Later that week I created a formal proposal and posted it off to two well-known publishers that I have chosen not to name in this blogpost.
CHAPTER ONE
Readers are introduced to property developer and reality TV show host Ronald Plump. He is narcissistic and spends several minutes each morning admiring his appearance and preening his thinning hair. He gives himself pep talks, often saying, "You can be anything you want to be Ron!"
CHAPTER TWO
We meet his family - two grown up and rather disappointing sons who live in fear of their father and a younger son called Earl he has had with his third wife a Slovakian model called Urethra. He also has two grown up daughters - one he ignores and the other, somewhat unnaturally, he has the hots for. He cannot help himself. Like his best buddy Jeremy Einstein he is partial to younger women.
CHAPTER THREE
It's early 2016 and Ronald has the Republican ticket. Millions of dollars have been poured into his campaign and his TV promotion campaign is in full swing. Right wing image and campaign advisers have given him plenty of tips - about promising the earth, repeating untruths and slandering his opponents. Ronald quickly reveals that he has no moral reins. His self-belief is immense.
CHAPTER FIVE
The election draws ever closer and Ronald denigrates his female Democratic opponent, attacking her with lies and innuendos that startle her because that wasn't how politics was done in America. Rules were being broken and Ronald seems to get away with it. He talks of building a huge wall across the country's entire southern border to keep out unwanted immigrants. It will be decorated with fake gold adornments and what is more American citizens will not have to pay a penny towards its construction.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Following a neck-and-neck race Ronald Plump becomes the US President. At first he cannot believe it. No one can. He stares into the cameras like a deer caught in a car's headlights. Quickly, he has to cobble a cabinet team together. Previously he had not given this a moment's thought. He pulls together a motley bunch of past acquaintances who are totally unsuited for the roles they are given. He decides to colour his skin orange - like an Oompa- Loompa and hires a team of hairdressers to style his hair and add hairpieces and weaves. As this first term proceeds he feels more comfortable in the role.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Over the next four years he fires a string of unjustified insults at the new president, gathers even more millions in funding and over in Moscow President Putin does all that he can to ensure victory in the next presidential election. It works and once again Ronald Plump enters The White House but he is better prepared than last time and in the intervening years he has been tutored by right wing advisers about moves he can make against the transgender community, hardworking immigrants, leading universities, healthcare and previously loyal allies. He makes outrageous claims on foreign territories and persistently distracts ordinary Americans from the thorny subject of Jeremy Einstein's wrongdoings in which Ronald is deeply implicated.
CHAPTER TEN
With his health failing, Ronald has developed swollen ankles and frequently falls asleep in The Oval Office. His speeches are often deranged but continue to be as boastful as ever. Upon a whim, he begins a war with Iran and fails to give proper support to the people of Ukraine who are embattled by Russian military action. He talks about turning Palestinian Gaza into a holiday resort and claims the idea of climate change is a hoax. He blocks critical news services from The White House and with the help of crypto-currency investors becomes obscenely rich while ordinary American struggle to make ends meet. He has half The White House demolished to make way for an enormous golden ballroom that no other president ever desired.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tragically, Ronald slips on a bar of soap in his golden shower cubicle in his Florida mansion and cracks his skull on a protruding golden tap. He goes down like a sack of potatoes and just like that Ronald J. Plump is no more. He's kapput, deceased, gone. He cannot be revived.
⦿
To my eternal disappointment I received two rejection letters. This was one of them...
December 15 2014
Dear Mr Pudding,
Thank you for your novel outline - running title "The Madness of Ronald J. Plump". Quite frankly, the proposal is fantastical - like something dreamt up on crack cocaine. It could never happen and when it comes to political fiction, general readers need a sense of possibility married with authenticity. It seems that your imagination got the better of you this time round and I am afraid that we could never give air to a book like that. The political landscape you describe simply could not happen in America.
Good luck with any future writing projects in this genre but we advise that you place your notions well inside the fences of political reality. Oh and may I wish you a Happy Christmas!
Yours sincerely,
Miriam Huntington
(Commissioning Editor)
You have a great description of Ronald J Plump. I think you a little too kind to him.
ReplyDeleteWhat extra details would you suggest Red? I thought about the US Army invading Canada with boots on the ground in Alberta and Ontario. Also Plump would change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America - but that seemed too far-fetched.
DeleteYou have a sure-fire-winner there. No publisher worth his salt would turn it down. You will become rich (can you lend me a fiver?).
ReplyDeleteWhen I am rich, I will happily lend you a fiver or send you some delicious Yorkshire sausages.
DeleteIt's a good thing a certain orange person can't or won't read or he might see right through this and sue you for slander.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea who you are talking about Elsie.
DeleteI often see how reality exceeds anything a writer can come up with.
ReplyDeleteYou could say that George Orwell's "1984" was an understatement.
DeleteFor some reason I remember the ending of your rejected novel outline, hitting his head on a gold tap.
ReplyDeleteHe gave so much to his country. If only he had had an anti-slip bathmat in that shower!
DeleteWonderful work, Mr. Pudding. Chapter 11 is especially compelling!
ReplyDeleteYou could become the next Nostradamus of our age. If only I could plant that bar of soap.
ReplyDeleteSadly, someone did tell us it was going to happen, and we all though that it was a stupid rude kids show. The Simpson's ran an episode about the Trump presidency back in the early 2000's. I didn't think it could happen because I didn't think that people were that prone to voting against their best interest. I have become utterly disillusioned with the human race.
ReplyDeleteThat was not a dream, it was a _ucking nightmare. We are still waiting for chapter 11, I check the news every morning looking for the BIG BEAUTIFUL Obituary.
ReplyDeleteNeil, this post has made my morning. At first I thought you were serious until I saw the name Ronald Plump! Sadly, all of this chaos wouldn't have been believed way back in 2015, but now it is our reality.
ReplyDeleteToo funny. I especially loved the ending, so fitting.
ReplyDeleteSomeone has written the novel. Or one very like it. Carl Hiaasen's "Squeeze Me." I think you might enjoy it immensely.
ReplyDeleteWilfrid Sheed's *People Will Always Be Kind* (1973).
DeleteA political satire. The protagonist like Sheed suffers polio.
Sheed's *Office Politics* (1966) has been reissued in paperback.
You call that a title ?
ReplyDeleteBruce Jay Friedman was on the staff of an adventure story magazine.
Mario Puzo his colleague was writing his third novel.
* Poor Mario, * said Friedman. * Who'll buy a novel called The Godfather ? *
*The Dark Arena* & *The Fortunate Pilgrim* were Puzo's two early novels.
His best work. They made no money.
And so many missing chapters as well!
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about sending it to channel 5? They'll commission anything.
ReplyDelete