Why I wrote about a 'hot' pterodactyl | Children's books
Why I wrote about a 'hot' pterodactyl
This article is more than 7 years oldAlan CumynHow do you keep going with a truly ridiculous idea – and turn it into a ‘realistic’ novel? Alan Cumyn tells the story of how a throw away comment (with a dash of inspiration from Kafka) gave him something weird that he just couldn’t let go
Not long ago I caught myself telling someone that I only write realistic books. I’m drawn to the dramas of life, nothing too speculative or… And then I had to confess that the premise of my new novel is that a sexy and charismatic pterodactyl comes to high school and completely unhinges the love life of the student body chair.
What? In what way is that a realistic, rather than ridiculous, idea for a novel?
The premise is ridiculous, the rest (I believe) follows naturally. Don’t humans adapt all the time to preposterous events? We do eventually get used to a round Earth, flying men, and text break-ups, after all.
But – what about that original leap into creative madness? Artistically, how do you take that leap? How do you keep believing in something most people snort at?
I don’t know how Franz Kafka stumbled upon the startling opening line of The Metamorphosis so long ago: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” My own moment of bizarre fascination came at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I teach. The popular American author Libba Bray was telling over a hundred writers to not slavishly follow trends. But she didn’t say it that way. She said, “Don’t go writing your hot pterodactyl boyfriend novel.”
She repeated the line three times in an hour, a brilliant throwaway. Nobody else in the room seemed to find it remarkable. But I stopped breathing.
Why?
Flashback: years before, I had been riding a train that rounded a bend bringing a lake into view. A great blue heron – ancient-looking – stood still on a rock by the shore. His gaze pierced me. I was seized by the idea of a story about a bird who has the power to become human and wander around the big city, almost as a vacation.
I wrote furiously in my notepad for several pages. The lake, and the heron, were long gone. But soon enough I stopped. For one thing, I needed to know much more about birds. I really needed to think things through.
Getting seized by a strange new idea is a bit like falling in love. But a novel is a long-term, dedicated relationship, which takes work, as psychologists (and great aunts) tell us. You have to be in it for the long haul.
Over the years I wrote several versions of my great blue heron novel. I invented part of a (ridiculous) great blue heron language, wrote the opening stanzas of an (impenetrable) epic poem about seasonal migration. I thought a lot about Kafka and his famous bug, and of Kafka’s dreamlike way of writing. As those manuscripts sputtered, I got on to other, more sensible projects. And then: “Don’t go writing your hot pterodactyl boyfriend novel.”
I might as well have been hit by the same train I’d been riding so long ago. When I sat down with my notebook, the first chapter came pouring out – the arrival of the pterodactyl at Vista View High, circling above the track as if he has come to wreak havoc and eat the cross-country runners. But no, he is just laughably late, and here are his transfer papers. I felt like I knew that beast from the inside, the way I had connected with that heron.
Once again I stopped before going too far. How could I even think of writing this strange story?
I found Libba Bray and said, “Hot pterodactyl boyfriend – where does that come from?”
She said, “I don’t know. I just made it up.”
“I think I’m getting an idea.” Gulp.
“You should go for it, Alan. You should write that novel.”
All right, permission, from Libba and myself. But how do you start with ridiculous and keep writing with a straight face? I didn’t tell anyone else. I wrote for a year on my own in a cone of silence, building on the energy and the clues that fell out of that zany opening chapter. I wrote knowing it all might well end in wreckage, like my other attempts to make art out of the piercing stare of an ancient bird.
Writing the ridiculous with serious intent is a high-wire act without a net. But there is something exhilarating about working with the complete freedom to fail. I believe Kafka wrote that way most of the time, late at night in a feverish state. Maybe that’s part of why he asked to have his unpublished work burned after he died (a request famously unhonoured).
There is no net. All art is a high-wire act. And sometimes the true spirit of the story does not emerge until years after the initial burst of love.
You can buy Alan’s outrageous Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend from the Guardian bookshop.
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