A while ago
I set myself the goal of embarking on the project of writing a novel. As a voracious reader, in many ways this was
almost a natural progression for me. In
my late childhood leading into my early teens when I came back from living in
the United States living and my family was temporarily living in my grandma’s
house I didn’t have many distractions to keep me occupied. I didn’t get along very well socially at the
school so I didn’t have any friends to meet up with and do things with. So I eventually started to write. First of all there were small plots here and
there followed by entire series of my beloved series Star Trek Voyager. Eventually I conceived of an entire series of
books about a bounty hunter in space who only took contracts to fight bad guys
with a robot sidekick in tow. This boy
was, and in many ways still is, a science fiction nerd. It certainly passed the
hours by. And while many of those
creations back then make me feel slightly embarrassed now (although they were
pretty creative for an aspiring author so young) I still have a bit of pride in
me for the results of my efforts.
A few years
ago I caught the writing bug again and attended first a short course in novel
writing for a day then one that went over months. I remember vividly coming into class in the
evening from my latest soul destroying job.
Sharing ideas with people. Being
inspired by new ideas for my novel.
Getting excited when a plot twist idea came out of nowhere. I decided to pursue a vaguely conceived idea
of a police detective story including vampires, set in Bristol of all
places. Its working title was ‘West
Sector Nine’. It was mean’t to be like
The Wire or The Shield with vampires.
Why vampires? Well to be honest I
was sick with the Twilight craze and wanted to try to bring vampires down to
earth. No more sappiness and portrayal
of vampires as mysterious, ethereal and often improbably attractive and
athletic looking (despite the long term deceased condition). I wanted to seriously conceive of how the
characters of vampires would change and how it would living as second class
citizens to humans effected their view of the world. Vampires I decided ultimately would be more
startling in their similarities just a lot more world wise. Some would be nice and some would be
appalling characters who frankly wouldn’t care about suffering they inflict,
either just to survive or to gain supremacy over their human rivals. They would be a mixed bag of characters, much
like ourselves. But most intriguingly
for a detective story they would have learned from human behaviour from many
years and as a result become exceptionally skilled liars and master
manipulators.
But the more
I pursued this project the more frustratingly impractical and elusive it became
for me. Vampire stories have been done
to death in films, books and TV series.
I could sense the cringe when I mentioned my pitch to certain
people. When I gave my pitch it was
often inevitably followed by the inevitable “True Blood have already done this”. In the end I decided to put the project on
ice. Not destroy everything, just shelf
it until further notice. My interest in
the project waned and in the end I recognised that I had nowhere near the
staying power of the writers of True Blood.
To the victor the spoils.
But at the
beginning of this year the novel idea just wouldn’t let me go. Perhaps it had something to do with this year
being one which I began with the objective of setting myself ambitious personal
goals. I told myself I would not be in the
same place career wise that time of year in a year’s time. After seeing a documentary about the Ebola
virus outbreak in West Africa that moved me to tears I decided to do something
I never did before and run a half marathon to raise money for the relief
effort. Two months onwards from then I
was running 3 miles for my training, which was 3 miles more than I have ever
ran before. I continued on my merry way
satisfying my acute hunger for reading, absorbing ideas as I went. I mostly read non-fiction but now and then I
would stumble on a stand out piece of fiction that gripped me and taught me
lessons about novel writing that I will never forget. The book “I am Legend” is a prime example of
this. More on this later.
But
ultimately my ideas for novels tend to stem from contemporary debates and by
observing the wonderful and god awful things that happen on this crazy planet,
this latest project being no exception.
Looking at these things from a comparative historical point of view can
also put an interesting light on things and can produce a goldmine of
ideas. With West Sector Nine I wanted to
recall many issues that seemed to be hovering around the country at the
time. My own experiences of the abuse of
police power and the shocking revelations that came out about the Hillsborough
disaster made me want to pick up on the moral problem about giving individuals
too much power. I wanted to express the
public’s cynicism about politics and the politician’s dilemma of being ever
demonised by them no matter what they do.
Recalling from my own experience I wanted to play on the theme of
lasting friendly relationships unexpectedly forming between unlikely people,
which is pretty much the happy story of my life. But the world turns quickly and before you
know it the news cycle has turned once again.
A new strand of thought began.
The year
2014 saw the emergence in the world media of the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria. They seemed to spring forth from
the ashes of wartorn Iraq and Syria, from the press's simplified perspective at
least. Here we have a genocidal horde
who are so evil an ultraviolent that even Al Qaeda, hardly pacifists
themselves, denounced them as being devils.
Their motto "we expand" seemed then to suit them well ( and in
many ways still does) since they seemed to effortlessly take entire swathes of
Iraqi and Syrian territory. But one of
the aspects of this threat that seemed to chill western countries including
this one was the speed with which many, but mercifully not anywhere near the majority,
of disaffected Muslims sought to leave this country and join this group of
religious fascists. Britain has been
left dealing with the prospect of approximately 500 and growing trained
jihadists coming back to our shores once the Islamic State is no more. There seems to be a majority consensus that
those fighters who return from the Islamic State must be detained in some way
or another, lest they merge back into the population and become ticking time
bombs. But what most interested me when
reading into this topic was the increase in reports of Britons going abroad to
join groups that are fighting against IS.
An edition of BBC Question Time seemed to capture the dilemma well. Most of those in the audience wanted to see
the British IS fighters dealt with, no surprises there, but they were more
divided over what do about those that went out to fight on the opposite
lines. Much of the audience was
baffled. Who would do this? Isn't it a bit strange to just get up and
fight in some far off land when you can stay at home and change the
channel? The Tory MP guest seemed to be
advocating locking up all of the returning fighters up regardless of what flag
they were flying. Then a woman put her
hand up and asked something that seemed to give everyone pause for thought;
"Aren't those going out to fight IS just like the brave people who
volunteered to go out and fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War?"
The Spanish
Civil War broke out between the elected republican government of Spain and it's
supporters known as the Republicans against much of the Spanish military and
it's supporters under General Francisco Franco in 1936. This was during the age of fascism where
Hitler had been in power for 3 years and Mussolini had been in power for 14
years. The Blackshirts in London started
to stir too. It seemed as though fascism
was on the way up. In response to this
socialist, communist and anarchist parties within and without Spain called for
volunteers to help form the International Brigades. Volunteers from all walks of life answered
the call such as ex servicemen and various members of the working class of
different political persuasion, all united by their opposition to fascism. Even a few now well known writers including
George Orwell joined the fight. In terms of international support for the
different sides of the conflict there was a power imbalance since while the
Soviet Union supported the Republicans and the Fascist powers supported the
Nationalists, the main democracies in Europe stayed neutral.
So this all
led me on to the idea of writing about the concept of a modern International
Brigade. My novel would explore various
questions such as most notably how would it work? Wouldn't such an organisation be essentially
an illegal paramilitary organisation? Or
indeed technically a terrorist group?
What would separate the members of this group from terrorists? Why would people even want to join in the
first place? Why is this idea seemingly
less attractive now than it was back in the days of the Spanish Civil War. I think the latter has a lot to do with the
fact that thanks to 24 hours news the images of war and it's horrors are a lot
closer.
In many ways
this novel concept is my cheeky act of revenge against the parts of the
political left who don’t fail to disappoint me.
Years after the wars in Libya and Iraq it seems many voices just can’t
help themselves and say a little too smugly “I told you so”. Those voices even go so far to talk up the
leaders who came before those wars, making Gaddafi sound like Mother Theresa
with a secret police force. It is not
that those people’s opinions don’t have a point about raising cautionary tales
about interventions, to me what I find distasteful is the extent they take them
to. What is more frustrating is that it
works more as a mental roadblock more often than it works as a practical
argument when it comes to working a way out of the difficulties we face
today. For instance in a typical
argument on a political forum on Facebook, any discussion about IS and what to
do about them is met by the overheard “well we created the conditions that
brought them there”. Thanks for that
Sherlock, any suggestions about what to do about this awful situation. Essentially then the person espousing this
view will argue to do nothing, either by referring to their initial answer
described or by implying that anything we do is useless since we are ultimately
selfish. Yes the standard of debating is
set that low on the internet.
But if you
dwell on the concept of an International Brigades group formed for the sole
purpose of fighting against tyranny and promoting democracy you find there is
definitely not a shortage of tyranny out there.
In Equatorial Guinea a tinpot dictatorship has been in place longer than
I have been alive. After the not so
affectionately named previous president Mad Uncle Macias was executed his
nephew took charge of this tiny African nation.
After discovering massive oil and gas reserves in the country the lions
share of the oil money went to the President’s family and government
officials. The President’s son Teodora
is famous for spending the country’s annual education budget on luxury cars,
yachts and hotel suites. All the while
the country is ruled by a climate of fear.
In The Gambia President (formerly general) took power in a military coup
in 1994 and has since not left. He is
notable for making outlandish comments such as claiming that he can make herbal
remedies for AIDS and Yellow Fever.
Police violence is endemic as is corruption through all levels of
society. The most well known African
basket case at the moment is Zimbabwe, on which my planned novel will focus on
(albeit with a fictionalised variant).
Robert Gabriel Mugabe the man once lauded as a freedom fighter and a
beacon of hope has now pretty much become the complete opposite. Betraying every ideal he seemed to stand for
Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is a democratic society in paper only. The economy is a mess. The health system is near hopeless. Corruption is everywhere, especially centred
on the President’s family and loyalists. Democratic elections may as well be
relabelled civil wars given the scale of government supported violence that
occurs during them. As one student
opposition activist says “As peaceful revolution becomes impossible, it makes
violent revolution inevitable.”
Character
wise I am very excited at the prospect of developing the African dictatorship
angle. The dictator (for simplicity’s
sake I will refer to him as Mugabe) has a lot of potential to develop as a
frightening but at the same time very diverse character. He will be portrayed as someone who is
outwardly charming and polite in one on one interactions, but someone who at
the same time is slowly losing their grip on reality. He would be someone who is constantly
planning ahead, checking potential threats in the immediate and long term. He will often be nostalgic given his elderly
age and at the same time persistently worried about his vulnerabilities, which
are most obviously manifest in his physical ailments. His firey and often blood curdling speeches
will hide an inner addiction to violence as well as an inner insecurity, but at
the same time serve its purpose to fire up loyalists. But as his age advances he becomes more aware
of his rivals; his defence minister and heir apparent and now more worryingly
his wife the First Lady. The former is
an outwardly charismatic but inwardly Machiavellian character who is playing a
quiet but ruthless long game for the presidency. The latter who was before dismissed as no
more than a corrupt debutant is now gaining in political confidence, destroying
rivals unexpectedly at a rate that worries even her husband whom she
nonetheless has a massive influence on.
As the conflict with the International Brigades gets more heated, so do
the tensions between these players.
And what of
the International Brigades myself? Whose
idea was it anyway? In the novel I plan
to have this most unlikely of organisations assembled by some of the most
unlikely and motely collection of individuals you could imagine. This would include hated figures in British
society such as a tabloid journalist and a corrupt and flamboyant City banker
(as well as his long suffering PA who loathes him). A disillusioned Secret Intelligence Service
Case officer will also lend their expertise to the project as will a South
African ex apartheid-era assassin. They
will be accompanied by a less flamboyant and humble figure who is a taxi driver by trade but also voluntary relief
worker. This taxi driver figure is based
on a real life person who was tragically killed
by IS, so if this novel becomes a reality and goes towards being sold, I
will need to consult his family out of respect for them. I read about his story in the BBC News and I
found his story a touching one, and his warm character one that other people
would likely learn to appreciate and connect with. As you can see some of these people do not
sound like the most selfless people in the world. It is hard
to imagine all of these people being in the same room, let alone
organising a paramilitary group with altruistic intentions. But this is when the central themes of my
novel come into play. From a personal
point of view, there is no real definitive type of person I am friends
with. My friends are a humble and
diverse coalition of the strange. Some
people I get on with and others I do not.
Often with the former this tends to happen with people who are from
completely different backgrounds than my own.
To this end I wanted to play on the theme of a group of seemingly random
(and sometimes antagonistic with the banker and the journalist) group of
people, putting up with each other’s eccentricities and faults and working
towards a common cause. The theme of redemption
will also be very important, with some characters seemingly against their
nature trying to fight for it. Sometimes
this craving for redemption is prompted by a life changing event, such as it
does with the banker, or the acknowledgement of feelings that have been
building up in them for a long time, such as the case with the assassin. With some of the originally most selfish
characters, the nature of the enterprise that they are in leads them into
unavoidable moral conflicts. After all
the group has been formed to create violent struggles, albeit for good
causes. This does not always run
smoothly alongside their mission to make the world a better after spending most
of their lives doing the opposite.
So there we
have it; my novel. Please do not ask
when it is going to be done because I do not have a bloody clue. This is not on a strict timetable and the
story arcs may evolve over time into a direction I haven’t considered before. Either way I am confident that this will be a
personal challenge worth embarking on.
