death in the rain - 4. rules

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part four of forty-four

so what do you think, billy asked. it sucks. it totally sucks. what! what is wrong with it? you are breaking the three most important rules of writing a bestseller. bestseller? i thought i was just writing this to pass the time. yes, but if you are going to write something you might as well write something that will make a billion dollars, right? like stephen king or harry potter. maybe. maybe? what is maybe about it? if you found a billion dollars in the street you’d pick it up, wouldn’t you? all right, what are these three rules you are talking about ? you don’t know? you want to guess? no, just tell me. sympathetic characters, sympathetic characters, and sympathetic characters. ha, ha. i am serious. haven’t you ever read reviews on amazon? and seen how many people come right out and say - i didn’t like this book because i did not like the characters. no, i never did. you should, you might learn something. anyway, all the characters in your story so far are losers - but i just started! all right, but i am warning you, that is all. now, this girl who comes into the diner - into wendy’s you should change it to an old edward hopper diner, everybody likes edward hopper. places like that don’t exist any more! so? anyway, as i was saying, this girl who comes into the diner or wendy’s or wherever, she is going to get killed, right? and her body tossed in or behind a dumpster? maybe. don’t be such a big know-it-all. well, whether she is alive or dead, was she going to be a sympathetic character? hmmm? i had not decided - maybe she would be a bitch. there you go. well, make her a bitch but be sure to have a sympathetic female character to offset her - probably a detective or f b i agent but she has to be young, beautiful, brilliant, totally feminist and pc, and like kids and dogs and have total empathy with everybody that should be empathized with. yeesh. is that all? maybe before you start - i already started. you should study the masters. you mean like dickens and balzac, no no, no dickens or balzac. balzac! i mean the writers that make billions, like james patterson and stephen king and j k rowling. especially j k rowling. that reminds me - you should do like rowling does - not just have a sympathetc characters and villains but foils. like what? foils. not out and out villains but people the heroine or hero can play off and put down and always get the better of. like a humorless bureaucrat or professor or the heroine’s boss or rival. like lestrade in sherlock holmes? exactly. 5. the body