Sam Shelstad | Fiction | Ep. 10

Sam Shelstad reads three short chapters from his (very funny) novel, The Cobra and the Key, a fictional creative writing guide penned by an aspiring literary genius who isn’t going to let little things like talent, self-awareness, or a recent break-up hold him back. Sam talks to Jon and Cory about:Why he resisted packaging the book as a straight satire of writing guides and found the characterization and story needed for a novel insteadStarting the book as a collection of one-off comedic writing tips, and how a “silly” riff on Lord of the Rings unlocked what a joke within the book could beTaking inspiration for the book's structure from James Wood's How Fiction Works (and then writing the dumbest version of it)The challenge of writing a narrator who is stupid enough to be funny, but believable at the same time, and the readings where audiences weren't sure he was jokingHow he writes by building on incidental details and throwaway linesFollowing Hemingway's advice to always leave something unfinished at the end of each writing sessionHis love of Thomas Bernhard, Kafka, László Krasznahorkai and other writers whose darkness tips into comedy through repetition and the intense fixation of their charactersSam’s passage, from The Cobra and The Key:25.Watch how Oscar Wilde reveals character in The Picture of Dorian Gray:“Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette.”Now we know, through Wilde’s clever and efficient use of detail, that the character has eyebrows. And notice how his cigarette is described as “heavy,” which lets the reader know that Lord Henry is incredibly weak. We also learn, because of the blue smoke, that he’s some kind of wizard character.26.A character in your story can be a composite of different people you know. You might borrow certain characteristics from one person, and certain characteristics from another. For example, an important character in the novel I’m working on now was created using this technique. The character, Molly, borrows some elements from my ex-lover: her manner of speaking, her sense of humour, her looks. Her name, of course. She’s from the same small town as Molly and had a similar family dynamic growing up. An ex-husband named Charles. Same interests and fears. But this character also wears a red beret, just like one of my neighbors. It’s interesting to mash two different people together like this and see what happens.29.People like to read about characters they would want to have a beer with. They should be interesting, amiable, and basically the kind of individual you could imagine sitting down and having a beer with. Take, for example, the wide cast of characters who populate J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy series The Lord of the Rings. I would sit down and have a beer with Frodo. Of course, I’d definitely want to have a beer with Gandalf. Samwise Gamgee—I’d have a beer. Merry and Pippin—beer. I’d sit down with Aragorn and have a beer, and I would also want to have a beer with Gimli. I would definitely want to sit down and have a beer with Arwen. I’d have a beer with Elrond. I think we would all want to sit down and have a beer with The Ents. I’d also have a beer with Galadriel. Boromir, beer for sure. Legolas, beer. I’d even want to have a beer with Gollum. That would be interesting. And of course, you can’t forget Bilbo Baggins. I’d want to sit down and have a beer with him too.