| The
Dromedary, the new online novel by J. Edward Keyes, debuts on velvetbluemusic.com
on 18 September. Here, Keyes discusses the concept behind the story
with Chris M. Short of Tidal Wave Magazine and Jason Martin of Starflyer
59...
++Jason Martin: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I think I figured it out in about 8th grade... I wasn’t a terribly
popular kid, I was always getting mocked, beat up, the usual. But then
in 8th grade I took this creative writing course, and I would write
these stories incorporating the very people who were beating me up.
Well, it turns out, the bullies would get a real kick out of the stories,
and I got sort of elevated to this minor-celebrity status -- every time
I wrote a new story, they would make one of our teachers give me like
15 minutes of class time to read it. So I was like "Hmmm, when
I write, I become popular" -- so I guess in a sense I started selling
out the second I picked up the pen (writing for popularity), and I guess
I really haven’t stopped selling out since. But, obviously, aside
from the incredible physical protection writing afforded me, it also
gave me terrific satisfaction to write these stories. So my reasons
weren’t completely, er, commercial.
++JM: When did you first come up with the concept for the DROMEDARY?
I have always been enamored with the idea of a continuing storyline.
Television shows I’ve been attracted to, shows like Twin Peaks,
The Prisoner, all employed a continuing storyline rather than isolated
60 minute episodes. I had been approaced by another website to write
some fiction for them back in October of ‘99, and I had this idea
of doing some sort of continuing story, and populating it with these
sort of bizarre, eccentric characters, since I’ve always enjoyed
creating sort of off-the-wall personalities. But that vague concept
of a "continuing story" became the idea for the Dromedary
while I was Christmas shopping with my girlfriend in FAO Schwartz. I
don’t want to give away too many of the twists I have planned
for The Dromedary, but suffice it to say that I saw a few things in
that store, and they started connecting with some other ideas I had
been kicking around, and suddenly all the isolated events started connecting
and the idea that became The Dromedary started taking shape. I’m
extraordinarily excited about it.
++Chris M. Short: What is this work called "The Dromedary"?
An episodic intrusion into thelives of ordinary folks? A serialized
jaunt down the roadway of those who are coping with the hand dealt to
them?
Probably nothing as intense as all that. I just want it to be this sort
of noirish potboiler mystery where no one should be taken at face value,
and where anything can happen. I don’t have any sort of great
symbolic message to convey -- in fact, part of the trick with The Dromedary
was to deliberately not have that metaphorical subtext. I think there’s
something to be said for writing a piece where the joy is not in the
"message", but the joy is in the construction of the story,
the characterization, setting, etc. I think that’s a skill right
there, for the writer to sort of challenge him or herself just to write
a good story. I think we’ve gotten so carried away in our little
niche market with "symbol" and "poetry" that we’ve
forgotten how to craft a good sentence. Flannery O’Connor once
said that the author should feel free to fill their story with symbols,
but if the symb! ols become the story -- as in the story cannot be understood
without understanding the symbols -- then ultimately you’ve failed
as a writer. And if you look at the great writers and directors -- Camus,
Bergman, Faulkner, Dostoevsky, early Fellini -- you didn’t always
need to understand what things "stood for" in order to enjoy
the story. I think I’ve become so disillusioned with meeting writers
my age who have this sort of glazed look in their eyes talking all this
highfalutin nonsense about "capturing the poetry of the world"
or "tapping into life’s passions", and really, what
the hell does that even mean? I mean, the only people you hear talking
like that are romance writers. If you read interviews with legit authors
like David Foster Wallace, or Margaret Atwood, or Annie Proulx, when
they speak it’s always real meat-and-potatoes, it’s always
about the craft. And that’s what I wanted! to do, to write a story
where the joy for me was in the craft.
++CMS: You seem to be a fan of good literature while integrating
late-twentieth century pop culture. In what I have read(being "Episode
One -Commencement"), I see William Faulkner and David Lynch (Twin
Peaks). Yet, there is a definite feeling that the Beats (i.e. Kerouac)
inhabit your pen. What is there to be said about influences?
I grew up on the Beat writers. When I was in High School, I
took out this Rhino Records Beat Generation box set from my public library
and taped the whole thing, and just listened to it religiously. I loved
the fact that their writing was so driven by rhythm and cadence -- that
all the words they chose just sort of sounded right together, and they
rattled along in this perfect beautiful tempo. I fell in love with the
idea of stringing a series of words together and having them create
this sort of ragged rhythm.
As I got older, I started branching out into authors who took the Beat
principles of rhythm and sound, but built them around a real specific
storyline, people like Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, and
even people like Joyce and Faulkner who obviously predated the Beats,
but have that same sort of cadence to their writing.
Then I went to this real conservative religious college, and one of
my fiendish roommates spent every waking hour trying to convince me
that this sort of literature, this post-modern lit that I loved, was
all "inferior" when compared with the "unblemished"
canon of classical lit -- and stupid me, I believed him. The consequence
was that most of what I wrote in college was utter garbage. After recovering
from that experience and rediscovering who I am after like four years
of denial, I think my writing now bears a pretty clear imprint of those
original influences, but obviously with my own personality woven in
there as well.
I’m also incredibly influenced by film, and I think that makes
certain passages real cinematic in terms of the way the move and unfold.
So hopefully that will work to the readers advantage. I kind of want
The Dromedary to be like a TV show that you read, if that makes any
sense.
++CMS: Characterization is built on rich description (not necessarily
wordy or immediately tell-all), and is essential to solid writing. It
seems that development of characters will be ongoing, made known at
the "right" moment. Will the reader need to "tune in"
to keep up with the characters? How many more characters are we going
to meet during the series?
Well, part of the reason I’m doing this is because I
love creating characters. So I don’t know for sure how many total
characters there will be, because I just love being in this position
where I can invent new personalities every couple of episodes. That
being said, I won’t let it get to the point where it’s impossible
to keep track of. There will definitely be this circle of key characters,
and they’ll be the most important, but I’m going to fill
the periphery with some pretty oddball types. Before I went to college,
I wrote this story called The Adventures of Zeke Flugelheim. It was
pretty flawed because I was like 17 when I wrote it, but one of the
things I still like about it is the bizarre characters that are sort
of on the loose throughout the story. I wanted to get back to that with
The Dromedary, get back into the art of writing people. And I also want
people to know that it’s going to be funny, ! and that it’s
not going to be some straight-faced "artistic" endeavor, and
that the humour is going to be drawn from these square-peg characters.
++JM: What is with the controversial GET HUMPED in the ads?
I read somewhere that one of the biggest marketing coups beind The Blair
Witch Project was their implementation of that stick figure. Some market
analyst was talking about how it always helps to have something "concrete"
to hang a campaign on. Well, a Dromedary is a kind of camel, and so
the leap from that to "Get Humped" was a relatively short
one. It’s just a sort of "concrete" phrase to hang the
whole endeavor on. As far as its controversial status as a double entendre,
I am aware of that, but I sincerely hope people will realize it’s
just a sort of winking joke, and that they won’t take it too seriously.
Let me also add that the "Get Humped" campaign is probably
the most controversial thing about The Dromedary. The episodes themselves
are quite "clean".
++CMS: Will the reader be aware of a hero, a villain? Or will
there be the anti-hero? Or a combination of good and bad (i.e. Faulkner's
Compson family or Ayn Rand's characters who are equally heroic and deplorable)?
There won’t be a villain, per se, like a mustachioed
bad guy lurking in the shadows or anything. Every character will have
a different sort of shade, and I think people’s perception of
"bad guy" and "good guy" will depend largely on
what they think of an individual’s personality type. There is
a character who will show up about three episodes in who is definitely
a big bastard, but I hope that his "bastardness" ultimately
becomes more comical than anything else. But I think also by virtue
of the fact that The Dromedary is a mystery, not every character’s
cards are going to be completely on the table from the get go. You may
start off loving a certain character and then just be shocked the more
you find out about them. And that’s the real challenge for me
-- to keep the people interesting.
++CMS: Penguin is the first character the reader will meet.
Is this our hero?
Yeah, to a degree, he is. The Penguin is based on this kid I went to
High School with, Pete Palimides. The Penguin is one of those classic
kids who is too timid to fit in with the cool crowd, but not dorky enough
to be considered a nerd. He’s just one of those "blend in"
kind of kids that were always just sort of the "extras" of
High School. And like all mystery protagonists, he just happens to be
in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place at the wrong
time, as the case may be.
++CMS: You choose to engage all the senses into your writing.
How important is this to your writing?
Extremely, extremely important. I always try to bend over backwards
to convey a sense of time & place, and to try to do it in the most
accurate way. Plus, descriptive passages afford me the opportunity to
do those sorts of rambling stream-of-consciousness sections, whereas
"action" scenes, by their very nature, don’t really
permit that quite as much. And I think a lot of this goes back to being
influenced so much by film -- this wanting to give the reader a sort
of "pan shot" of the surroundings...
++CMS: You seem to be a fan of foreshadowing. "Episode
One" is littered with hints and clues of something deeper and more
important will happen. Your use of this literary device seems like it
will afford the reader surprises. Is this an accurate statement?
I hope so. I mean, I hope the reader is surprised by where
the story goes. I am planning some things for the second episode that
will convey the clear message that literally anything can happen to
any character at any time -- all bets are off, all rules are suspended.
And there is so much I have planned to reveal slowly as the thing unfolds,
and I hope the reader will stay with me, because I think it’s
going to be rewarding.
++JM: How many installments of this story can we expect?
Again, I hate to sound mercenary about it, but a lot of that is going
to hinge on the success of the first season. We’re trying to run
this as close to a TV show as possible, so there will be monthly episodes
running from September to June, with a break for the summer. So you’re
guaranteed at least ten episodes right there, unless something goes
horribly awry. I would love to carry it on for a year or two, but that
is dependent upon so many factors... Suffice it to say that the last
episode is more or less scripted out, and that it can be implemented
at any time with little to no difficulty. But, obviously, I’d
like to see it really catch on...
++JM: When are you going to write the much anticipated authorized
SF59 biography?
You mean I haven’t already? Starflyer 59 knows that any time they
want to, I’m game. I think I have more than enough info from the
whole box set endeavor to start writing next week if I had to. And I
think it’s probably OK for me to take this time to drop some hints
about at a future collaboration between myself and SF59, one I’m
looking forward to tremendously...
|