Writing The Rothko Room

Some people can just churn them out, it seems. Every day, my inbox is full of them and astonishingly, many of them are by the same author!. "The latest in the Inspector Blenkinsopp series..."  "The Final part of the trilogy, "Space Pants"... " "The new romp featuring Selina and her Erotic Beans..."
I can't do this.  Every story I write (whether it looks like it of not) involves a long painful plod through plotlines, character development, location and scene; none of which can happen until I've researched as thoroughly as I know how, those features of the story about which I am ill-informed.  As you can imagine, there are a great many of those. I'd like to say it's all worth it but, judging by some of my correspondence (frequently carried out under the public gaze by generally obsessive or unhinged readers) I don't always get it right.  However, I digress.

The Rothko Room took, as I thought it would, around two years from initial idea to publication.  However, this was spread over nearer three, since I chose, foolishly, to write it alongside The Circling Song: this was an experiment I shall not repeat: multitasking is not something I do well.  A second experiment, however, appears to have worked – though I say it myself – rather well.  I decided to treat The Rothko Room as two different stories.

It began, of course, as two separate ideas, both concerning spies; the first involving an aging,  jaded, art-loving, gay hit-man by the name of Arthur Shepherd and his coming to terms with the fact that espionage is not what it used to be and the second, concerning Vanessa, a poor little rich girl – not too bright – who gets herself involved with British spies whilst dossing around Europe.  These two ideas jostled for the place of honour and, as often happens, aspects of one began to bleed into the other to such an extent that I became convinced that they were both really part of the same story.  However, after several fruitless attempts at interweaving them, I realised it wasn’t going to happen.  Whilst some characters and plotlines could swim comfortably between each island, others needed a lot more help and there is nothing worse than characters wearing water-wings.  

I loathe the idea of obvious plot devices designed to keep a story on the straight and narrow: carefully camouflaged plot devices, however, are another matter.  The two tales would never resolve satisfactorily unless there could be found a third story to draw both ideas together.  So I came up with a character whose arc could encompass all three stories.  That character was Geoffrey Wittersham.  He is the one who enables the others to cross the murky depths with the ease of Johnny Weismuller in his pomp.

But now, there was another problem: Vanessa.  She was believable but not likeable: one really didn’t care what happened to her and so instead of being a spoiled rich airhead, she became a typically ambitious young woman of the kind who believe that a university degree is the passport to success but who finds in short order, that hard work is not always enough and that a huge slab of luck is essential in today’s job market.  Vanessa has luck – unfortunately, most of it bad and thus becomes a far more sympathetic character.  Still a fish out of water but one with rather bigger fins.  (This metaphor is now begging to be released from service and I oblige, willingly.)

With the three pivotal characters in place, a final plot was beginning to reveal itself; however, I still resolved to treat the two main stories as separate pieces, chucking into each a recognisable leitmotif from the other.  This, I hoped, would give the reader a sense of tension and indeed curiosity regarding the outcome – a basic requisite of a good story, one might imagine but one not always encountered in literature.  In addition, I resolved to make each chapter as short as practicable.  Anyone who has read Head Count will understand how difficult this resolution was to keep.  Furthermore, if a chapter did not contain an exciting and/or crucial event of import and a number of jokes, it would be excised mercilessly.  So ruthless was I, that I have ended up with around 30,000 words chucked away. This isn’t unusual for me.  If I write three thousand words, chances are, I’ll delete a thousand of them.  I frequently wonder at those who wrote - and who still write – in longhand.  There isn’t a wastebin in the whole world, let alone Ikea that could contain my literary refuse.

And now it’s done.  I hope you enjoy it but if you don’t, let me know.  That’s me – not Amazon Reviews.