The Da Vinci Code- Dan Brown.

[Carlsborg Expert]

Yeah but no but yeah but..


Each novel has its own identity, then it is catogorised by what it knows its identity to be. Be it a *vein* of horror (or alternative type)or experimental/contempory {all under ficton.


Then its reliance on its consumer buying conjecture it will be released on its familiarity with purchasers

the detective novels, Marlow are a great example of the sale/predictictable storyline success.

Each generation follows the most formidable literal successors.

Writers choose to use combined material to keep the familiar audience, then change the next book to reach further cataclysms

thus furthering themselves as writers.

As Stephen Kings says,

"you write 10000 words a day and you know 8000 are gonna be put into a bin.

but on good days you can get 2000 of those words to make sense or at least sentences."

You got to kiss a lot of Toads...in my opinion.

[Quirkafleeg]

I bet Gordon's ringing his agent right now: "It's like the De Vinci code but it's set in Edinburgh..." Expect cryptic questions in the chat.

Well King... well years ago I thought he could rock but now I think he's far from great even at his best.

ACtually very early in their careers, Grisham and Clancy wrote some good novels, no matter what garbage they later produced. The Firm aint bad and The Hunt for Red October is a classic cold war military thriller. I don't know if Dan Brown's even managed that

The best 'best seller' I'm into at the moment is Ian Rankin.

[Bico]

I'm probably the only one who thinks that Clancy is almost racist in his simplistic portrayal of non-Americans, so I won't even try to justify the claim...

[Art]

What, even with Rainbow Six and it's portrail of national stereotypes coming together to blat terrrorists*?

*Okay, usually arabs, but sometimes theres some commies and - worse - ecologists!

[Conexus]

Bah! Deconstrucing a book is the least fun you can have, especially when all you want to do is read the bloody thing (spotting that a word keeps on being repeated superfulously, or worse reasoning that the phrase you just read would work better is trimmed down, and didn't underline what was already obvious)

- Damn creative writing degree :(

[Bico]

True to a certain extent - Pratchett, Cussler and Clancy follow these rules, but these are deliberate extensions of franchise properties, even if stories, settings and characters can turn out to vary wildly.  What about 'proper' novels?  I'd name an example, but as a comic reader, I am completely illiterate (these posts are dictated to my Iranian manservant, Abdul), though I still buy Nick Hornby novels.
It's also been claimed somewhere or other that there's only about seven different stories, and every novel or movie is just an interpretation of one of them.  Buggered if I'm the man to prove this through reasoned and rational arguement, though.  If someone asks nicely, maybe Gordon or Floyd will do it - they seem to actually think about what they're writing before they post, but I can't be bothered with that bollocks myself,  I just make this up as I go.

Pretending to be a bear.  What the fuck was I thinking?

(praise Allah)

[Art]

Abdul means "Servant" doesn't it? Very GFD.

[Bico]

Unintentional, though.  I'm not that clever.

[Carlsborg Expert]

arh grevious giving in to the " enlightened"mmph cttn frkkn wllgasp.

[Carlsborg Expert]

Prof Bear,how about Brigand Doom.

Or Dick Turpin.


XX

2 all.

[GordonR]

"It's like the De Vinci code but it's set in Edinburgh..."

GOLD!

The Stone of Destiny, kept in Edinburgh Castle, actually contains secret cryptograms that prove Jesus was really Chinese.  It gets stolen by the Knights templar, who murder its curator and leave handy cryptic clues at the scene of the crime about what they're going to do next.  This involves using a stolen photon torpedo dark matter bomb to blow up the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and kidnapping various members of the Scottish Parliament and holding them in various scenic tourist attractions around the city.

Our hero, a dashing Austalian academic (I'm thinking Eric Banna or Hugh Jackman for the movie) and world expert in some load of old has to stop all this.  Luckily, the dead curator has a beautiful young niece, who looks a lot like Kiera Knightly and has a PHD in Hot Tottie-ness.  

He's also helped by a kindly old Scottish academic called Professor Angus Villain, who has a withered arm, a cleft palate, a lazy eye and is in a wheelchair.  

Can Eric Bana (or Hugh Jackman) find the Stone of Destiny, defuse the photon torpedo dark matter bomb, save the policians, take care of the evil hunchbacked garlic-chewing French assassin that's hunting him, unmask the mystery evil mastermand and shag Kiera Knightly, all before the end of 400 pages?

[Conexus]

Pah! Chinese? Who cares for Chinese, why not play up the Scottish Egyptian link ? It could reveal that the last phararoh fled to Scotland and died in the Highlands with loads of gold and jewels, but not before.....inventing the haggis and bagpipes    

[Bad Andy]

Careful where you go with Scottish Egyptians - Mohammed Al Fayed might slap a writ on your ass for defamation of character

[Quirkafleeg]

Gordon, excellent... but I think you really need to set it during the Festival as that's when most of your target audience (fat yanks who buy books at airports) have ever been to Edinburgh and work in Deacon Brody, that cannibal family, Jekyll and Hyde (I'm sure most yanks think they are real), cryptic clues in a tartan pattern of the kilt of a highland piper on a shortbread tin, nessie and the Scot Memorial IS a space rocket...  (and don't forget me when you spend years on end on the top the best-seller chart)

[GordonR]

Them's good points, gary.  If I throw Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper into the mix, as old Edinburgh villains, do you think the target readership will know the difference.

Naturally, I won't credit you with any of this, but you can write the non-fiction follow-up - 'The Jings an' Crivens Codex Deciphered' which will explain to everyone just how clever I am.