This was a something I wrote for my book that was never to be included. I wanted to visualise the paperwork on Juliet's desk and really understand everything she was trying to put in her memoirs and this helped. It was a wonderful reminder of a long gone character right when I needed it. I've posted it here in the hope the subject sparks a debate.
Extract Of An Interview With The Late Great Jack Shaw, By Juliet Morgan.
“What advice do you give to young writers, Jack?”
“What a horrible question! But it has an answer. You should picture your ideal motorcar. Spare no detail. Picture it’s colour, its make, model, whether it’s factory fresh or a classic, whether it has gadgets and devices or is quite basic. Think very carefully about its comfort or lack of. Do you hanker for something sleek and sporty that would reveal every bump in the road or is suspension key...
"Consider power and pace. Are you the ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ of the literary world or the Aryton Senna? Do you bother with technical jargon? Do you weigh up the car’s performance like James May or do you just like the colour? Even picture other writers and what vehicles they might award themselves if money were no object. It tells you a great deal about your style of writing and the way you view your peers. I always see the mainstream writers of today in flashy four-by-fours. I think it’s good for the soul. But each of my literary heroes drive something with far more style. Writers worship words in the same way the world coverts the automobile and there can be no better analogy.”
“And yourself, Jack? What vehicle best describes your own style?”
“Anything with four wheels and a working engine. I’m no writer, Juliet. I am a storyteller.”
Quite a nice parallel, but to appreciate it fully, as you said, I think I would need to know more about the character. It's also nice to use that segment of the novel that will never get to see the light of day - the relics of the cutting room floor... and you've just helped give me a fantastic new idea for a story :-)
‘Its colour’ not ‘it’s colour’ (possessive pronoun not verb); 'covets' not 'coverts' ('the world covets the automobile') and 'drives' not 'drive'. 'Each' (of my literary heroes) is a singular.
I liked his answer at the end, “Anything with four wheels and a working engine. I’m no writer, Juliet. I am a storyteller.”