Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Inspector Rebus?'
'That's him!'
'Ah. That's Ian Rankin. My name's Iain Banks.'
'Oops.'
'That's okay.' I smile widely to show that it really is okay (some writers can get amaz-
ingly petulant over this sort of thing). 'A few years ago it was always Irvine Welsh I got
mistaken for. I'm used to it.'
Writers: What Not to Say
.
Right. Clichéd subjects/questions writers encounter all the time. There are two in partic-
ular. The less common one is, If I give you this brilliant plot, you could write it and we
could split the loot. What do you think? (Not that the people at Macallan were after riches
or fame, they were just trying to be helpful and make me feel welcome.) But you do get
the full commercial proposition now and again. I dare say if I lived in London and went
to lots of dinner parties this would happen to me a lot more often than it does.
It has to be said that this is not usually a good thing to say to a writer. Often we have
lots of plots and ideas of our own lying around and just lack the time to write them. Ad-
ding one of yours to the mess that's long-since boiled all over a distant back burner isn't
really going to do either of us any good.
Even if you do have a sure-fire idea, it's very rare indeed for a writer to share the
credit for a book like that. Frankly we are much more likely to let you tell us the idea and
then just steal it. Unless you've got lots of witnesses and/or are a senior partner in a legal
firm specialising in litigation and intellectual property law, that'll be that. If you seriously
think that a writer's going to sign some sort of legally binding agreement
before
being
told an idea for a plot, well, you're welcome to try.
Stealing stuff is what writers have been doing probably since before writing was even
invented - if you include as honorary writers the prehistoric story tellers who earned their
share of meat by telling stories round the camp fire at night rather than going out and
helping to catch it. One of our more shameless defences is that Shakespeare nicked ideas,
themes and indeed whole plots from other writers, so if it was good enough for him, it's
good enough for us. (It does no good to point out that it's different for Shakespeare be-
cause he was a genius - that's a highly morally dubious defence in the first place, and,
besides, all writers secretly think they're geniuses too so they'd only take that as further
encouragement.)
To the people who insist they really do have a great idea but they just can't write, I'd
say that given some of the topics I've read, or at least started to read, it would appear that
not being able to write is absolutely no obstacle whatsoever to writing a book and secur-
ing a publishing contract. Though becoming famous in some other field first may help.
