Five for Forever (40 page)

The same evening I sat down on my iPad keyboard, opened up a blank Evernote sheet and within fifteen minutes started typing out the storyline of three romantic comedies with the target to write a 100,000-word romance novel next.

Here were the three contenders of that evening, initial titles, spelling errors, and all:

Five for Forever:
40s Father is widower, manages job and raising 4 kids. Has given up hope to get into a serious relationship again. Meets famous actress through his job, becomes entangled with her. Conflict due to usual topics: her deadly schedule, his caretaking responsibilities, different life-plans. Crisis brings them together finally.

Single Forever:
Mid-30s career woman, real-estate agent, single mom, meets chaotic artist type with a strange family. Is asked to sell the house/estate of where artist and friends are living. Creative protest of the group, drives career woman up the wall. Hilarious fight ensues between protest and eviction actions, while woman and artist fall in love.

Ocean with Lighthouse:
Mid-30s cutthroat career man inherits a beautiful painting from his grandfather, a seascape. It’s part of a triptychon. Condition that comes with this inheritance: bring together the other two paintings of the series in an exhibition in the old lighthouse where the grandfather used to painting. Other owners: strange old man who lives in his own sphere who is a recluse. Young single mother with two kids who is reluctant to let the painting go. They both have to let go of the painting without payment. By convincing the two people, the young man discovers that it is more satisfying to help than it is to win.

When it came to decide in mid-2015 what to write next, I did a short brainstorming session of how much meat I could wrap around the initial bones of each idea. A book project takes a while and you will spend four to six months and long evenings with the story and its characters. So you better like what you are doing and have enough material to last you for 100,000 words in a row.
Five for Forever
was the quick winner. I immediately could spell out the five acts in the Rick/Louise relationship, and most of the major twists. Also the characters and their traits were readily available, especially the four wisecracking kids and their completely different characters and ages. Runner-up was clearly the
Ocean
story. Interesting dynamics between the characters’ three generations and between the career guy and the single mom. But in the end it felt too Nicholas Sparksy with underlying melancholy.

The book wrote itself for most of the parts and it ended up at 110,000 words, which were at least 10,000 words too many. In order to make it more concise, I had to remove some very nice characters. To give you insight into what a writer has to part with:

•     The research for the
Vera
history had been originally done by a sassy Hispanic female detective named Lola Steele. A nice scene between Hal, Rick, and Lola had to go, replaced by the self-led research of Hal and Rick. I probably have to revive that character in the future—she was too good.

•     Rick and Vicky had a dinner scene that read well but was not bringing the story forward. So I put the relevant content into the garden good-bye scene. Also the following visit of Rick to his old boatbuilding teacher was gone without replacement. The book is about Rick and Louise, not about shipbuilding or Rick’s past.

•     A very funny scene had to go, too: Rick breaking the news of his relationship to his mother, her not getting the fact that it is indeed the real Louise Waters and not some girl with a similar name or looks. (Actually, small insider tidbit: the movie
Notting Hill
also had a scene cut out that showed Hugh Grant’s character telling his elderly parents about him dating Julia Roberts’s character.)

•     Hal is a good friend to Rick and arranges for a string of dates. I only left the Cheryl date in the book as it brought the story forward in the early stage. Some other dates had to go. I was most sad about letting go an interesting second Cheryl date after Rick broke up with Louise. I had Hal organizing a Cheryl rebound that then ends badly when Cheryl feels that she will never be able to compete against the double heartbreak of Bella and Louise.

Maybe I can put up some of the scenes as bonus material on my blog one of these days?

Stylistically, it was clear to me very early on that
Five for Forever
wasn’t supposed to be a simple romantic story but more along the lines of the great 1990s British comedies
Notting Hill
or
Four Weddings and a Funeral
. Of course, I had to steer clear of too much
Notting Hill
as it is the gold standard of average guy–famous actress relationship stories. Plus,
Notting Hill
is the probably the movie that I’ve watched the most times in my life, closely followed by
Star Wars: Episode IV
. Therefore, I consider
Five for Forever
an homage rather than a clumsy steal, but I leave that judgment up to you, dear readers.

Thanks to the Amazon Kindle Press team for making “Five for forever” a better book. It is my first time working with a professional publishing organization and you guys made the journey for me a great one. Thanks Kelly, thanks Elise! All remaining errors and any storyline shortcomings are purely mine.

Despite common opinion, writing is not a lonely profession, as you are surrounded by your characters day in, night out throughout the journey of bringing a forty words summary to three hundred-plus pages. I always feel it is not my story but the story as told by the various participants, their viewpoints, their feelings, and their interpretations. But strangely enough, it appears that the characters are unwilling to explain to me in detail how things really work in their universe or their lives. How exactly do you build a wooden boat? What are the various roles on a film set? How do you apply for the US Naval Academy? Maybe it is clear to my imaginary characters but not to me. The topics above were the core research areas for this book. I took certain liberties in all areas, to fit my story line or purpose. Remember, it is called fiction for a reason. Reality is only a frame that can be bent at will. So I beg your pardon in advance. To give you one example: I
know
that during Plebes Summer the Naval Academy recruits have no access to their cell phones, so Agnes would not have been able to receive the selfie that Britta sent to her. I know they have access to computers and phones during regular study time that starts a few days after parents’ weekend. So I decided to bend the reality to make the ending a little more to my liking. (And in all fairness: I had tried an ending where I had Agnes cut off from phones until the very moment of the start of the parent’s weekend where she would have seen Louise together with her family for the first time on Tecumseh Court. But it was only half as strong as the uplifting selfie/text message, as I wanted to show the independent Agnes in the last scene of the book in a kind of rite-of-passage moment.)

Wooden boats and how to build them are a fascinating topic, even though I am not a sailor.
WoodenBoat
magazine has been an invaluable source of boatbuilder lingo and descriptions. The wooden boat experience stories
Masconomo
by Thomas H. Stearns and
Wooden Boats: In Pursuit of the Perfect Craft at an American Boatyard
by Michael Ruhlman allowed me to deep-dive into an artisan industry that lives from myth, dedication, and hard work.

Various web resources made it easy for me to look into the education and process of applying to the Naval Academy, especially the various pages targeted at the parents of the young midshipmen leaving home to embark on one of the most exciting and honorable careers out there. One endearing, valuable tip did not make it into the novel, but it is still worth sharing: send your sons and daughters a piece of white chalk.

Making movies is surely mythical, but again, it is an industry like any other, with people going about doing their jobs day in, day out. Apart from various Wikipedia pages, I was able to draw some insights from some great blogs of people in the trenches of movie production. Check out Evan Luzi’s
theblackandblue.com
blog for some great reading, as well as
assistantdirector.tumblr.com
and
theadsblog.wordpress.com
for inspiration about little stories that make you appear as an insider.

All the rest was, as usual, blatantly faked—ah, those liberties of a creative writer!