Friday 6 March 2015

E is for ENDS

Later in the year I’ll be bringing you an A-Z of THE MADAGASKAR PLAN which, like its predecessor, will give a ‘behind the scenes’ insight to the writing of the book. In the meantime I’m going to sneak in the letter E.

I never write ‘The End’ when I finish a book. I’ve always found it rather juvenile (with apologies to all those writers who do). I also think it inaccurate. A novel doesn’t end just because you finish putting the words down on the page. An author can revisit their work (and here I must admit I’m still tinkering with the text of The Afrika Reich; the definitive version of which is not the paperback but the one on my computer.) A book also develops a life of its own once it’s published and readers begin to make it theirs. If it stays around long enough, different generations of readers will interpret it in different ways. ‘The End’ sounds presumptive, and far too final.

Nevertheless, Madagaskar is at last finished. I’ve checked the proofs, made my final alterations, and from this point to publication I can no longer make any substantial changes to the text. I require something to mark the moment and tell my publisher that I’m done. 


When I worked as a foreign correspondent, I needed a similar word to signify an article had reached its final paragraph. This was especially true when I was filing from some dodgy country abroad in those days of more primitive telecommunications, when articles were sometimes cut short in transmission. The word I was advised to use was ‘ends’. There’s something about the present tense of the verb with its double connotation of conclusion and continuation that seems ideally suited for being the very last word in a manuscript. I’ve always used it for my books. It seems appropriate today.


E is also for Epic

I’ve written before how I planned [geddit?] to do something different with Madagaskar. One of the qualities I wanted was a much bigger feel than the first book. To give it a truly epic sweep. To that end it’s meatier than the original in both the physical sense - it’s almost 100 pages longer – and in terms of content which sees six interweaving narrative strands, much more world building and a story that will take you from Britain to Africa (Kongo, Sudan, Deutsch Ost Afrika, Mozambique), to Madagaskar and finally the heart of the Reich and Germania itself.

Intriguingly, if you look at this Wikipedia entry and its list of ten characteristics of the epic, Madagaskar uses all but numbers 3 (evocation of the muse), 5 (epithets) and 6 (epic catalogue):

14 comments:

  1. dammit - I am sure that I have seen an apocalyptic film that ended with the "That's All , Folks!" bit...can't remember what though....

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    1. Adrian - does DR STRANGELOVE have something like that?

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  2. I used to write "Fin" at the end of my school essays - until a smelly teacher marked me down for it. Git.

    Anyway! Huge congratulations!!!! Madagaskar Plan is fin! LOL! Now when may I get my grubby little hands on a signed copy? It's been a very long wait! BUT now I'm slightly nervous of our hero's potential fate seeing how no.10 of the epic rules state how it "Often features the tragic hero's descent into the Underworld or hell." Yowza. What have you done with Mr Cole!?!?
    Take care
    x
    p.s. re: potential film with the "that's all folks" ending and trying hard not to google - I'll opt for Dr Strangelove! :-)

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    1. KITTY - Great minds think alike, bcs I just suggested to Adrian it might be STRANGELOVE!

      Thanks for the congratulations! :-)

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  3. I don't think you are bound to the convention of writing The End. As Leonardo da Vinci said, 'Works of art aren't finished, they're abandoned.' :-)

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    1. Anon - I've used the da Vinci quote myself before; I do like it!

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  4. Oh good golly, it's all so FABULOUSLY exciting!

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  5. Hm... looking at the wiki entry, how do you get by no8, about divine intervention? Well done on finishing!

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    1. L - thanks for the question. Obviously I'm not talking literally! But what I mean by 'divine intervention' is that the main Nazis - Hitler, Himmler etc- never appear in person in the text, but affect events from afar... rather like the gods of Olympus intervening in the affairs of Odysseus etc

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  6. Amazing. I cannot wait until it comes out in Kanada on August 4th.

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  7. Anon - thanks for your comment, and loved 'Kanada'! Glad you enjoyed the book... and yes, the sequel will be hitting the shops in your part of the world in early August.

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  8. Guy Saville

    My eyes are bulging, my head is pounding. It's your damn fault!

    I have just this minute finished Afrika Reich. I can't believe you had the guts to end it on such an open, such a dark, such a brilliant note, and a twist I would never have guess in a million years! Truly breath-taking.

    I'm a med student currently working in Budapest (though herald from Ireland; it's a long story). I have to be up in five hours to start a shift. I should have laid down the book an hour ago but as I approached the end it was literally glued to my hands. I had to know what happened. And you didn't disappoint.Pure adrenaline and such a vividly imagined world, I can smell and breath the fire. Hear the poudning of the guns in Loanda and the sun breaking through the smoke and darkness.

    I truly can not wait to see what happens next, how the war turns out, what Burton finds when he gets home, whether Neliah survives the war, what Hochburg's next move will be. I hear what you say about Book 2. I can't wait to see more of this stunning African Reich you've created from the pages of a history that was never written. Get it right, please, but get it published soon too.

    And now I REALLY must go to bed.

    Daniel

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  9. Daniel - thanks for your comment and many apologies for not replying sooner. I thought I had replied, yet I've just logged on and found your comment awaiting moderation. Not sure what's happened there!

    Anyway... so glad to hear you enjoyed the book and I'm thrilled you liked the twist ending. I think the key to a good twist is to disguise it completely, but make it entirely logical when it is revealed.

    You'll be glad to know (if you haven't seen already) that Book 2, THE MADAGASKAR PLAN, is out next month and will answer many of the questions you raised...

    Apologies again for not replying sooner.

    Guy

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