by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m operating completely in a vacuum with this novel. I have no idea what I’m doing. But I do have a very specific vision. Part of that vision is I want my female romantic lead (the person closest to the hero and the person he talks to the most) to be inspired by Alexa Chung.
But there’s a little bit of a problem, given how fucked up the world it these days.
Chung doesn’t look “Asian,” despite her surname. Now, in the novel it’s really easy to explain how this happened to my female romantic lead, just like it happened to Alexa Chung. Her dad was three-fourth’s Asian and, as such, she doesn’t have traditional Asian apperence.
But I’m ambitious.
I want this novel to be a pulpy, fast read like Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series. My novel is meant to be an American answer to his work, but it’s also meant to be something of a guilty pleasure for educated liberal women in the sense that it’s also an allegory for the Trump Era. (Let me be clear, this is all in my head — any actual person with any knowledge of said market would probably laugh at me.)
As such, my dream is for this novel to be adapted into a movie. The perfect person to play the female romantic lead is Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She’s the right age and appearance, everything. But another person who could play the role is Jennifer Lawrence.
One thing to remember is, this is a novel, not a screenplay. I do all this talking about Hollywood stars despite this for no other reason than I need SOME SORT of reference point in constructing characters. Jennifer Lawrence’s is such a huge star and such a great actress that if I win the lottery and my dreams of writing a break out novel come true, the idea that people would bitch about her “not looking Asian” in any move adaptation is really annoying.
Or, you could just say I think too much.
I should be developing, not mentally masturbating about such an unlikely thing.
