Became an American Retro Novelist - Chapter 189



Only Noblemtl

189.

When I gave the general situation on the phone, the cowboy replied:

[That must be a difficult situation.]

As expected, he is the most trustworthy man in the world.

[I’ll go there this weekend. If you fax me the manuscript, I’ll read it in advance.]

A true cowboy, a man among men.

Scalp Kingston······!

I called on an ally who could solve all the problems I was facing.

And the very next day, after giving a brief explanation to the club members about the attendance of an outsider, I received the manuscript and faxed it to Dupi.

Everyone, including Kate, who knew about the scalp in advance, was skeptical, but I was convinced.

The person we need most right now is the scalp.

‘Because at amateur level, no one can match the guy’s insight.’

Besides, one of the guy’s greatest strengths was that he purely ‘enjoyed’ all genres.

That was an element that even I didn’t have. I was a professional writer, so rather than enjoying each genre with a pure heart, I tended to think about what kind of structure it had and how people would accept it. Because of that, I was in a situation where I couldn’t give perfect feedback to the two people.

‘John trusts me deeply because I’m a writer, and Rebecca is so wrapped up in the writing aspect that she can’t get out of it.’

I was, so to speak, a ‘writer’.

Such people are trapped in their own world and look at writing through a narrow field of vision.

It was inevitable, and it could not be seen as a disadvantage unconditionally. After all, the writer is a creature who has his own vision and creates it in the form of ‘writing’.

‘You could say it’s the complete opposite of scalp.’

That’s why I couldn’t help but look forward to the weekend.

Should I say that when I’m next to a friend who’s doing well, I feel a sense of pride in myself?

I wanted to introduce Doofy to John, Kate, and Rebecca, who were my close friends at school. I said, ‘This great guy is my friend! What do you think?’

The weekend arrived after such anticipation.

As Doofy said he would come all the way to Stanford, I picked up the other three and headed to the meeting place, and only then did I realize something new.

Doofy Kingston is not a man I can dare to contain.

The silver time machine that appears in the distance······ No, it’s ‘DMC-12’.

A long, stretched-out vehicle glided toward us, and out of it came Doofy Kingston, dressed in a sleek white suit and sunglasses.

This guy is so cool. James Dean would cry.

“Um.”

Everyone had a dumbfounded look on their face.

“Oh, God?”

As expected, John was the first to whisper to me.

“Is that guy your friend?”

“that’s right.”

I nodded and approached Doopi, extending my hand.

A handshake took place.

“Scalp.”

“god.”

“Scalp.”

“god.”

Often, whenever our emotions were overwhelming, we would look into each other’s eyes and call each other’s names.

······Then a murmuring sound was heard from behind.

“······Were you gay?”

“Absolutely not. God, I have a girlfriend.”

“Damn, I want to do that with God too!”

This is what the true friendship of cowboys looks like to others.

I looked back, thinking to myself to be more careful next time.

“This is the Doofy Kingston I was talking about. Doofy, my college friends John Smith and Rebecca Wong. Do you know Kate?”

Doofy nodded, approached them, and held out his hand.

“Hello. My name is Doofy Kingston. ······I do a little art.”

“John Smith! Please take care of me!”

“Nice to meet you. It’s nice to meet a friend who shares the same artistic background. What are you doing?”

“It’s a kind of sculpture.”

“······.”

That’s true, it’s definitely true.

“John and Rebecca. I’ve read your novels well. I’d like to sit down in a quiet cafe and have a leisurely chat.”

After finishing his greetings with such a charismatic appearance, Doopi turned to Kate, who was standing behind him, and his sunglasses sparkled.

“Kate Moore.”

“······Scalp Kingston.”

“I received ‘that’ you sent me last time.”

“Haha, I still have a long way to go compared to you. I wish I could do as well as you.”

“Let’s talk about it later.”

“······huh?”

I couldn’t help but tilt my head at those words.

By any chance, are you two still in contact since that day?

······What on earth happened at the ‘About T’ fan signing event?

***

Five men and women sat together, taking up a corner of the cafeteria.

We each ordered coffee to suit our tastes, and since we were planning to use our brains a bit, we even ordered cake.

First, we took out John and Kate’s novel manuscripts from the bags we each brought.

I glanced at the paper of the person sitting right next to me, and I was a little impressed by the traces of meticulous analysis, underlining here and there, just like Rebecca.

‘I didn’t know you would work this hard.’

As expected, I have good friends.

That was the moment I thought so.

Scalp, who had returned from sunglasses to glasses, slowly pushed up his clone with his middle and ring fingers intertwined. His two eyes shone brightly beyond the lenses.

“John. Why did you write something like this?”

An incredible force that even a 30-year veteran genre novel editor would not be able to easily demonstrate.

John Smith, the innocent giraffe who had been sitting in his seat with a big smile on his face without any particular tension, shrugged his shoulders.

So it looks more like a giraffe.

“Uh, yeah? I was just wondering what to write and an idea just popped into my head?”

“Then why did that idea cross your mind?”

“······Uh, well.”

“I’m asking you now what part of this novel you find interesting.”

“Well, well?”

“Can you think about it, Rebecca? Next, ask me the same question.”

“Yeah, scalp. Let me give you an example from my latest work, ‘Love at the Scene of a Crime.’”

Kate Moore frowned and bit her lip.

That is, the mask was slightly removed.

······It was because the content of Rebecca Wong’s novel, ‘Love at the Crime Scene’, which had caused her great trauma, came to mind again.

The detective fell in love.

At the scene of a person’s death, he falls in love.

What was even more unfortunate was that the love could not come true. The woman shed tears and talked about how good her husband was, and the detective vowed to catch the criminal somehow, even for the sake of the feelings he had developed.

A detective who goes in and out of the morgue and other places to sort out his emotions and solve cases.

And the truth that was finally revealed was horrific.

“The fact is that the person the detective loved was her dead husband. I wanted to shatter people’s perception of love through this twist. And I wanted to make the twist as provocative as possible so that the readers of this novel would be shocked and have fun from it.”

“So the purpose of writing this novel was ‘shock’?”

“Yeah. Kate seemed really surprised. I felt good.”

“Kate, how was it?”

“······I read it while eating, but it was so hard.”

Kate Moore avoids eye contact as if it were a terrible memory.

Doopi nodded after seeing the reaction.

“I also enjoyed reading it. The final twist and the process leading up to it were convincing. God, how did you read this novel?”

“Okay. The problem is······ Rebecca Wong called it a ‘romance.’”

“Rebecca, why?”

“It’s exactly as the title says. I think of this novel as a romance. It’s about a detective’s love.”

Doofy pointed to Kate, who was sitting next to him without saying a word.

She sighed and denied Rebecca’s words.

“Absolutely not. Absolutely not. What kind of romance is this?”

“The feeling of love that the detective felt······.”

“It was so horrible.”

Kate, who has been wearing her mask less and less in front of these friends lately.

Feeling the change, I looked back at my scalp, smiling faintly.

And then he, who had been crossing his arms over his thick nerd belly as if lost in thought, looked at Rebecca and spoke.

“Didn’t I say I was going to do some sculpture earlier?”

“That’s right.”

“Let me show you the piece I’m making.”

Doofy got up from his seat and went to his car parked right next to the cafeteria to get his work.

“Oing?”

“What is this?”

John and Rebecca immediately show interest.

Kate’s hands tremble in front of him.

“Ma, mamama, that’s ridiculous······!”

“This is a 12-inch model of ‘About T’ that I am making after watching the drama.”

“It’s Tony!!”

Kate suddenly jumps up from her seat.

“Haha, Kate. Your ‘impressions’ have given me a lot of inspiration.”

“You’re crazy! You’re so handsome! You’re crazy!!”

“This······ ‘piece?’”

“I guess you could say that since we hand-carve each one of them.”

“······Hey, scalp. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Originally, I planned to show it separately once it was completed. However, given the nature of the issue, I had no choice but to release it in an unfinished state.”

Doopi, who was smiling leisurely in front of me who was slightly embarrassed, continued his explanation.

“Rebecca, when you hear the word ‘sculpture’, this is not what you think of. You may not agree with the statement that I do sculpture, but I think what I do can be categorized as an art. I put time into a model. Kate here probably thinks so too.”

“This is greater than Michel●Gelo!”

“Haha, that’s too much praise.”

A scalp that deftly plays off Kate Moore’s dangerous remarks as a joke.

A true cowboy look that even I would fall in love with······!

“Like that, even when looking at the same work, different people will have different reactions. But, don’t both John and Rebecca agree that this is worthy of the definition of ‘sculpture’?”

“That’s absolutely true. It puts my prejudices to shame.”

“You don’t have to think that way. I said it that way ‘on purpose’.”

“······!”

No way······ Did you calculate all this situation? Doofy Kingston.

This guy, if he were to become an editor, he could raise a lot of monsters.

“Yes, I think your work falls into the realm of romance. But Kate Moore didn’t think so. And here, does anyone think that ‘About T’, a work by a writer called Shin, can be defined as a genre other than romance?”

“······.”

“······.”

A table filled with silence for a moment.

The scalp completely took over the stage.

“me.”

And I raised my hand to figure out the scalp’s intention and to adapt to this situation.

“I wrote this based on the genre of ‘teenage’. It is true that I added a strong taste of growth and, of course, romance. Growth is a cross-section of youth, with romance included.”

Instead of calling each other’s names, Doofi and I made eye contact and smiled. Because the story wasn’t over yet.

“Even though everyone thinks it’s a romance, from the perspective of the writer, ‘About T’ can be defined as a different genre. And I think the ‘author’s will’ should be respected. Just as I consider my work to be ‘art.’ That’s why I want to call this ‘Love at the Scene of an Incident’ like this.”

Roman-thriller.

Romance thriller.

Rebecca Wong looked back at me with a dumbfounded face after hearing that.

“god.”

“······huh.”

“Where did you get this friend?”

I wonder too.

Where in the world can you find such a perfect friend?

***

When I was writing a genre novel and felt like I had deviated from a certain flow or standard, one of the first things I did was to think back to the genre of the work.

In fact, whenever I tried to do something experimental, I tried to do it regardless of the success or failure of the result.

The distinction between genres was, so to speak, a standard that had social implications.

From sword and sorcery to mystery and romance.

Each genre is consumed by readers who like that genre. However, it is the writer who is responsible for distinguishing and writing it. Therefore, although you can freely write any work, you need to think a lot when you go beyond the norms of that genre in order to have readers who consume that genre accept it.

And that process, Doopi summarized in one word in this review session.

‘Romance thriller’.

“I think it’s a good piece that captures both romance and thriller. It’s just that the direction is very one-sided, so it feels more like a thriller than a romance, so Kate, who focuses on the romance genre, must have denied it.”

“Yeah! Yeah! That’s right!”

Rebecca, who was very excited after a long time, wrote down Doofy’s feedback in her notebook without hesitation.

After that, John, who had finished thinking about it, answered the question about the scalp.

I think the reason why I came up with the idea of ​​’Warrior’s Way’ is related to the life I have lived. However, I don’t want to go into detail about that. I think it is something I need to think about a little more.

After showing his tolerance by telling John to think carefully, Doofi revealed that, like a detective, he had noticed that John was gradually straying from the story he wanted to write.

“Have you found it difficult to write this article lately?”

“Oh, how did you know?!”

“Because I felt like the novel······was crying.”

“Ugh! Sorry! My Warrior’s Way!”

“It seems better to listen to the voice of the novel even now. Listen carefully.”

John Smith, who really puts his ear to the paper.

······Surprisingly, the two people got along well.

“No reader will enjoy a novel that the author himself has ignored. It is also extremely difficult for those providing feedback.”

“I’m sorry, God!”

“······No. It’s okay.”

“But the idea is definitely great. If you don’t get swayed by anything and firmly pursue your own fun, it will become a good sword and sorcery.”

As I watched my friends chatting away like that, I stood up from my seat with my cup in my hand, thinking I might ask for a refill of my coffee.

A leisurely afternoon in Stanford.

“Kate, tell me. What should we do now?”

“I don’t know either······.”

“You’re the best romance novel reader I know. I need your help.”

“First of all, I would like you to write a story about people loving each other.”

“Aren’t they people to people?”

“One side is dead!”

Rebecca Wong and Kate Moore kept giving feedback, with a lot of hard work.

“Let’s first summarize the idea. What do you think is the most interesting element of this novel?”

“The main character, who is talented in magic, aspires to become a warrior.”

“Can’t you do both?”

“I think it’s possible based on the settings······ but is that enough?”

“What about this idea? What if in this world, warriors and wizards were at odds?”

“······! Are you, God?”

John and Doofy were also very excited and couldn’t stop talking.

Some of the countless relationships I have encountered as I live another life have overlapped here and now.

‘It feels like a crossover between DC and Marvel.’

Sure, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to create a proper club.