I have just killed off a character in my book. I think this means that I am into the final furlong of my novel.
Originally, I planned to kill off three characters and a family dog. However, I quickly decided the family dog getting run over was just gratuitous sentimentality. You see, I don’t want my novel to be compared to a Kathy Reichs one. I once read one of her novels which started off with a jumbo jet crashing and the first thought that sprang into my mind was “Hey, ho this serial killer is pretty ambitious!” I then immediately checked the room for blow flies. And moths. And I kept a body count for the rest of the book: I think it ended up being abut 9,753, 467.
Talking of body counts, the other evening I watched the first episode of The Following, starring Kevin Bacon. It was fairly gruesome stuff: I had to watch some parts through my fingers. Fortunately they were still on my hand and hadn’t severed off by a nutter sewing a dress out of fingers whilst citing Vivienne Westwood as a fashion influence.
Or to look a it another way The Following made Downton Abbey seemed really quite mundane. In episode one of The Following about ten people get killed (I lost count). In episode one of Downton Abbey the big thrill was the parlour maid almost causing a a poisonous cleaning substance to be sprinkled over a chicken – for about five minutes I was sitting on the edge of my seat wondering if Hugh Bonneville was going to die with a chicken drumstick in his mouth. Unfortunately Julian Fellowes (the writer) lost his nerve and Hugh Bonneville lived to eat another chicken. I felt utterly cheated. I had to endure five minutes of acute emotional distress for nothing, absolutely nothing. There should at least have been some food poisoning and loose bowels.
I quite like Kevin Bacon as an actor. Bit of an unfortunate name though. Although it could have been worse had it been Kevin Chop or Kevin Sausage. Did you know Kevin has a band? Well it’s a band that consists of him and his brother, Michael. It’s called The Bacon Brothers. Yes, I could make some predicable jokes about butchers etc but I’m not going to Kevin is a fine actor and deserves my respect. Besides I love bacon butties. You can’t beat a hot bacon butty with a bit a of tomato ketchup and some diced eyeballs.
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| Kevin Bacon trying to disguise himself as a geek. It’s not working. He is still going to be tracked down and have his eyeballs removed – unless by some stroke of good fortune the serial killer chokes to death on a bacon butty at the very last moment. I guess that would make it marginally more interesting than the traditional sprawling fight and shot in the dark. I wonder if they could get item placement sponsorship for the Bacon butty from MacDonalds? Now there’s an opportunity. (Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.) |
So anyway at the moment when I’m not writing my novel I’m watching episodes of Downton Abbey and The Following for inspiration.
I think it’s going to be a pretty screwed up novel, especially as it’s a comedy. I’m not sure how that works really. Oh well.
