by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I would say one of the biggest surprises to learn on a practical level about seriously writing a novel is how outside events shape the narrative. This especially the case since I want this novel to be my “Apocalypse Now” of the Trump Era. Instead of explicating the entirety of the Vietnam War in a movie, I’m doing so about life under Trump in a novel.
Two other movies that are important to me are Network and Being There. Network because it is both timeless and very timely. You could release Network today and would still be a success. I like how it explains the modern world in an entertaining fashion. I am not in anyway proposing I’m that good a writer, but it is at the forefront of my mind as I write.
Being There is really important to me because it’s a snapshot of post-Watergate America in the late 70s. If I wanted to explain to a teen what 1979 was like, I would show them Being There. So, even though my novel is completely different than Being There, there is a spiritual connection.
Anyway, the point is, I started this novel thinking it would be a snapshot — in a general way — of life leading up to the release of The Mueller Report. Well, given how long it takes — at least me — to write a novel as well as the unknowns of post-production, it’s definitely looking like this is going to be both more ambitious and more general. Instead of just the first two years of the Trump Era, the novel is meant to encompass the entirety of it in a general sense.
If I am successful with my vision for this novel, you’ll be able to read it over a three day weekend in 20201 and it not even really register that it was generated by my abject rage against MAGA (and extremism in general.) It should be just an interesting novel that’s very accessible and zips by. Only if I were to point it out to you will you notice the allegorical nature of the work.
But that’s down the road. For the time being, I’m hard at work on the first draft. It just takes physical time to write between 165,000 and 185,000 words. For the time being I have the proper momentum to keep going. It definitely doesn’t hurt that the very thing I’m so angry about that I want to write a novel about it — the Trump Era — definitely doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
