… Or Insufferably Introducing a Beloved Character

With that earnest music out of the way, welcome back to the Daniel’s Nemesis Podcast in which I read through a book called X-Book that I wrote many a moon ago. I then analyse the text and look at the me that I was over a decade ago trying not to reveal too much that will spoil your enjoyment of the rest of the story. If this is your first time listening, well, you haven’t missed much at all, so there’s no need yet to go back and listen to previous episodes to catch up to speed. For those returning, here’s a bit of a recap of what happened previously. And don’t worry about spoilers if you haven’t listened as nothing’s happened yet. So, last episode, we floated around space a bit, whilst I discussed cod-philosophy and how bad war is and stuff. 

This episode, however, is going to introduce us to our human hero Ginger Jeeves, RAF pilot adjusting to the new peace after the First World War. I’ll be honest upfront and say that we are not going to be thrown straight into the story. But at least there will be a bit more going on than in the previous chapter. 

If you want to know more about the book, and this project that I’m now recording as a podcast, be my guest to go back to the previous episodes and listen to those first. After all, context wise, listening to things in order does help with the appreciation, and this is not really a podcast that one can listen to any old random episode when they feel like it. Though I’m sure that there will be many who will. 

As ever, I would like to point out that all events and characters in this book are fictitious. For the opposite to be true, I would have needed to do some research. And as you will find out, that clearly didn’t happen. 

Enough spiffle. Here is the first real story chapter. 

Just remember:

This is fiction, 

Always fiction. 

Logic is as logic does.

General Notes

I’ve talked before about my lack of research and how little I knew of what I was talking about, and this chapter is a very good example. 

I really have no idea how taking leave in the military works. Certainly not 100 years ago. And this left me baffled. This was a pre-Wikipedia age, but still I don’t think there would be an article on that matter even today. I could be wrong. Nor did I have anyone to turn to to ask about leave as I didn’t know anyone in the military. So, I went into that whole issue a bit blind, and to create some kind of sacrifice for Ginger to deal with later when the aliens really do make themselves apparent. Is that a spoiler? I hope not. How much leave is one entitled to? Is two weeks even too much? Especially as he wants a month in total over prime vacation periods. Having been employed, that’s more time off than I was entitled to.

And there’s another issue I had with the military. I have no idea about the ranks. I needed a superior to Ginger for this and later scenes to work. But where should Ginger lay, and where should his superior be? Here I did do some research online, but the best I was able to find was a chart of the ranks in the air force, without any explanation of what they actually do. Consequently, Johnson became a Flight Lieutenant (previously he was a general) as it didn’t seem too high a ranking to take him off the base, and not too low that he wouldn’t have any power over Ginger, at least the kind of power I wanted him to have. It turns out that Flight Lieutenants don’t have such a great role these days, but had more power in the early days of the RAF. Wing Commander or Squadron Leader might be better. I guess I felt that the ranks could always be changed later, just as long as the power struggles weren’t too affected as they were the more important thing. Real knowledge could just come along later. 

Ginger is wanting his plane fixed. Why would he go to the Flight Lieutenant about that, I have no idea. That’s a matter for engineers who would do routine checks. And the way he describes the problems with his plane so vaguely displays my knowledge of machinery in general. 

That old adage: Write about what you know. So, how did I achieve that? 

Well, I brought in High Wycombe - where I studied at uni, and rewrote most of the book. Also it has a convenient air base nearby, so I was able to bring in some local knowledge to make the book seem more credible.

However, even talking about what I know quickly falls apart. I talk about how Ginger was originally based in Bridgend, the large-ish town near where I grew up. The nearest base is RAF St Athan, which is a bit away from Bridgend. However, a quick Wikipedia search shows that the base was opened in 1938. Twenty years after the setting of my story. So, what about the base in High Wycombe? 1943. Good job me. 

Other things that I have found out since then, is that the Royal Flying Corps (it changed its name in 1918, at least proving Ginger right on one occasion - one early research victory) consisted of just 5 squadrons before the war. Also, a recent trip to Stonehenge showed me that was where the RFC was based, certainly around Wiltshire, with an airfield right next to Stonehenge itself. I mean metres away. Ginger, being a career pilot, so a pilot before the war, would have almost certainly been stationed there, not Bridgend as there were no bases in Wales. So, though many may scoff at Wikipedia as a research tool, look at the mess that I made without it.  And did London need protecting? I have no idea. But it all sounds plausible - and therein lay my strategy. 

I’m beginning to understand now why I may have failed my history A-level at around that time. 

I had a growing obsession with silent cinema, which is why Ginger talked about silent movies. Elmo Lincoln was the first Tarzan and the movie came out early in 1918 - proving that I did some research. But only about the things that interested me. 

Another thing that stands out for me is the opening of this chapter and our first experience of Ginger. Setting him up in such a way to make him so famous does clearly stress his arrogance. But why is he re-enacting his famous battle? Who cares? Who are the adoring fans? This leads on to his apparent desire for power, firstly by taking over the Flight Lieutenant’s office, and then becoming King. These are strong desires for Ginger, who I don’t remember displays this side of him later on. 

There was always a question in my mind. Is this demonstration of his flying skills real or not? Is it a hallucination or a dream? I was never certain what it should be, but it certainly doesn’t read that way. I guess I wanted to leave it to the reader to decide. But if you are going to be ambiguous, then as a writer, you should be firmly clear about what is ambiguous to the reader. And there were no clues, no context to even bring the question to the reader’s mind. We just jump straight in making it gospel truth.   

The Cutting Room Floor: What Would I Change?

I’d work on the character of the Flight Lieutenant. And get his ranking right, at least. He is really a remnant from the very early versions, and I see so much of the humour of the kind of things I was writing as a teen back then. He is very two-dimensional, which as a secondary, if not tertiary character, isn’t the biggest sin in the world, but I’d like more. He is there for Ginger to bounce off. But he is not giving much for Ginger to bounce off. He is just confused, focussing on singular aspects that are not important to either character, and generally a bit annoying. Stronger challenges would have shown us more of what Ginger was capable of, or even incapable of. I always like the second aspect, as all characters need their boundaries, and whether or not a boundary is transgressed in the three act structure of a typical story, it is always good to see more sides to any character. As it is, Ginger is a very arrogant character, thinks much of himself, so it would be nice to see him be knocked down a couple of pegs. Instead, he is talking with a weak character that he is so easily able to outwit that he actually switches off from the conversation. 

As it is, I’m not keen on the Flight Lieutenant - much of the humour is contrived. I was attempting to go for the “wacky” character that turns up in far too many sitcoms, and forcing out the humour. 

Instead, this scene is quite unnecessary as does he really have any reason to go visit the Flight Lieutenant? The whole thing is quite contrived and without any real conflict. Really, this scene is more about an employee checking his holiday request form has been received. 

The only real point of this section introducing the Flight Lieutenant is to set up the idea of an alien attack through the rantings of a mad man. And to give him some kind of admin role that has some level of power over Ginger. 

And how does Ginger get away from the base to the pub so easily? That needs working.

What Did I Already Change?

The main gist of this chapter was pretty much unchanged, including the dialogue which was barely touched at all and displays my amazing wit and humour as a seventeen year old. 

In the old version, it’s more about Ginger requesting leave than checking on it. But it’s the same conversation about the plane. Also a few of the descriptions are the same. They are just tucked into Ginger’s internal monologue. The descriptions of the room in particular, and how the Flight Lieutenant moves. 

Basically, the same scene, but much shorter. The bit about High Wycombe, and going to the pub are new, as I didn’t live in High Wycombe back then, and legally too young for the pub. And the moment when the Flight Lieutenant begins to fade out of view is new too. The bit with Ginger flying around is also there, as are the adoring fans. But less sexy girls like there are in the nerdy teenage virgin version. And the arrogance is absent in the original version as well as the desire to rise up the ranks to the level of king. 

So, not much has changed, just extra details. And neuroses.

Quote of the day

Today’s quote is not reaching the levels of profundity as I would normally search for, but is instead a turn of phrase that stuck out for me due to it’s necrophiliac nature. “I’ve knocked up 75 kills”. 

To be fair, this line is less to do with setting Ginger up as a sexual deviant, and more, I think, of my mishearing of the phrase “to notch up”. 

Back then, I didn’t know much. I was certainly aware of how to make a woman pregnant, not through direct experience as may already be clear, but the term “to knock up” hadn’t entered my vocabulary. 

So, a happy little accident that brought a smile to my face, if not an attempt at groundbreaking observation.  

Cheesiest Moment

The real “Oh God, what was I thinking when I wrote that?” moment is… well I actually play up the cheese in this chapter. I always did. The cliches such as “spiffing” and “old bean” were deliberate. But it certainly does reach its cheesy heights when Ginger’s being carried away from the plane, with everybody chanting his name. 

I don’t know why I wanted it to be a cheesy opener. I think I wanted a level of humour to bring people in, and didn’t know what else to do than challenge people’s perceptions of how people spoke at that time, and have it contrast with the harshness of Ginger’s inner monologue, humanising him, and making him more recognisable in his thoughts and speech patterns to us now, a hundred years later. But I must concede that I was more likely challenging my own perceptions and making myself realise that people back then were not just just cardboard cutouts who used quaint and antiquated words to make contemporary people laugh as I’d seen so often in comics or sketches. 

I’m still uncertain of the need for the air-show, though. That was always there, and obviously I wanted to set up Ginger as a good pilot, but the airshow baffles me now. Why I persisted with it for so many years and so many rewrites, I have no idea now. Perhaps I just wanted to begin with a bit of spectacle - after all this was originally conceived as a film, not a book. It just seemed a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, that time lasted for a few years. So, OMG, what was I thinking for ALL THAT time?   

Shining Light

I don’t know why, but I just like the idea of Ginger swiping the pen. A small act of cruelty and vindictiveness that is out of character for Ginger, but opens him up a little. I have no idea why he should do such a thing, and I don’t think I even knew it back then. It was just something that needed to be there. In fact, this whole chapter is littered with moments that are unlike the Ginger in the rest of the book, at least as I remember him. Turns of phrase borrowed from the stylings of Alex from Clockwork Orange such as “Awfully quickly does it need sorting”, his strong sense of entitlement, and lust for power and glory. 

This need to alter the way Ginger spoke resulted from one point of criticism that I actually paid good money for. But one point did stick out that Ginger and our other hero had very similar voices. Fair enough - both of them were my voice. But I needed to find a way of making the two of them sound different. Most attempts at which happened in this chapter. 

I don’t even think I thought about this at the time, but as I was sending the book out to publishers, most of whom require the first three chapters, by putting so much effort into Ginger’s voice in this chapter, I was helping Ginger stand out more for the publishers. Not that they bit, of course. 

However, what I was actually doing was reinforcing another piece of criticism that I received. If you are listening to this in the future and, God forbid, you are bingeing on this podcast you may notice that a lot of the “spiffings” and “Old beans” drop away in later chapters. My critic noticed this too. So, by setting up such a strong voice in this first chapter, and then letting that drop as well, I was just creating a very inconsistent character. 

But we do begin with an awkward character for our hero. Not quite hero, not quite anti-hero. That’s my Shining Light.

The Psychologist's Chair

A few things to mention here. I guess the first is the Beatlemania style reception that Ginger gets after getting out of his plane. That and all the grand desires Ginger reveals. Could it just be possible that I was imagining the kind of admiration and reception that I was hoping to get from publishing this book? I certainly wanted to be famous. And I strongly desired to be the greatest ever author, better even than Shakespeare. 

I always wondered how it was possible for people to live normal, boring lives without being famous. How could they wake up each morning and not desire huge amounts of attention all the time? Of course, I wasn’t famous either. But at least I desired to be famous. And that, somehow, was enough. I knew that fame would one day come, like some kind of inheritance. And now I’m doing it again. Trying to be famous. 

Even when working in stores, I liked the attention. Behind the counter, I was in the spotlight. I was looking at the queues. They were looking at me. Having difficult customers meant I could argue with them, telling them how their complaint was wrong and playing up to the waiting people. A couple of times I got a round of applause from the audience (people waiting in the queue) and the adrenalin rush was amazing. 

When I couldn’t even be a store assistant any more, I became a teacher instead. Teaching English. Trying to get attention away from smart-phones and onto me is a daily battle. So, I become a performing monkey. And I love that attention. 

So there we go. There’s my confession. I’m a shameless fame whore. 

But that isn’t the focus of this segment. 

What is going on towards the end of the chapter? 

Ginger encounters two fantasies whilst in the pub. And he hasn’t even had anything to drink. Though that’s misleading, as he states he has drunk after the first fantasy, but not after the second. So, we’ve established a very reliable narrator here. And a poor continuity-editor in me. 

The first fantasy of him in the trenches turns out to be a story told by Connor that Ginger has placed himself into, seeing it as Connor did. And isn’t too revealing. But, it leads to the question - if Connor is ground infantry and Ginger a pilot, how do they know each other? Secondly, does one bring up what is perhaps the most traumatic event of their life so casually in a pub? And to someone it’s unlikely they know well, only by name which is the strength of the relationship revealed by Ginger. One must assume that they know each other more intimately than that. And you know what people say about assumptions. They make an ass out of you and ‘mption’. Or, Connor is just another voice in Ginger’s head. 

The second major fantasy is more revealing, though. And, I do remember it was a dream that I had that I wrote into the story. This happens a lot. But Ginger experiences it as some kind of hallucination. It may just be that he actually is asleep and dreaming, but that’s all part of the ambiguity that I never worked out for myself.

What I find interesting about this hallucination is that there is a large dramatic irony. Ginger, who builds himself up as this great hero and celebrity becomes almost completely passive and lacking control of the situation. 

Sebastien’n’Sebastian is our hero here. A name given to him in my dream. And a name that I love. He’s based on a friend of mine from school. But I forget who that is now. Still, names are changed, I don’t remember who it is, and it’s a dream, clearly not based on reality, so no-one can sue for recognising themselves in that bit. 

Holly has been kidnapped. They are there to rescue her. Fair enough. I can easily interpret that as trying to reclaim a love that has been lost. Fighting for the cause. It’s an anxiety dream about losing a love.

But Sebastien’n’Sebastian is the one in control. Ginger is quiet. Ginger rides on Sebastien’n’Sebastian’s motorbike. Upon rescuing Holly, of which little information is given - it’s just accepted as dream rules allow - Sebastien’n’Sebastian takes her away, leaving Ginger to try and catch up on a bicycle. Even by taking an aerial view, he can’t find them. He is powerless and he accepts his defeat. In fact he is so passive that when Sebastien’n’Sebastian takes her away from him, he doesn’t immediately pursue, but dawdles wondering whether or not to go after them. How weak is this character, that he will almost allow his desire to slip away from him? 

So, what was my unconscious trying to tell me? That anyone I love will always be taken by a different suitor? Was my esteem so low at that point that even my inner self was telling me to give up and remain a virgin forever? Seems that way. It’s nice to know that even my own brain was against me. Perhaps, though, I was telling myself that this person I desired was not really worth the effort.

Earlier, I posed the question “how did Ginger get away from the base to the pub so easily?” Well, this is where I was getting too big for my boots. And another ambiguous point that I was never clear of myself. Is the whole sequence in the pub reality or not? Thereby meaning Ginger is having a dream inside of a dream. If so, which part of him is having the anxiety, and is the anxiety real? And as Ginger’s anxiety was really my own anxiety, by writing it into fiction in the first place, am I giving up ownership of it by projecting it onto someone else? But then, if it’s a dream within a dream within a work of fiction, was I just attempting to play down the anxiety and to mock it, put it in its place?  

Returning to the text and the “is it a dream within a dream?” point, well, the whole thing got a bit meta and a bit complicated for me. And so, once again, I decided to leave the whole thing up to the reader. Without ever really posing the question in their head. 

But there is one clue. Maybe I’m stretching for this. And it revolves around Connor, who becomes one of Ginger’s squadron. Either Connor turned from infantry man to pilot, or this is a deception designed to plant the idea this is all a hallucination in your head. 

Honestly, I have no idea now.

Farewell 

Well, at least we got a good, full introduction to Ginger, from his highs to his lows. And all the time, he is passive. Taking no more initiative and control than by swiping a pen. And as a chapter, it gets to display the digressions that will become a big part of the book, if not the story. 

Want to be like Ginger? Then be passive, and don’t check me out on Facebook or Twitter at Daniels Nemesis (no apostrophe) and don’t subscribe. Don’t leave your own interpretations, and don’t say anything positive. No, do. Definitely say something positive. Read between the lines of sarcasm, and know that I want positive comments. I’m negative enough as it is. Of course, should you subscribe, you really can be passive and allow the internet to download the next and all future episodes onto your listening device. And your control is by clicking on that subscribe button. 

Whatever you choose to do, we’ll be meeting William, our alien hero, next week as he has a bit of an existential crisis. And finds a convenient way to describe what he looks like so the readers get an image of what his alien race are like. 

Thank you very much for listening. See you again soon. Take care. (Book closes)

And just in case you were wondering, 

all text was written by me, Daniel’s Nemesis and XBook is purely a work of fiction and is not meant to be based on anyone or any events at all.

The music was also by me, Daniel’s Nemesis as was the image that accompanies this podcast. 

It sucks, doesn’t it? 

But there we go.