me for the moment, and would love—would have loved, would probably still love—nothing more than to collaborate. Except I know that if I ask him, even if he doesn’t read more into it—which he surely will—I’ll be acknowledging to myself that I haven’t really let go. Or that I only want him for his contribution to my writing.

  26

  Scott

  Emily phoned me from her retreat as she was about to drive home. Alone in the house for the last three days, I’d had time to reflect, and had spent a good part of it going over the disastrous conversation with Piper. It seemed to encapsulate a lot of what I’d been doing wrong: exploiting my mentorship in a way that had now gone pear-shaped and was likely to have me in trouble with Writers Australia, as well as reinforcing Piper’s prejudices about my demographic; pontificating on plot like a broken record; putting down Emily’s contribution.

  What it didn’t include was my interfering with Emily’s novel, something she patently was finding intrusive and, I guess, had found intrusive for a long time. I’d treated her requests for help with writer’s block as an invitation to tell her how to write. Other couples didn’t respond to each other saying they were having a tough time at work with a lecture on bond trading or bricklaying or brain surgery. Why did I?

  I suppose I’d tell my friend—let’s say, Gideon—that I wanted to help, that I could see a way through if only Emily would take it. That I was not a kibitzer, but a successful author in my own right. Even Gideon wouldn’t buy that: Emily didn’t want to write like me. Well, I could argue that I knew a lot of theory—I was like a classical musician helping a rock band with the harmonies. I was digging a hole for myself.

  What would I tell the therapist? That was what I was thinking when the phone rang with Emily’s number, but the answer didn’t matter. Motivation could wait: the important thing was not to get involved in Emily’s writing.

  ‘I’ve got a writing problem that you might be able to help me with,’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  Well, she’d asked.

  ‘Wait. I’m calling you now so you can think about it. Not the problem…whether you want to do this. I’ve just got a few questions. I’m not looking for collaboration. Or anything else. We made a decision about us and I think it’s the right one. And about writing joint novels. I’m saying, this is my novel.’

  She sounded like she’d had to prepare the speech. Meaning she was still unsettled. Maybe undecided.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘And you need to know…I’m going to be using the short piece I wrote about the terrorist, which I know you wanted to use too…’

  ‘I thought plots were a dime a dozen. Couldn’t you find your own?’

  ‘It’s not a plot. It’s an excerpt. And it is mine. But if you don’t want…’

  ‘Just tell me what problem you’re trying to solve.’

  In the meantime, I called Gideon to give him the bad news about Emily’s and my relationship. I still hadn’t told Emily about the financial situation; my current thinking was about her question: ‘Why did it have to be Piper?’ It didn’t. There were other fine writers around. But if I found one, I’d be permanently locking Piper out, which I didn’t want to do quite yet. I shouldn’t have asked her in the first place, but retrieving the situation was probably a better option now than walking away. If Emily and I were re-establishing a working relationship—a one-way me-helping-her relationship—she might be more charitable about Piper.

  Gideon was philosophical, but, without saying it in so many words, disappointed in me. Emily was the great artist; it was my job to look after everything else. I took the opportunity to check his thoughts on the legal ramifications of Emily using an idea that had come at least in part from Piper.

  ‘Can’t believe she’d steal a student’s idea,’ he said. ‘It may not be illegal but it’s unethical.’

  ‘She thinks I came up with it. It was awkward.’

  ‘More awkward now. Better tell her.’

  ‘She’s on a roll. I don’t want to derail her. Anyway, I thought you couldn’t copyright an idea.’

  ‘But you can be an arsehole. Don’t shit on your doorstep: the literary community in this country isn’t big.’

  It was a strange response from Gideon, who’d always put Emily first and the opinion of the literary community nowhere.

  Emily kept me in suspense until she arrived home.

  ‘I’m trying to write something that will appeal to a broad readership…’

  ‘It’s called popular fiction. Come on, say the words.’

  ‘Contemporary fiction. It’s not a thriller; it’s not genre; it’s more psychological. Anyway, it’s three strands, linked by theme: three because of your rule, okay? If not for that, it could be four. And I can’t see how the strands can fit into your three-act structure. So, unless there’s something I’ve missed about three-act structures, or unless…’

  ‘Slow down. That’s your question? Questions plural?’

  ‘There’s more. I haven’t expressed it well. I guess, to start with, I was wondering if there was some other structure I could use.’

  ‘You don’t pick structures out of a catalogue. You come up with one to serve the story you want to tell. Possibly one that’s been used before, but…you’ve got to be used to thinking in those terms. Which I am.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t want…’

  ‘I heard you, Emily. This is starting to get annoying. You said you wanted my advice. So, listen. You want to write a novel. And it’s not about your mother.’

  ‘It’s about guns and shooting people. And a bird.’

  ‘A blackbird sitting on a lawn. Haven’t you done that already?’

  ‘The New Yorker’s publishing the short story. And they suggested I turn it into a novel.’

  I wanted to hug her. And she looked like she wanted me to do that. But I just said, ‘Congratulations. And you’re going to slip in the terrorist bit, like you said you wouldn’t.’

  ‘If you’re going to…’

  ‘I’m not. But if you want to do the structure properly, it’s going to be like the exercise we did. Work. Not a two-minute answer and a lazy walk-away when it gets hard. It’s your book, you’re the author, but you’ve got to let me in. And we’re going to do it like…partners. I’m still sleeping in my office but we’re going to the bar to discuss this. Not the same bar. New project, new bar, moving forward. We’ll go to the retro place on Smith Street. You can pull out any time you like.’

  ‘Scott, I don’t want you to…’

  ‘You want to know how to structure a four-strand story so people will want to read it? Then come to the bar with me.’

  I needed a glass of wine to go with my humble pie. For all the talking-up of my contribution, I wasn’t going to get any recognition for it, except within our relationship, such as it was. That was what mattered, I told myself.

  We disposed of the rule of three in short order: it didn’t apply to strands and there was no reason why she shouldn’t keep all four storylines. We needed to find a more concrete way of linking them and I suspected it wouldn’t be easy: I flagged it as my creative challenge for the next couple of days. As for structures that supported multiple strands, we could have started with a movie like Crash, but it was a bit fringe—and anyway, why bother looking at movies when every TV show from Dallas to Succession has run three or four or five parallel stories?

  Emily was prepared to listen. Indeed, she was listening attentively, enthusiastically, alluringly. She was into this story with an enthusiasm I hadn’t seen since The Girl—and with more ideas of her own.

  ‘This probably wouldn’t work…’

  ‘Just spit it out.’

  ‘All right. What if we…what if I…wrote the present-day parts, like the soldier in the nursing home and the bird shooter at your book event, in past tense, but the shootings that they’re remembering in present tense, because it’s more immediate to them than their actual lives?’

  ‘Sounds totally reasonable to me. As an idea to consider. What about writing their back stories in future tense?’

  ‘Are you serious? You’re not…’

  ‘I’m serious that you can think about it. My guess is you could make it work, but it’d draw attention to the writing, which I think’s a mistake—but if it’s literary fiction, that’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘I thought it was going to be popular fiction.’

  ‘Emily, anything you write is going to be literary. We’re just going to make sure it has a shape. So, brace yourself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve got a whole lot of fragments already written, right?’

  ‘Not fragments, whole pieces.’

  ‘For our purposes—your purposes—you’re going to need to break them into smaller…pieces. So you can fit bits in between. That’s what you said, isn’t it?’

  ‘More or less. Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Cards. We’re going to have to do the cards. It’s the only way.’

  We went home and got to work breaking Emily’s New Yorker story and the terrorist chapter into scenes: a card for each, different colours for the four narrative strands. Laid out on the buffet bar in the kitchen, they made an impressive start.

  I added the cards I’d written for the terrorist novel. ‘That’s why I chose white for the terrorist strand. To match.’

  She laughed. ‘It’s dominating a bit.’

  ‘Work to do on the others. Starting now. Let’s get down whatever ideas you’ve had. And we’d better have a go at that decision you’re worried about: Layla decides to become a terrorist.’

  ‘You don’t want to leave it till later?’

  ‘Do the tough stuff early. Gives us the most time to work on it. What would she tell her best friend?’

  ‘Seriously, you want to go through this?’

  ‘Unless you’ve got a better technique.’

  ‘I don’t have any techniques. But I guess that she’d say she was doing it for a greater good. Climate change. The end justifies the means. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘If you want bang, bang, shoot, shoot, good guys, bad guys. But I thought this was going to be about the psychology. So, what does she tell her therapist?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s felt unempowered all her life, and now she has a chance to do something.’

  Thank God she hadn’t said insecurity. I didn’t need to give Piper any more fuel for an argument about originality. ‘Great. Let’s not lock it in yet.’

  ‘No, let’s lock it in. Trust me, it feels right.’ She smiled, wryly. ‘It won’t be hard for me to imagine.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘We can set that up with a scene from her past where we see events happening out of her control. Maybe the family moves and she loses all her friends…’

  ‘I don’t like it. A kid in that situation would adapt eventually. It’s a crisis, but it’s not really beyond her power. I mean, you adapted when you were a kid, didn’t you? You didn’t feel out of control?’

  ‘I’m not everyone. But give me a better idea.’

  ‘I’m thinking…Maybe tension between the parents that she can’t do anything about.’

  ‘Okay. Layla remembers tension between her parents. Throw me the pen and we’ve got another card.’

  ‘That doesn’t totally capture what I’m saying. Plus it’s not exactly show-don’t-tell, is it?’

  ‘It’s a placeholder. We know what it means. Or you do. The cards are just for you and me.’ You and me. I didn’t correct myself, and Emily let it go.

  ‘It’s a big jump,’ she said. ‘From tension between parents to killing strangers.’

  ‘I thought you said it felt right. I agree. We’ll build a bridge. And we haven’t even done question three.’

  ‘I’d have thought we’d gone deep enough.’

  ‘Never. Let me have a go. The therapist is going to say that she has an insatiable desire for control, because whatever she does never solves the original problem with the parents.’

  Emily thought about it for a while and I forced myself to shut up. And used the time to recognise how much I was enjoying doing what we were doing.

  ‘Maybe her life script just keeps taking her places where others set the agenda,’ said Emily. ‘Because she’s never learned how to take control.’

  Now that I had a good sense of what we were trying to achieve, I was feeling reasonably confident I could get us there. We’d have enough material. And it seemed I wasn’t breaking my promise about staying away from Emily’s novel, because this wasn’t the novel.

  If we wanted to keep the manuscript to a nominal eighty thousand words, then each of the four strands would be about twenty thousand. Structuring it so that it felt like a whole—like a story—with the strands crossing over and touching each other, would be trickier, and my only relevant experience was writing a few TV episodes for screenwriting class. I’d have to hit the books.

  ‘Can we try putting the cards in order?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Why not? We’re not committing to anything.’

  By the time we were done it was 9.45 p.m. and we hadn’t eaten. Emily made pasta and I threw together a salad.

  ‘Like old times,’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘Don’t go getting ideas.’

  Why not? The chemistry was there—had been there all evening. But some part of Emily that I understood intuitively, but could make no sense of, wanted to keep the professional and personal separate. Or at least wasn’t ready to revisit the personal. I’d told her that I valued the joy of creativity more than sex: I was getting a chance to prove it.

  In any case, she changed the subject—to the one I’d failed to raise. ‘Some of those cards in the terrorist story I don’t remember.’

  ‘I did a few after you pulled out.’

  ‘With Piper?’

  ‘I suppose. Let’s see what we keep before worrying about it. You said you weren’t going to use most of it anyway.’

  ‘I don’t know. I think you need to speak to her.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Again.’

  27

  Piper

  ‘He basically said that everything I contributed to the plot is his and there’s nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘That’s what they teach you in screenwriting school,’ says Gideon. ‘Speaking as a lawyer, not as your…speaking as a lawyer, you’re screwed. You can’t copyright an idea, and the whole thing, yours and his, isn’t much more than that. If he was actually going to use words you’d written, it’d be different.’

  ‘I guess that says something about what the law thinks about plot and prose. I mean, one’s worth something, the other isn’t.’

  Gideon laughs. ‘Good argument. I wouldn’t try it on Scott.’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18