‘But … where is the frenzy, Frank, the bang, the boom, buddy, the slang, the oof, the awe, man, the puzzling pinnacle, the dithyrambic dazzle, the mind blowing wit! Where is it? I don’t see it.’
‘Because I want to portray the slow digression in the opening, I wanted to introduce the daunting detail of every day, the common element in every one’s life, you know, the benign, the petite, the insignificant, the ordinary.’
‘Well, I can’t publish it like this. You need to drag in the stranger, grab their attention, persuade the casual reader, create their curiosity and awaken their empathy.’
‘That’s exactly why I start so small. Everyone can immediately identify with the plain, the prattle of coffee on the kitchen counter at seven in the morning. It’s a symbolic dripping through the filter of every day life.’
‘But it doesn’t distinguish the antagonist, you must create the extraordinary, the fantastic, what is special, there’s nothing heroic in there now.’
‘Precisely my point, the drama is hidden in every common person, the theater of life is present and enacted in every person’s life, and it starts on an empty stage, the tragedy slowly unfolds, never does the reader recognize when fate takes a turn, by the hour but without notice, the big drama in life is subtle sadness.’
‘No, no, no… I can’t sell such sensitive, gay nonsense, it’s too intellectual, too transgressive, if you want to sell your work, you cannot think like a play wright, think like a Hollywood director, the big picture, bro. Where is the explosive opening, the disastrous event, the fireworks, think Broadway! If no body dies, no body cares.’