By Steven Hall /
rawsharktexts.com
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Editor's Note:
This is the story of a book that sold in 21 countries before being released anywhere. A book that had US film studios in a heated bidding war for rights, and Nicole Kidman calling the author asking for the lead role. This is the story of 'The Raw Shark Texts', by Steven Hall,
published by Canongate in March 2007.
In this blog Steven Hall takes us not only through the genesis of his own novel, but of his writing development as a whole, signing an agent and watching as his book exploded across the globe.
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In 1997 I decided I to become a writer. From 1997 to 2003, I spent all my spare time trying to write a novel called THE RETURN OF THE MAN.
THE MAN was a complicated crime caper about a stolen briefcase and had lots of cool looking people saying cool things to each other in cool leather jackets before blowing/smacking each other's brains out in exciting ways (a writer friend said to me at the time 'there are other methods of resolving conflict in fiction you know, apart from the shooting').
Reading that paragraph back, it actually sounds like a good (or at least fun) book, but it wasn't. Basically, it was rubbish.
Because THE RETURN OF THE MAN was rubbish, I rewrote it. I rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it. I should say that I studied Fine Art at university so I didn't know a whole lot about novels or the mechanics of putting clean and interesting prose together back then. So I rewrote THE MAN over and over and I read a lot of books.
Every time I rewrote the book, it got a little bit better. The problem (or my saving grace, however you want to look at it) was that THE RETURN OF THE MAN was about 250,000 words long. Stupidly, stupidly long. This meant that by the time I finally got to the end, my prose was better than it had been at the beginning. So I'd go back to the beginning and clean that up. But then the beginning and the end were better written than the middle. So I'd rewrite the middle. But by the time I'd done that, my prose had improved again. So I'd have to rewrite the end. And then the beginning again. And then the middle again. This went on for 6 years.
Eventually, I got to a point where I was happy with the prose. 'This is good writing', I thought, sort of smug. I sent it around to agents and got some good responses, but nobody wanted to represent me. The problem was, although my prose was starting to hang together after six years of work, the story, the underlying core structure of THE RETURN OF THE MAN was, well, it was still shit.
So I decided to take everything I'd learned from THE RETURN OF THE MAN and start another book, a good book, a proper book. The book. I had a killer idea too.
I called up an agent (no names) who'd been quite enthusiastic about THE RETURN OF THE MAN and had a conversation with her that went a little bit like this:
"Hi, it's Steven. I've realised that the book I sent you was really a sort of a training wheels project. All the time I thought I was writing a novel, I was really just teaching myself how to write a novel. I think I'm ready to write a proper book now."
" So you're going to throw away all that work and start something new?"
" Yep."
"Wow. That's a big decision. I think it's the right one though."
"Thanks, me too. Would you like to be my agent for the new book?"
"Well. I'm definitely interested. Do you have an idea for it?"
"Yes. In fact, I have a killer idea."
"Fantastic. What is it?"
"The book is going to be about an imaginary fish."
*several seconds of silence*
"A.... a what-now?"
"An imaginary fish. And a guy who doesn't know who he is. I think its going to be really great."
Right. And, what...?" *more silence* "And, I mean, the guy - does he...?" *even more silence* "Hmmm... right."
This was the first conversation I had with anyone about what would become THE RAW SHARK TEXTS.
The agent gave up being an agent a few months later.
I'm still hoping that wasn't my fault.
So. I'd given up on my first novel, started something new, almost got an agent - almost, almost, almost - and then lost her again. I guess almost succeeding in any profession is painful, but in writing it hurts all the more because the chances of you actually getting anywhere in the first place are so stupidly small. I felt like I'd taken my first step up some whispered-about legendary ladder towards the holy grail of being a real writer, and then fallen off it again and landed in cow shit.
I suppose wannabe-novelist isn't in quite the same league as wannabe-olympic gold medalist or wannabe-astronaut in the setting-yourself-up-for-a-massive-fall stakes, but its got to be near the top of the list.
The bottom line is, if you're a wannabe-novelist, no one in publishing wants to know you. They pretend to be out. They never answer the phone. They look at the query letter and sample chapter that you sent them - the one you spent days and days getting absolutely perfect with every word where it should be, on the right paper, with the right line spacing, with the right font and a pitch perfect tone which makes you sound professional, efficient and capable yet friendly, and easy to work with - they look at it sitting there on top of their huge slush pile and they think: 'Please, just fuck off.'
So almost getting somewhere and then having the thing come apart in my hands was a blow. I'd got myself a no-brainer day job with the idea that I wouldn't have to take work home with me and I'd be able to get in in the evening and concentrate on developing my killer idea into a killer novel. That was the plan. Only I hadn't taken into account my new employer's attitude towards overtime. Overtime wasn't exactly mandatory, but they did stand in front of you at the end of the day and try to stop you leaving the building until you'd agreed to come in all day Saturday and Sunday morning. Sometimes they would even chase you out into the street. As a result, my writing suffered. I got the first 2,000 words of my new book written and then things just seized up. Maybe 6 months passed. The 2,000 words became 2,500 at best. Not good. Not being able to get the writing out was driving me mad, but I just didn't have the time or maybe the head space to get the book rolling.
If there's one turning point in this whole story, one big break that made everything else possible, then this is it - I emailed a writer who's work I liked and who's website I found. I politely asked her some question I don't even remember about publishing and as an afterthought mentioned the book I was trying to write. The writer, who's name is Scarlett Thomas (and who's absolutely stunning new book The End of Mr Y comes out soon) mailed back with advice on whatever I'd asked about and also said she liked the sound of what I was doing. Scarlett asked if she could read what I had of the book so far and, a week or so later, said she'd really enjoyed it and would like her agent to see it too. Her agent being the great and legendary (at least in wannabe-writer circles) Mr Simon Trewin.
Simon Trewin takes over the story here:
I am a busy man - I get literally thousands of emails/letters/parcels a year containing the well-wrought (or otherwise) prose of so-called writers out there and on the majority of occasions one knows within seconds that the material doesn't pass muster.
When my great friend and wonderful client Scarlett Thomas contacted me about an author called Steven Hall who had emailed her site www.bookgirl.org with a manuscript and a request for some advice I sat up and took notice. Scarlett is a tough taskmaster and a fiendishly good creative writing teacher - for her to think something was worth my while reading was a rare and eagerly anticipated event. I duly made contact with Steven and took delivery of the opening section of The Raw Shark Texts (under a different never-to-be-told title) and a rough synopsis.
I was struck first by the total ambition of what was in front of me. Steven was quite clearly either totally mad or simply an author who saw the world from an oblique point of view. Or maybe, weirdly, both! The book was simply awesome and unique and I knew I was in the hands of a master storyteller almost from the first page. I had to meet this guy...
We traded emails in the way that dogs sniff each other in public parks (much to the embarrassment of their owners) and then arranged to meet. Time plays tricks with our minds and I can't remember whether we had agreed to work with or not by the time we met but I do remember Steven wandering into my office with an air of expectancy, trepidation and confidence which impressed me immediately. We chatted, I asked him lots of mad questions and maybe even allowed him to answer some of them and we shook hands on the whole notion of working together. I had a new client and he had a new agent. We both grinned a lot, looked at our feet a bit in a sort of Hugh Grant meets Vin Diesel manner and Steven headed back up to The North to continue to work his magic on this extraordinary story.
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Part 2 of 'How all of this actually happened' will be released here on the 27th Feb 2007.
In the mean time, why not check out Steven Hall's MySpace page for more news and reviews:
www.myspace.com/stevenhallbooks
