KNIVES ARE LIKE WANDS FOR CHEFS
I love a good notebook. I have several, although I must confess, only the first ten or so pages are filled in the majority of them. I think I've always had a romanticised idea of being a bloke who wrote in a little black notebook he always kept in his inner pocket. But I, like many others, am a slave to the digital age and write most of my ideas on my cellphone.
One such idea that's been rudely occupying my notes for quite some time is an exceptionally short idea for a fantasy novel. An idea I'm sure would be, in the most common sense of the word, shit. The note reads: Knives are like wands for chefs. I suppose it, along with so many other similar notes, was written as I woke from a dream at 4 AM and simply had to write it down. Finding it in my notes over a year later obviously left me with several questions. Unfortunately I can only put one into words.
What the absolute fuck is that supposed to mean?
4 AM Philip is, in the nicest sense of the word, a twat, not having elaborated on his ridiculous idea. I suppose he assumed the more regular Philip, who wakes up most mornings, would simply look at those six words and know exactly what to write. I have always wanted to write a fantasy novel. I don't particularly enjoy reading them but writing one always seemed like an exceptional idea for some reason. I am the proud owner of outrageous audacity, therefore I obviously believe that I could, without much trouble, write a fantasy novel.
I will, however, point out here that this idea is probably not the best jumping off point, but nevertheless we shall explore the ridiculousness of the premise.
Every good fantasy novel needs a setting, right? At least that’s what I’ve been led to believe. Years of my partner’s frankly excessive talk of The Lord of the Rings series has put me in a position to take this sort of thing to heart (fun fact, whilst they were editing this for me, which I greatly appreciate, they pointed out that the the in The Lord of the Rings was supposed to be capitalised. I’m living my own nightmare). As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, this would probably be closer to a young adult novel. I’m sure we won't need to be too expansive on the details.
So let's say the story takes place in a dystopian society. Those sorts of settings seem to be very popular. At least they were when I was younger. During the sprawling popularity of books like The Maze Runner and that other one that’s like The Hunger Games but isn’t. I suppose Hunger Games is one as well. So in this society there’s perhaps a lower class living in slums of some nondescript variety. See? Already off to a swimming start with describing the details. I can surely write a fantas–DIVERGENT. That’s the bloody name of it. Apologies, moving along.
So in the aforementioned slums, people can’t eat as well as the rich and gluttonous. The rich live fulfilling and overfed lives, whilst the poor live off the scraps of whatever beasts live on the outskirts of the slums. That seems about as descriptive as we need to be in regards to lore.
Then we need a protagonist. Someone with a hero's journey ahead of them, of course. We need a person with little to no discernible personality but loads of courage and drive. So he can get in his futuristic scrap vehicle and drive off towards the plot we’ll be setting up. So the young lad will work in a kitchen, we’ll say. His father, who was once a cook for the rich, will have this incredibly popular little mum and pop kitchen that serves the slums for cheap coin. Then one day, the father will take the boy to the outskirts of the slums, with no explanation. There, the boy will learn of the hunt of the beast from which they make their stew. Bit of a tongue twister, that one. I wouldn’t want to go full Kong Fu Panda on this and set up a secret ingredient that is simply nothing; retroactive spoiler alert. I suppose it seems a little too on the nose. Whilst on the subject of things that will not appear, a love interest. This premise is cringy enough in its own right, and a teenage romance where they promise each other they’ll be together forever, is not an inspiring or realistic message to give to young people; he said with a thick air of cynicism about him. I’m beginning to think that the exclusion of all these tropes is the reason I write blog posts and not successful novels…
…
SO THEY’RE HUNTING BEASTS. They will proceed to slay said beasts, surely of some horrible description, although I’m too tired to think of any descriptors other than maybe a loose eyeball in the face of the dreadful things. The father will probably find a piece of metal from some debris left over from the war we’ve neglected to mention happened until now. This is not at all because the writer just thought of it; trust me, I would know. He will go home and forge the steel from their first trip into a chef's knife he was planning on giving his son but uh-oh, what’s that? Traumatic parental death, of course. This is dystopian fantasy after all. Trust me, had we not killed this poor lad’s parent, he’d probably have stayed here making beast stew for the rest of his miserable life.
Let’s say the father stumbles in with a bad wound and tells his son he’s being hunted and that the kid has to run west and find the… Um… Covenant? Sure! He hands his son the package containing his knife and tells him to open it when he’s reached the Covenant. The son, who's now been blessed with protagonist motivations, runs west leaving his dying father behind. Is he dead? I’d rather not say. Just in case I want to bring him back as a dramatic plot twist no one saw coming.
As the journey goes by, the son survives on wild berries and montage juice for six days, till he reaches the Covenant. He’ll mention his fathers name and is now all of a sudden being brought before the leader of the Covenant. Probably a burly dude in his mid fifties, missing an eye or, at the very least, has some sort of other cool face scar. His father was the best damn cook he ever did see ‘round these damn lands, and agrees to take him on as an apprentice. The kid sits in his pod-like cell with virtually no room for anything other than a bed, a desk that is never used or described, and one of them cool slidey sci-fi doors that somehow knows to open whenever an important character intends to speak with the lad. There he sits sobbing over the cool new knife he just unboxed for all of his seven tik tok followers.
Fuck. I suppose we need to explain the whole 'chefs' thing. Uhm… Let's say that these ‘chefs’, so to speak, are, like, yes, really good cooks, but also maybe a cool band of soldiers and the chef thing is like a front for it? Perhaps they’re all spies. Specifically trained cooks who can also kill people? That seems like some real young adult bullshit my ten year old brain, salivating on the holographic cover of an Artemis Fowl novel, would love.
As much as I'd like to conclude this writing exercise with some sort of sardonic banter, I'm sure this has gone on for about a page too long already. I might revisit the idea in the future, if for no other reason than to see what happens after this kid concludes his training montage. I'm sure there will be some sort of 'he's ready' horseshit from the burly bloke, and he will be sent to wherever the rich live to find the men who killed his father or whatever. I suppose we have to come up with a name for that place as well. This fantasy, sci-fi stuff is hard. Continually coming up with names for places that need to sound grand, distant, futuristic and still somehow recognisable. Not that Dune gave a shit about that, having a character called Jessica in space.
No, I think I'll stick to writing detective novels. At least then all I have to do is Google 'fancy old English names' and scroll down far enough, until I believe people haven’t looked there themselves.
