by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I really love Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag.” So, in the back of my mind as I work on these five novels, I think about that character in the context of the character who is really the source of all the chaos that attacks the little Southern town I’ve come up with.
So, let me lay out what’s going on. The first book starts about 25 years ago. And it’s about the events leading up to, and the immediate consequences of, the murder of a Fleabag-like young woman. Or, put another way, imagine the damage Fleabag might cause if you plopped her in a small Southern town 25 years ago.
A lot, is what I believe.
(If I was going to cast this particular character in a movie adaptation of this book, it would be Bella Thorne. She’s perfect.)
But the point is — the character did not deserve what happened to her, even if she was really causing a lot of problems for people in the town. And, as such, the five novels are about how one person’s has value. The over-all, macro arc of the story is about how each one of us has value as a human being, pretty much no matter how bad our behavior. (Within reason, of course.)
So, I like I toying with the implications of Fleabag-like character “coloring outside the lines” leading to her murder in a small town and how everyone has to deal with with the consequences over the course of a generation.
That’s the creative itch that keeps me obsessed with these five novels. That and the idea that by the time readers get to the four and fifth books the allegory for Trumplandia that I’ve come up with makes total sense. Of course that’s what would happen, I want readers to say to themselves when we discover how fucked up the small Southern town I’ve come with is by that point.
But we are talking about five novels. Things are moving really fast at the moment — I’m currently at about the fourth chapter mark of either a really good first draft or a mediocre second draft. Let me be clear, however, I’m pretty much doing this in a total vacuum.
I don’t have a muse. I have no one to talk to. No one likes me and I have no friends. But I can tell a Goddamn good story. So, lulz, only time will tell, I guess.
