Tag: Bella Thorne

Of ‘Fleabag,’ ROKon Magazine & Daydreaming About Jennifer Lawrence In The Movie Version Of This First Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really need to shut up about any potential movie adaptation of a novel that’s not even finish yet. But, lulz, I’m a nobody and the only people who read this blog are stalkers or people who stumble across it for this or that reason.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

It’s the murder of a Fleabag-type character that ultimately serves as the catalyst for the dramatic transformation of small Southern town I’ve come up with. I’ve mentioned that Bella Thorne would be ideal to play the character in any movie potential movie adaptation, but I have a huge ego and, as such, I realize what I really what is Jennifer Lawrence to play a person that Bella Thorne could play just by being herself.

LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 01: Jennifer Lawrence attends a photocall for “Passengers” at Claridge’s Hotel on December 1, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

The character is inspired — even based on — the late Annie Shapiro who was, in her own way, at least somewhat like Fleabag. (This is really stretching it, but Fleabag is a character everyone understands when you invoke it and as such, that’s why I’m using it.)

The late Annie Shapiro. RIP.

Annie Shapiro was a very, very unique person. And I’ve been trying to tell our story in the context of ROKon Magazine in Seoul for the better part of 20 years now. But I’ve finally accepted that it’s just not going to happen. So, instead, I’m using things I know to be true and pouring them into a five novel series set around something else I know to be true — what it’s like to live in a small Southern town.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, in my mind, the character whose murder changes everything is a mixture of Annie Shapiro fused with Fleabag as played by Jennifer Lawrence if she was channeling Bella Thorne.

Bella Thorne

Anyway.

Of Bella Thorne & The Influence Of ‘Fleabag’ On These 5 Novels I’m Developing & Writing


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.

Call your agent (one day.)

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.