Edward Thompson, Daily Telegraph.
“What or who is the inspiration for your books?”
“Politics, past experiences, anything that provokes a reaction. Also people; people that I’ve met, inspirational people.”
“Any in particular?”
“You’ll have to work that out from the books.”
Orlando drew a finger across his chin, lightly brushing the hairs underneath. He flashed a look at his agent. How long? Leaning against the wall at the back of the room, Alana smiled and held up three fingers.
Orlando grimaced. Half an hour.
“Your stories often deal with the issue of identity, what lies beneath, if you like…why is that?”
“I don’t know enough about CIA to write spy books, I’m not clever enough to write non-fiction and I’m not technically accurate enough to write other people’s biographies.”
“Coming from a family of film aristocrats, have you ever been tempted to try your luck in the movie business?”
“I think everyone has, at some point.”
“What stopped you?”
Orlando sat back in his chair and screwed his face into a pensive expression. “Probably laziness. Film-making means constantly traveling, constantly worrying about going over your budget, constantly meeting with people you can’t stand but have to communicate with in order to make the film…I couldn’t do that. When you’re writing a book, the only traveling you need to do is to the computer across the room, the only budget worries you have concern the potential inflation of a family size packet of Doritos and you don’t need to communicate with anybody.”
“Isn’t that attitude a bit anti-social?”
Orlando grinned. “I don’t mind.”
“Orlando, recently you’ve been linked to various -”
“Not guilty.”
“Laila Gilbert-Reynolds, for one, is a name that’s come up often…”
“I read that article, too.”
“So it’s not true?
“No.”
“What about the photos?”
“What about them?”
“Surely you would not deny that that’s you in the picture?”
“Photoshop’s pretty good for that sort of thing.”
“You’re famously reluctant to do interviews, even when it comes to promoting your books…”
Orlando stared at the sandy-haired girl speaking. Girl, she was; she looked about nineteen. Probably on placement. Or, just as probable, the niece of someone important. He adjusted his focus slightly, blurring out her face and sharpening the image of her name-tag.
Naomi Harris, Independent.
He took in the girl’s features. Today’s mask was professionalism. Although exaggerated by the forced intensity of her ivy green eyes, the look was convincing, her golden locks plaited into an impressive, if slightly confused, labyrinth. Her makeup was sparse, the only hint of indulgence evident in her cherry red lipstick, the hue of which contrasted rather pleasantly with her olive skin. The effect reminded of something out of the film, American Beauty. Roses in a bathroom.
Orlando snapped out of his reverie as he sensed the end of the question.
“… think that, if you were more open to the public, your fans would get a better picture of who you are?”
“That depends on what you mean by, ‘more open to the public’. I’m not the greatest fan of public attention; that’s probably why I’m not interested in film-making. I like to keep to myself, if you know what I mean.”
“Doesn’t that isolate the fans?”
What the hell. Make her day.
“I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing, Naomi.”
Orlando flashed the stunned girl a conspiratorial smile.
Thrown by the name-check, Naomi looked down at her pad as if to refer to something she had written down, simultaneously ignoring the myriad mocking stares aimed in her direction. An uneasy moment passed as the girl struggled to regain her concentration.
Finally, she recovered her composure. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that, if people are reading my books because they like the stories, rather than because I appear on Oprah every five seconds, then that’s a good thing.”
Orlando’s gaze swept over the press pack in front of him. Several of them, mostly women in their mid-twenties, were smiling to themselves, each one mentally storing the details of the previous few moments for later narration. He could see the newspaper columns already: “In an otherwise dull interview, a spark of entertainment was provided by…”
Orlando frowned in disgust.
A pockmarked man in his late-thirties raised his pen.
“You’re most famous for creating the character of Dante Scirea…”
“Yep.”
“Many authors believe that there is often some personal input in the makeup of the characters which they create…would it be fair to say that of Dante?”
Orlando nodded his agreement. “Yes, to some extent. I think that kind of thing is able unavoidable. As my mother used to say, ‘Who you are will always come out, and don’t you ever forget it.’”
A wave of polite laughter rippled across the room, appreciating the quality of Orlando’s melodramatic Hispanic tone.
Sensing an opportune avenue, a fresh-faced intern from the Daily Mail, waved his notepad.“Your mother was the first Hispanic woman to win the Best Actress award at the Oscars, your father was the first – and only – Frenchman to win three Best Director awards and your uncle has a controlling share in one of the largest banks in Europe; you seem to come from a family of high-achievers…how has that affect you and your career choices?”
Orlando took a moment to consider. “Not that much, to be honest,” he said, finally. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to be in the movies. Every adolescent male has wanted to be Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Tom Cruise…all that kind of action and intrigue stuff. But you come to a point where you realise that if you’re not good at something, you drop it. I’m not very good at acting. Useless, in fact. After I recovered from the discovery, I turned to writing; that way I could act out things, be the character – in my head – without having my performance ridiculed. I like that security.”
Intern Fleming, Matthew from the Guardian nodded and buried his head in his notepad.
An austere-looking woman with a hairdo straight out of the eighteenth-century stared out from behind a harsh pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
“There have been rumours of one of your books being turned into a
screenplay…is this true?”
“That would be great,” Orlando replied enthusiastically. “That kind of thing makes me feel proud; it means that people are really connecting with my books.”
“Is that a yes?”
Orlando grinned. “It’s a ‘we’ll see’, for now.”
A sudden movement at the back of the room caught Orlando’s attention. His eyes flickered upwards, just in time to see Alana leave the conference room, frantically talking into her mobile phone.
“How has fame changed you, if at all?”
Orlando scratched his forehead, feigning deep thought. “It’s brought me a lot more money.”
“Anything else?”
“Free pizzas at Domino’s,” Orlando replied wryly, his gaze not moving from the door through which his agent had left.
The raven-haired, part-time model from thelondonpaper was insistent. “What’s the next step for you? Will you develop another character or continue the Sirocco series?”
“That depends on whether people continue to read them. They create the demand.”
“You’ve never been tempted to at least consider a change?”
“Just between the two of us, yes.”
Another pen was raised upwards. Sara Peynton, Evening Standard. “You’ve recently moved back to England after a spell in Canada…did you get homesick?”
“Probably. Canada’s not much different, except that the people are nicer, the weather’s clearer and ‘The Archers’ doesn’t come on at seven o’clock.”
Ignoring the laughter, Orlando allowed his gaze to drift to the back of the room once more. He could see Alana through the corridor windows. Her back had been turned towards him since she left the room.
He was being asked another question. “It’s well known that you speak several languages. Your mother is Hispanic, your father was French, and you were born in England but grew up in Dubai…That covers four languages. What made you learn the others?”
“I got bored.”
The journalist chuckled into her notepad.
Sycophantic.
“And which one do you speak best?”
Orlando shrugged nonchalantly. “None, really. Apparently I’ve managed to make myself virtually unintelligible in most of them to both native and foreign speakers.”
Picking up their cue, several other journalists chuckled into their own notepads, some going as far as to whisper further comments to their neighbours.
Orlando glanced at Alana again. She was still there, leaning against the window, her back still facing him.
“Orlando?”
Orlando raised his eyebrows and glanced back at the press-pack, looking at no-one in particular. “Sorry?”
“And your worst?”
“My worst what?”
“Language.”
“English.”
Raucous laughter erupted across the room, several heads thrown back with laughter.
Plastic smiles breaking out across plastic faces.
Orlando decided to play along. “I remember when my Dad moved to Dubai when I was seven. I was so excited about the possibility of learning a new and challenging language…You can imagine my disappointment when I got there and found out that everybody spoke English. I literally had to stalk people to catch any scraps of Arabic.”
Unable to summon any more fake laughter, several individuals resorted to shaking their heads in amusement.
After a safe amount of time had passed, Mark Henderson from The Times piped up with another question. “Orlando, you mentioned finding security in writing. Writers often talk about the ability to express oneself freely, without much care for the thoughts of others…has that been your experience?”
Distracted by Alana’s phone call and disinterested in prolonging the interview, Orlando decided to move things a long a bit. “That’s true when you’re writing your first book. But if it sells and people take notice of it, you’ve got to start taking notice of them. Any writer who ignores his readers doesn’t want to be a writer, because with that approach he won’t last very long. I’m not complaining, though; I love being a writer. You’re not too high up the ladder for people to be jealous of you and you’re not too low for customs officers to look twice because of your colour.”
Orlando looked up. Alana was moving towards the door.
“How have you dealt with the inevitable changes in people’s attitudes towards you?”
“With difficulty.” Orlando’s tone was detached as his agent entered the room slowly, her gaze out of focus.
“What do you mean by that?”
Orlando suppressed an irritated sigh. “People are fickle. You smile at them today, they give you a hug; you smile at them tomorrow, they punch you in the face. Quite frankly, I don’t care what peoples attitudes are towards me; in fact, I don’t even notice.”
“You’ve criticised authors who ignore their readers…surely that’s a slight contradiction?”
“Actually, I tell a lie. There is one group of people whose attitudes towards me I pay attention to.”
“And they are?”
“Publishers.”
………………………
“What’s the matter?”
The last of the reporters had gone, leaving Orlando and his agent alone in the hallway .
“Alana, you look like you’re about to have a heart attack. What ti-”
“Your mother…”Alana broke off.
“What about my mother?”
Alana averted her eyes downwards and began to smooth the creases of her skirt. .
“Alana…what?” Orlando placed under her chin and gently lifted it up. “Speak.”
“Orlando…”
“Come on, what I said about customs was a joke. Everybody knows -”
“Orlando…your mother’s dead.”
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This 375 word review has not been unlocked.
It took about six lines down before I caught on that this was some sort of press junket/interview.
Orlando seems interesting, deliberately vague and bland, yet humourous, and clearly in touch and in control. Great answers in the interview. Fascinating family background.
Well thought out. Well written.
Great hook at the end. But—- what is the crime or mystery?
You set up the character well. Although, the interview almost seems like taking an easy way out of getting the information conveyed. I’ve been toying with the idea of using the same device for my third book and haven’t decided if it is cheesy or not, which is why I bring it up.
The end could use some polishing. You do well with building some tension during the story of what is up with the agent and the phone call, but the end section would be better, if you maybe added Orlando having enough of the interview and his concern for her makes him get up and leave. Then he meets Alana in the hall.
Also, a little background on his mother’s health might be good. At this point, we don’t know if she was old and on her death bed or if this was a shock. You could probably add a line in the interview when they talk about his mother that infers she is healthy and active. If you added that and a little reaction to finding out. It might have a bigger impact.
Below are some nit picks that I saw while reading.
struggled to regain her concentration… I think the word composure might be better here. Just my opinion though. I have to say that I like the way you describe the part with naomi, it shows a writers way of viewing people and gets the reader into his mindset and developes the character well.
kind of thing is able unavoidable…. Extra word here. ‘able’
how has that affect you … affect should be affected. Although, I’m not sure but it might need to be effected. It’s one of those words I know I mix up, but I do believe affect is used if means emotional, but either way it needs the ed at the end to conjugate the verb correctly.
Her back had been turned… This is an example of passive voice. Who turned her back? To keep it active you might consider something like. She kept her back to him.
Orlando is being a little contradictory. He cares about what his readers think, then he don’t care what people think, all within a couple paragraphs.
Orlando placed under her chin and gently lifted it up…. Orlando placed what under her chin?
Anyway, this is a good start to the story and I hope you found this review helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
A very sparse writing style, very Cormac McCarthy. This is specific writing style, centred mainly on dialogue with laconic narrator input, so I won’t suggest developing your narrative as that doesn’t seem to be the intention.
“Girl, she was” I found this unusual… didn’t quite make sense.
“late-thirties” you have recurring age descriptions which I feel could be exchanged for something else.
Interesting set-up. I like how you capture very well the brown-nosing of the journalists and the awkwardness of the writer at the press conference. As a contained scene it is well-written. I felt that more about the writer could have come out in the dialogue, as I felt I wasn’t being fed enough character development in between the banter.
Harold_P
I’m going to break this down as I read it. With that said, I found the first line to be dry. I know it gives some explanation but I think you should make it into more of a hook that makes the reader more intrigued. Luckily for you, the dialouge afterward makes up for this and brings the reader into the story. I myself do quick-fire dialouge with line after line figuring the reader knows who’s speaking. I like that.
You do good in teasing us with the idea of stating that in some way/shape/form he has something to do with a crime of some sort by the way the picture is mentioned in the interview. The girl quickly moves away from that point though when she finds the author reluctant to answer. At first I disliked this but it went along smoothly enough that it worked for the piece. One thing that I loved was the description of Naomi. It was in depth and used comparing words that worked well in contrast to a person.
“What the hell. Make her day.” – I don’t think that fits with the style of narration. You use “he” throughout the earlier part and then you throw this in as if it’s first person. I’d look into it.
“Not that much, to be honest,” he said, finally. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to be…” – Take out the word finally, I know there’s a pause but using “he says” does the pause justice in my opinion.
I’m noticing that you use a lot of ellipses in here. Although I’ve done it from time to time, I’ve been told by others that it shouldn’t be used as often. Perhaps instead of using three dots, simply use another comma or a dash maybe. When I see the three dots I immediately think something ironic will happen. The pause will be very clear with a comma still.
“with a hairdo straight out of the eighteenth-century” – “Straight out of” is much like using the word “just” in description to me. It doesn’t fit. I’d suggest cutting that part out since it takes away from you as a writer. I understand what you mean but using that brings down the quality of writing and makes it seem more like a child wrote it instead of an adult.
“Plastic smiles breaking out across plastic faces.” – Great line!
“I don’t care what peoples attitudes are towards me” – people’s I beleive.
Ok, I got to the end and have mixed reactions. For the start though, I want to say that you did really well in portraying a press conference. It seemed legit and the way the author answered the questions seemed to be consistent. For that reason, I felt that he was personified well with your writing. Getting to the end though, I’m left with two world’s of thought. In one world I’m depressed that the mention earlier in the story about his picture in the paper doing something wasn’t the twist. The second world of thought is the news he receives about his mother. I liked the subtleness but also felt against it. I’m not sure how to react. I’ll tell you one thing though, I wasn’t expecting it to happen that way.
It was a good piece with a few places you may need to look into. Overall, I enjoyed it. Good luck with the rest of the novel. I’m assuming there is more to come since this is the first chapter.
Excellent writing. The dialogue was real and seemed natural and my heart tightened when Alana had to tell him about his mother. You paint the scenes amazingly and I felt like I was there!!
Great job!
“Edward Thompson, Daily Telegraph” is this suposed to me spoken?
” “Orlando, recently you’ve been linked to various -”
“Not guilty.” ” this is good. it starts to create suspense.
“Orlando sat back in his chair and screwed his face into a pensive expression. “Probably laziness.” it is good that you are getting into his character and personality traits.
“Orlando stared at the sandy-haired girl speaking. Girl, she was; she looked about nineteen.” It came as a surprise to me that the reporter speaking was a girl when yyou said it in this paragraph. Maybe earlier (even though it is only the second page,) you should have her fix her hair or look at her nails or something. But is it suppposed to be a girl? becuase the first words of your book are “Edward Thompson, Daily Telegraph.” and there is no clear change from when Edward is speaking to the girl that you describe later, and i don’t think Edward is a girls name.
“The effect reminded of something out of the film, American Beauty” i dont think you need the comma in this sentence.”
“Orlando flashed the stunned girl a conspiratorial smile.” I’m not sure conspirational is the right word here. It sounds a little forced.
“Orlando’s gaze swept over the press pack in front of him.” I wasn’t aware that there was more than one reporter until you wrote this line. If possible you should mention this earlier as it kind of throws off the flow of the story and the interview within.
“Intern Fleming, Matthew from the Guardian nodded and buried his head in his notepad” You need some more punctuation here to help understand what the sentence is saying more. From how it is written now, I don’t understand what it is you are trying to say with it.
” “There have been rumours of one of your books being turned into a
screenplay…is this true?”
“That would be great,” Orlando replied enthusiastically.” This seems very contradictory to me. earlier in the chapter you said that he showed really no interest in making movies and following in the path of his family members and now you are saying that he is excited to make a screenplay out of his book. Think about reconsidering this. If it is not going to be important to the story and you just needed it to bulk out the interview before assistant starts talking on the phone, then maybe you should think about something that is going to come up later in the story that you could use instead. Also another helpful thing that i do when i find myself not being sure how a character would act in a certain situation is i stop writing the story while i just write a page or so about every aspect of a particular character’s life. not only does this help you get to know the character better for yourself; even if none of that information appears in your story directly, you will find that that comes out in your writing anyway, but in a better more subtle way. where you can drop indirect hints about the characters personality and make them seem more real. just a suggestion, because that is what i find very helpful in fact i am doing that for my book right now ;).
““You’ve recently moved back to England after a spell in Canada…did you get homesick?”
“Probably. Canada’s not much different, except that the people are nicer, the weather’s clearer and ‘The Archers’ doesn’t come on at seven o’clock.”” Why does he say ‘probably’? doesn’t he know whether or not he was homesick? or, I am wondering, did you even mean for him to be the one saying that?
you also say he learned a lot of languages but i thought you said earlier that he was lazy? once again; a contradiction. try to make his personality mmore realistic or else he seems shallow and not relatibly human.
Good ending to the chapter. i was getting bored with the interview but the fact that you kept mentioning his agent throughout and what she was doing kept the story moving. I also didn’t really see how it was going to be mystery but i am assuming that you are going to do something interesting with her death? Like i said, you did a good job with the suspense throughout the chapter but try to make the interview a little more interesting or else readers will get bored. not knowing what is going to go on later in the book, i don’t know what is relevant in the interview and what is not but try to only talk about the necessary things.
keep up the good writing. i am anxious to keep reading this book. make sure you request another review when you get more chapters up!! :)
I liked how you opened with an interview taking place. But I think this detracts from your story. It’s too much of a mess, and I don’t mean how you’re telling the story, its just all over the place. The kid is rich, snobbish, and contemptuos, kind of deplorable. The revelation of finding out his mother had died isn’t strongly felt at all. Where is ‘his’ reaction? And for that matter, why did Alana wait until the interview was over to tell him?
So far I have no idea what this story is even about. This piece may work in your novel idea somewhere, but as a first chapter I wouldn’t use it. You need a better set-up.
Oh, and this line was confusing: ”...thing is able unavoidable.”
Nitpicky chick thing. Cherry red lipstick is reserved by any woman who knows makeup for after 6 and non professional activities. Same with Stilleto heels. They go together, if you get my drift. This women would know makeup. It’s part of the uniform of the upwardly mobile.
This is very hard to write, because as a reader, I love this, but – having had the experience I’ve had in the industry, I see a major flaw with this. It isn’t you, it’s them. The Publishers. They want a very particular type of beginning, and, though what you have is good, I think you’re going to be hard pressed to find an editor who will think outside the box with you. You have no hook. You’re interview, though it is incredibly well written and establishes the character, doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with the plot of the novel. It’s too long and it’s in the wrong place. A good editor will either cut most of it, or all of it. Or worse, put the manuscript aside. You have about 2 seconds to catch their attention. My suggestions are – use this as a Prologue or write a one or two sentance hook in front of the interview. Maybe something like “He had a bad feeling about this. He hated the press, but it was something deeper, something bad was about to happen…” then your first sentance. (Just a suggestion, you know this book better then me.) But this foreshadows the news at the end of the chapter.
You are a brilliant writer and Brilliant writers love to take risks. And Publishers can be not so brilliant and would rarely take a risk. Good is a very small factor in the decision to publish a book. Marketable is the decision. And they believe in the formula. The book business is in a downward spiral, and so everyone is much more particular about which horse they back. They want the sure winner, and a risk is a gamble. And really, I’m just telling you here what everyone has been telling me for the past 20 years. Consider it. Your first chapter, also should introduce important aspects of the plot and maybe this does, but it feels pretty unrelated more like character developement. Let me know about the sotry your going to tell.
One other thing, don’t take too much advice. You must decide for yourself what you love about your book and what you’re willing to change. A famous writer was once told by an editor his book was good, but too long, could he cut it in half? I could take out every other word, but it wouldn’t make much sense. he told them. If you disagree with what I have said, figure out why and make arguements to counteract me. You’ll need them with your publisher. Figure out what you will fight for and why. Enough advice will make a better book – too much will make a mess. If you have a well thought out reason for doing something, the publisher will probably relent, if not, they will run you over.
I like the dynamic when Alana is outside the room with her back to Orlando. First impression: entertaining, smart dialogue, light on setting (not necessarily bad, but some readers want a bit more of the room). Good ending.
Proofreading notes:
remind (transitive verb, should be “reminds one of . . .”; or simply “calls to mind . . .” ?)
isolate the fans (to set apart the fans from others? I think here you either need to write isolate the fans from yourself or exclude the fans.
is able unavoidable. (I don’t get this. Typo?)
has that affect you (typo)
You describe the austere-looking woman well enough so that you don’t need “austere-looking”.
peoples attitudes = people’s
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