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Are there any new stories, or have they all been told? The British literary critic Christopher Booker, has argued that there have only ever been seven basic plots, as follows:

1. 'Tragedy'. Hero with a fatal flaw meets tragic end. Macbeth or
Madame Bovary.
2. 'Comedy'. Not necessary laugh-out-loud, but always with a happy ending, typically of romantic fulfilment, as in Jane Austen.
3. 'Overcoming the Monster'. As in Frankenstein or 'Jaws'. Its psychological appeal is obvious and eternal.
4. 'Voyage and Return'. Booker argues that stories as diverse as Alice
in Wonderland and H G Wells' The Time Machine and Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner follow the same archetypal structure of personal development through leaving, then returning home.
5. 'Quest'. Whether the quest is for a holy grail, a whale, or a kidnapped child it is the plot that links a lot of the most popular fiction. The quest plot links Lords of the Rings with Moby Dick and a thousand others in between.
6. 'Rags to Riches'. The riches in question can be literal or metaphoric. See Cinderella, David Copperfield, Pygmalion.
7. 'Rebirth'. The 'rebirth' plot - where a central character suddenly finds a new reason for living - can be seen in A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, Crime and Punishment and Peer Gynt

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I just wanted to put something up here about punctuation. You see, people who have read The Dead Fathers Club occasionally email me about the novel and tell me what they think. On balance, I would say eight out of ten of the emails are favourable which I suppose is good (although I can't help thinking you're more likely to tell an author that you like their work than dislike it). And the interesting thing is that those who like it do so for varying reasons, while those who knock it always knock it for the same thing. Punctuation.

Now, in case you don't know (and unless you've read the book, why would you) the novel is narrated from the inside of a traumatised eleven-year-old boy's head. His father has died, suffers from panic attacks and witnesses what other people tell him are hallucinations of his Dad's spirit. I wanted to mirror the surreal, hyperactive goings on of his thoughts in the novel, and one of the ways of doing this was to strip out all the commas and apostrophes and make the stream-of-consciousness have a faster flow.

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It says a lot about Norway, too. Although the average Norwegian might say they belong to an ‘insular' country, the use of the term would cause a lot of scratching of British and American foreheads. Norway, by any standards is an outward looking country.

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Okay, it's a generalisation. There are a lot of writers, even those outside the self-help and spiritual well-being shelves, who I am sure have naturally sunny dispositions. And yet I would like to put forward the argument that low-level misery is the default setting for most writers. Not the full-on, chop-off-your-ear-while-painting-crows-in-a-cornfield high-level despair that was the preserve of nineteenth century artists, but a more contemporary sense of unease at the world around us. Was it Larry David who said that the collective term for writers is a ‘gloom?' Anyway, whoever said it, they have a point.

And this is how it should be. Misery - to do a riff on Gordon Gekko--is good. Not good, in general. Not good for everyday living. It's not a character trait you want form a sales assistant or talkshow host, but I would say that if there is a place for the miserable then it has to be sitting at a laptop typing a thousand words a day.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that the job of a novelist is to make other people miserable. No. That would make me evil and I'm not evil. I'm British, and there's a subtle difference. It's subtle, but it's there.

Matt Haig is our guest blogger during the week of February 4th. If you have any questions for Matt Haig, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some brief information about The Dead Fathers Club:

A triumph of originality and humor, this clever novel by British author Matt Haig gives us Hamlet redux with an unforgettable voice all his own. When eleven-year-old Philip Noble is confronted by the ghost of his recently deceased father and asked to avenge his death, the boy finds himself in a thorny dilemma. Revenge, after all, is tricky business...

About Matt Haig

Matt Haig's writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Independent, and The Sydney Morning Herald. The Dead Fathers Club is his American debut. He lives in Leeds, England.

The Dead Fathers Club
Matt Haig - Author
$14.00| add to cart
Book: Paperback | 5.27 x 7.79in | 336 pages | ISBN 9780143112945 | 18 Dec 2007 | Penguin

 

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