How to Write a Novel – The Story

Anything over 50,000 words is regarded as a novel. Anything less, a novella. Unless it’s absolutely astonishing, publishers tend to shy away from a first book that's much longer than 75 or 80,000 words. My assumption is that the increased costs of printing makes a first run just too risky. A 50,000 word novel will be roughly 200 pages long, so 100,000 words would pretty much double the printing cost.

If 50,000 words sounds like a marathon, it is.

But imagine setting out on a marathon with no idea of where you’re going, where the finish line is, or how long the route is. What would your chances of enjoying the run be, let alone your chances of actually finishing?

It’s surprising (or not) how many wannabe writers simply sit down at the keyboard and begin bashing away wildly, with only the nub of an idea to work with. There are so many of them that they even have a name – “pantsers” – because they’re flying by the seat of their pants. Most pantsers run out of steam by around 20,000 words. They’re not even halfway through the marathon and they’re exhausted, lost, confused. It’s bound to happen when you don’t have a plan. I know. I’ve been there.

The first step in planning is to figure out your story.

THINGS YOU’LL NEED:

• An idea
• A computer – a laptop is ideal, because it means you can write anywhere
• Microsoft Word

Western story arcs typically have a three-part structure. It’s a good idea to stick with this, because it’s worked for Hollywood and just about every best-selling novelist you've read.

In the first act, main characters and their routines are established. Themes are introduced. And then you need a “turning point”  or “inciting incident” that takes the story into the second act. This is the “hook” that convinces the reader that it’s worth continuing. It’s the reason for the rest of the story.

The second act unpacks what you’ve established. It introduces obstacles to overcome, expands on character, and moves the action forward. It culminates in a second turning point – generally, at this stage it appears that all is lost, and that your hero is about to be overwhelmed by the weight of what’s gone before.

The third act unravels this further. Your hero either gives in to the forces that threaten him or her, or he/she triumphs.

The final part of the third act consists of the denouement, or conclusion, where you show that your hero has morally conquered or succumbed.

Act I is around 20% of the story, Act II 70%, and Act III 10%.

It’s in the second act that things fall apart. It’s the longest, and throughout you have to ensure that it builds unfailingly, taking your reader to the climax that leads to Act III.

Your story comes down to three basic choices:

• Man versus Man: here, the villain is another person – Holmes’s Moriarty, Luke Skywalker's Darth Vader, Marlow’s Mr Kurtz
• Man versus Self: the villain is a collection of internal conflicts, doubts and fears (this was my choice in Theory)
• Man versus Nature: where the villain is a volcano, an asteroid, global warming or the Antarctic.

You need a villain. You need conflict, friction and tenstion – or else you'll end up with a bland porridge of words that will captivate nobody. Imagine Harry Potter without Voldemort - how could it have been anything more than a cutesy tale about some kiddie wizards?

Write out your story as a synopsis in no more than two pages. This is a lot more challenging than it sounds, but keep at it. It’ll force focus, and it will quickly point out weaknesses and illogical bits, and it will spark off other ideas on how to keep the thing moving forward.

Once you have an end-to-end synopsis that works, and which outlines a compelling story, you’re getting to the point where the real planning begins.

And that’s what we’ll look at next time.

How to write a novel - getting started

 Do you really want to write a novel? Because wanting is not enough.

You’re only a writer if you can actually write. In the same way that not everyone can do ballet, not everyone can do writing.

Yes, you need a good grip on grammar. But writing is not just the stringing together of words and punctuation. Its purpose is to reward and enrich, and to give your reader glimpses into characters and the world they populate in ways he or she has never before experienced. Its purpose is emotional – to move, amuse, scare, provoke. As importantly, to move them along from one page to the next. And all you have at your disposal is a collection of black marks on paper to achieve all that.

Ready?
 
THINGS YOU’LL NEED:
• A nice new Moleskine and your favourite pen or pencil.
• An idea.

Your idea needs to be a strong one. An original one. One that can be sustained over 50,000+ words. 


How do you know it’s a good idea? You can write it down in a sentence or two. If you need a page to explain it, it’s not a good idea.

Here’s the idea that led to Theory: A wealthy man’s mid-life crisis manifests as a crisis of identity. But the more he pieces together his past, the more his present unravels. 

Here’s the idea behind Wasted: A socially inept young guy has taught himself to forget certain aspects of past. But his forgetting has been so effective that he now forgets everyday things unintentionally, and this leads him down a path he had no intention of following.

And the idea for the unpublished The Same Deep Water as You: Three strangers, a man who has just murdered his father, a woman whose own father died a thousand kilometres away at exactly the same moment, and a little girl who refuses to speak are thrown together by fate.

You’ll note that these are simply ideas at this stage, not full-blown synopses. That’s because you won’t know what the story is just yet.

EXERCISE 1: Practice identifying the ideas behind your favourite books and movies and write them up like the examples above.

EXERCISE 2: Write your idea on the first page of your Moleskine. If you don’t like it, scratch it out and put down another. Keep going until you have a fantastically brilliant idea.

DON'T understimate the power of a strong, clear idea.

Some hints: Keep your ideas within your own range of experience. Don’t try a medical thriller if you’re not a doctor. Don’t try historical fiction unless you have the time and capacity to do the research. Don’t set your story in New York or Rome, unless you know the locations intimately. Consider if your idea is something that you might want to read yourself.

Next time: turning your idea into a story.

How to write a novel

It took me a long time to write my first novel. I’d guess around thirty years. That’s because, in my teens, I was convinced that I would write one. One day. Too bad it took me three decades and hundreds, if not thousands, of pages to figure out how.

Once I finally wrote it, I got lucky. After eighteen rejections (or thereabouts – I lost count) my manuscript was one of the 2% or so of unsolicited manuscripts received by SA publishers every year actually to get published.

It's pointless to try to describe the feeling when you finally hold the finished thing in your hands, crisp and virginal and un-dogeared and smelling of paper and ink. Who was it who said that writing a book is the closest a man can come to experiencing childbrith?

It gets better when the reviews are flattering, and when O magazine chooses it for its Father's Day picks – and when the sales figures creep beyond the amount of people in your immediate circle of friends and family. But from the day I’d heard of its acceptance by my new publishers, I began to worry that I only had one in me. So I started the second while we were editing the first, and finished the manuscript (“ms” in the jargon) before the first went to print.

It took so long to get an opinion from James, my publisher, on the second one that I started and finished the third. Then I went back and read the second, and realised that, other than the first nine pages and the last eight, it was rather poo. No wonder James, usually so energetic and optimistic, had been dragging his feet. I put the thing down and rolled my eyes and mailed him and asked him to forget about the second and to look at the third instead.

Now my third attempt, Wasted, is being published as my second novel in August this year by a surprisingly excited publisher.

I’m excited too, of course. Especially as James strongly suggested we find an international agent for me asap. But more than anything, I’m relieved. Because I’m no longer a once-off – which, I’m led to believe, is what 90% of first-time authors are. Relieved because the thirty years I spent dicking around weren’t completely wasted.

It's said that everyone has a book in them. I'd guess that most of them have no idea how to get it down on paper.

If you’re one of them, here’s an idea.

Over the next while, I’m going to share my experiences and the lessons I learnt while writing my three manuscripts on this blog. The plan is to structure it pretty much chronologically, moving from the pragmatic to the more abstract as we go. Of course, writers all have their own strategy to slay the dragon, so you're not allowed to sue me if my methods don't work for you.
 
But who knows – they might just end up short-cutting the process by a few decades.

A Letter to my Daughters

My dear girls

As I watch the two of you grow into young ladies, I see also, with some trepidation, the doorway that leads to the world beyond home and family opening a little more every day.

It’s big out there, and exciting. But like rock climbing or investment banking, it brings its own risks. And almost all the time, you are the only ones who can protect yourselves from them.

The world will always treat you like a stranger.

So it’s up to you to get to know it.

Understand its ways and its moods. When it comes at you in anger, step aside and let it pass. When it gets behind you, stay on the ride for as long as you can. Watch out for its sideswipes and back-stabs, and relish its unexpected rewards.

(Read Dr Seuss’s Oh the Places You’ll Go. Nobody has ever said it better.)

Seek friends not for what they have, but for what they are.

Don’t choose a lover for his looks, but for the way he treats you. (Or she, for that matter.)

Always be nice to waiters. People who are rude to waiters are generally not nice people.

Learn as much as you can, both in the classroom and out of it. Knowledge is the one thing nobody can ever take away from you.

It’s fine if you don’t like maths or broccoli. It’s fine if you do.

Accumulate no more than you need to, not what you’re led to you think you might want. The less you need, the wealthier you’ll find you are.

Travel light. Don’t hoard. If it’s not paying rent, practically or emotionally, throw it out. Unnecessary stuff takes up space and oxygen. And spirit.

But do hoard your memories. Pack them tightly into a corner of your brain. Memories are the rewards of experience. When you least expect it, memories can give you guidance and inspiration. Or just a comforting sense of where you come from.

Delete the contacts of those who suck the life out of you – the sponges and the negative ones and the emotional parasites. They don't deserve you.

Make sure your camera batteries are always charged.

Learn the meanings of words like “pusillanimous” and “rambunctious” and “syzygy”. Don’t use them in conversation – people will think you’re showing off. Learn them because they were your grandfather’s favourite words. It’s one way to be sure that you’ll never forget him.

Don’t smoke. It gives nothing to you; it only takes. Drugs take even more and give even less. Be your own drug. Your brain is all you need. And your brain is like a muscle – the more you use it, the more powerful it becomes. 

Don’t accept drinks or rides from strangers. Don’t get into a car driven by a drunk person. Don’t drive if you’re drunk. These are three of the dumbest ways to die.

Don’t accept smiles at face value. The smiler might only be only smiling at what they can get from you. Honest smiles give more than they take.

Stay in the left lane unless you’re overtaking. Never order meat rare if it’s minced. When you’re making instant coffee, pour in the milk before the hot water. That way, you don’t burn the coffee.

Stay in touch with your childhood friends.

Never crap on your own doorstep.

If you can’t pay cash for something, you can’t afford it.

Remember that you have more chance of being struck by lightning on your birthday than you have of winning the lottery.

What’s important and what’s urgent are not always the same thing. Learn the difference.

You’ve both been blessed with far more than your fair share of talents. That, by the way, is a good thing. But talents come with obligations. You’re expected to use them to amaze, astonish, startle. To entrance, surprise and astound. To enrich your life, and those of others. If you manage to amaze yourself, you’re about halfway to amazing anyone else. It’s not easy. Talent on its own is like a good knife, but even a good knife is useless when it’s blunt. It takes time and effort to keep it sharp.

Never forget that whatever you do, whatever choice you make, there’s a consequence. Question everything, but trust your instincts. Sometimes they’ll let you down, but it’s not the falling that matters. It’s the standing up again.

Your Big Dream will remain a dream if you just dream it. Plan a way to reach it. It’s a destination you have to work towards, because it’s not going to come to you. Let passion be your guiding star, and good sense your rudder. Make sure you have enough fuel for the journey.

One day when you’re old and weak, you’ll want to kick yourself for not chasing your dreams. By then you might not be able to do even that. Regret, by definition, means you can’t go back and change anything.

So be true to who you are. Live the life you want, not the life others expect you to live. Define success on your own terms. You are not a donkey: working towards something you don’t believe in is largely unpleasant and generally difficult, and a waste of every hour of a life that numbers just one. As John Lennon said, “This is not a rehearsal.”

Embrace those who understand you. There won’t be many who understand your originality. Have an opinion. Stand up for it. But assess opposing opinions with the speaker’s ears. You don’t have to agree with something to respect someone’s right to say it.

Walk away from the haters and the underminers. From those who will throw doubt in your path and sand in your eyes. Close your ears to the gossipers and the rumourmongers. Every journey has its obstacles, and most of those obstacles aren’t fallen trees or muddy ditches – they’re people.

You’ll be surprised, though, that most people would rather see you succeed than fail.

Never forget that you always come first. Respect, love, and care for yourself, physically and emotionally.

Be proud of who you are today, unashamed of who you once might have been, and don’t be seduced into becoming something you are not.

It’s a great, crazy, wild, dull, scary, weird, exciting, dangerous, challenging, boring, bewildering and amazing world out there, all at once.

It’s up to you to make the most of it.

I love you.

Dad

Stupid. It can hurt.

 It’s hard to enough to admit you’re fat. Or ugly. Or have no taste. Or that you listen to Nickleback when there’s nobody else around.

It’s so much harder to admit you’re stupid. Because at the heart of it, in a world where fad diets, cosmetic surgery, gym contracts and models Photoshopped within an inch of their lives are thrust upon us at every turn, our greatest fear remains that of being the idiot. There’s just no pill or scalpel or software for stupid.

I’d had a bit of a stupid week, but Thursday almost finished me off.

It began with a three-kay walk through the drizzle before work. I’d taken my car to the panelbeaters for an insurance assessment. I’d removed all the stealable things first, including an extremely efficient umbrella. Within minutes, my beautifully-coiffed hair looked like it had been farted onto my head.

After two kays I popped in to Origin for a flat white to cheer myself up. The woman behind the counter was trying not to laugh. I didn’t tip her. It was the worst Origin coffee I've had, and I've had a good many. In the short walk onward to the agency, I managed to spill most of it down the front of my white shirt.

I find that, when a day bolts out of the gate by putting one stupid foot in front of the other, the hours that follow seldom improve. Worse, the universe tends to enjoy rewarding stupidity with accident.

So my day fast became one of paper-cuts and mutually misunderstood emails. Then there was the mishap at the basin in the gents which left me looking as if I’d pissed myself, and a twenty-minute session with my cellphone provider that took me down a telephonic rabbit-hole which involved having to pressing sundry digits every five minutes, and ended in an answering machine.

I left a message that was both illuminating and stimulating on the answering machine, and had hardly hung up when I received a pleading call from the mentally flatulent husband of the Psychotic Bitch who had caused sixty thousand rand’s worth of damage to my car. He wanted to tell me that his insurance had lapsed – which of course would mean that the R4,000 excess would be for my account – and that he was not in a financial position to make a contribution. He was sure, he said, that I would understand. I replied that while I was not surprised, I did not understand in the slightest, and nor did I understand why he and his misbegotten ilk were allowed to walk among us.

Later, it turned out that the giant and scruffily-bearded lesbian who had offered me a lift back to my car had come down with a little sniffle and was home in bed. I had warned him that those kinds of things would happen if he went ahead with his planned purchase of a Forester, but he ignored me and bought the thing anyway. So I had to forego the ride in his new Lesbaru and headed back up the hill to the panel shop on foot.

I drove home in terror, expecting at any moment some relation of Psychotic Bitch to flatten me with his eighteen-wheeler, or a herd of bison to come stampeding at me down Constantia Neck, or the rumoured divine being finally to reveal himself by reaching down from the sky and pinching my head off – plink, just like that. Even a flock of pterodactyls fighting their way out of my underpants would not have surprised me.

What I didn’t expect was a mole rat masquerading as a stray hamster.

Christ. Do you even get stray hamsters? I should have considered this more carefully at the time. 

Anyway, pleased and amazed that I had survived the trip home, I inched up the driveway and took my first breath in twenty kilometres. I secured what remains of my car with the handbrake, and further secured it with a beep of its double-blind Bluetooth-enabled frequency-hopping nano-whizwang immobiliser, because that’s what you have to do in South Africa even if it’s your car and your garage. And then I ran inside and lunged for a corkscrew and swallowed half a bottle of wine as if it had been Kool-Aid. 

There were two reasons for this – one, I felt I deserved it, and two, my dear wife (who believes that anyone who might enjoy a small whisky or a little glass of wine after work is on a one-way path to rehab) was out and could have returned at any moment.

My phone rang just as the wine had begun to clear my arteries and synapses of insurance companies, snarky baristas and failed hairstyles. It was said wife, whose car’s battery had died while waiting for one of our progeny to finish dance class. Luckily I hadn’t done away with the whole bottle of Bouchard Finlayson, because other than leaving two of my three favourite females in a parking lot for the night, I had no option but to drive there to jump-start her. Her car, I should say.

And then stupid came back.

I couldn’t find the battery in my Audi, even with the help of the token torch that doubles up as an iPhone these days.

There was no clue in any of the four hundred pages of the owner’s manual, other than an arcane sketch of mechanical bits that may well have been copied from whatever it is that powers the Tardis. I’ve just this minute stepped outside into the (very) cold light of day to pop the bonnet, and nope, no battery in sight. I suppose it might have fallen out when Psychotic Bitch drove into me last weekend.

So we secured the Honda and went home to have dinner and set fire to each other.

And that’s when Michelle saw the stray hamster. Poor little creature, fumbling around the driveway as if recently hit on the head, simply begging to be rescued and fed and warmed up in a bed of our own dead hamster’s wood shavings. I have a soft spot for animals. I’ve never met a stupid one, for instance, or one that has in a moment of minor brain trauma driven its car into someone else’s. So I decided to pick the little thing up while Michelle looked for something to put it in.

Let me assure you that nothing pisses off a wild Cape mole-rat more than being mistaken for a hamster.

The little thing went instantly apeshit.

It tore into my hand with all the fury of Oprah in an Italian fashion store. It sunk its sharp yellow fangs into one finger after the next as I tried to shake the raging beast off – imagine trying to get rid of a stubborn piece of sticky-tape, only more painful. Finally with my other hand I grabbed it by the scruff, and with a deft twisting motion managed to dislodge its denticles from my thumb. It squawked and squealed and thrashed about until I dropped it into an old cake-tin offered up by my wide-eyed youngest daughter, who had kindly lined the tin with wood-shavings while I was hopping about shrieking profanities and bleeding in the driveway.

I got a proper look at the miscreant for the first time as it hissed and fuffed and bolted around the perimeter of the tin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as ugly as a Cape mole-rat before. Its pinprick black eyes are sunken in patches of white fur, which gives it a decidedly insane countenance. Its teeth are long and vicious and far from Bugs Bunny cute. It has a nose like a pig’s, were the pig to run into an oncoming meat-grinder first.

“Daddy, that’s not a hamster,” my daughter said. My girls are smart beyond their years. “No shit, baby girl,” I said and flung the furry little abomination over the garden wall, silently hoping that one of Psychotic Woman’s relatives would drive past just then.

Shots, then. Rabies, tetanus, meningitis, arthritis... They gave me just about everything they had on the shelf. I asked for gonorrhoea too, as I felt I had been truly fucked over by the creature I’d set out to rescue, but the nurse said no.

I should have asked her for something to take care of the stupid, but stupidly, I forgot to.

How to insult someone who is already a c*nt

What happens when all the four-letter words that you learnt at primary school fail catastrophically to express your emotions at a given moment?

My weekend began, after an uncommonly unpleasant week at work, late on Friday evening by finding that our little Dachshund (pronounced “Ducks-hund”, idiots, not dash-hound) had attacked the dustbin and distributed a few days’ worth of sticky trash evenly around the driveway. Left with no choice but to clean up before I could proceed further, I stepped out of my car and directly into a commendably-styled and fragrantly-laid pile of dachshund turd. That set off a fine string of fucking and cunting which I tied off, as you would the arse of a balloon, only after I remembered who our neighbours are.

They are a retired Anglican priest and his wife. They are the sweetest, kindest neighbours – no, people – I have probably ever met, and they live a thin Vibracrete wall away. Mrs Priest (I rather not sully their names here) sends over Kosher gifts for Michelle at Rosh Hashanah and Pesach. She sends over chocolates and treats for my girls at Christmas and Easter. She sent heartfelt condolences when Michelle’s dad died in June. Mr Priest (retired) was presiding at a service at St James in Kenilworth twenty years ago when armed gunmen stormed the congregation and shot up a whole flock of worshippers. If we were Muslims or Hindus or Baha'i or Shinto or your basic howling athiests, Mr and Mrs Priest would drop off appropriate offerings at any time of year.

They do not deserve to hear my Tourette’s-inspired tirades.

On Saturday morning, having left out the soiled Timberlands (which have a very complex and intricate tread pattern) the night before, I decided to clean them with a hose and a sosatie stick. I began with the hose, which did nothing more than chase dog-turd from one involved piece of sole to the next. I progressed to the sosatie stick, which proved more effective. Then I made the mistake, after securing a particularly satisfying chunk of turd, to flick the stick towards me instead of away. Thankfully I had my mouth closed.

But only for an instant, because of course said mouth opened to release the usual chain of expletives, which dried up only when I once again remembered who our neighbours are.

Although my boots were clean, I felt vaguely unsatisfied. I’d cursed and blinded, and genitalia-ed and sphincter-ed my way through the process, but nothing I’d said had brought any relief. Such is the way of cliches.

I had my opportunity to remedy things sooner than I might have wished.

On the same Saturday evening, driving through an intersection on a green light, well below the speed limit (only because there was a Toyota in front of me, but more about Toyota drivers in a future post), someone decided that my car was a mere mirage and that it would be fine to turn across the oncoming traffic. A second earlier, I would have made it through. A second later and it would have been a classic three-quarter head on, the kind of accident that kills more people than any other. The actual second, though, involved the kind of metal-on-metal sound that you don’t want to hear outside of those Russian dash-cam movies you see on YouTube.

Thus is the universe, an unpredictable confluence of x, y and z coordinates which every now and then have you at their intersect.

Before I continue, I submit in mitigation that I am a car person. That an injury to the Audi is totally the wrong kind of ding in the universe. That cars have souls (just like dogs – see the post below). That I don’t deserve to have three drops of wee squeezed out of me in fright at the intersection of Paradise and Edinburgh, when all I’m trying to do is tootle home for dinner after a bit of lifting. That nothing I've done deserves the round of insurance waffle, hire-car negotiations and panel-beater quotes that I now face.

I’m sorry to say that I did not behave like a big person.

The perpetrator, which she was, guilty to the tee and admitting it, was a surprisingly shaky woman of fifty or so. I didn't care who she was.

I began by asking, loudly to be honest, if she had been oxygen-deprived at birth.

I then asked her, even more loudly, how exactly she’d taught herself to balance on her hind legs given so many eons of ancestors swinging among the branches of her family tree.

I asked her, louder still, if she had willfully continued the family tradition of dropping babies on their heads.

Noticing she had a child in the car – wide-eyed and probably whip-lashed – I asked her how on earth she had the sheer temerity to breed, and thereby to unleash the output of her own stunted genes on coming generations.

I indicated how difficult it must be for an intellectual amputee such as she to put one foot in front of the other without cocking it up and hitting her head on the kitchen sink. 

I asked her if she’d had a stroke while trying to cross the intersection, or if her mental and physical capacities were, on a day-to-day basis, typically those of a carrot.

When she blinked uncomprehendingly, I informed her that she was just one more unflushable floater in the gene pool of life.

I declared, without contradiction from her, that she was living proof of what transpired when cousins fucked.

And then I asked for her name and phone number.

I’m not particularly proud of this, but that’s how it came out. A little like sea-sick, which comes out even though you don't want it to.

If I were a better-formed human being, I would have patted her on the shoulder and said, “It’s okay, nobody got hurt.” Which thankfully nobody did. If I was an even nicer guy, I might have offered her another gin and tonic to calm her nerves. And today, it's what I wish I'd done.

But such is middle-class, suburban life. We fret too much, worry too much, swear too much – when there are so many other ways to hurt a person who made an honest mistake and doesn’t deserve to be hurt (that much).

We bitch about a piece of engineering because it's broken, not because it broke absorbing the impact. We whine about dogshit and having to have two car doors replaced at the expense of the insurance company. We shriek at the wrong people.

On Sunday morning I read that 59 people had been killed in a shooting in a mall in Nairobi. I read that more Syrians were killed by other Syrians. That a few homeless (ie, nameless) people had frozen to death over the last cold snap right here in Cape Town.

My weekend’s lows were a spatter of dogshit in the chops and two dinged car doors. My highs were a card game of “Speed” with my youngest daughter, who beat me in every game, and a lazy Sunday family lunch on the first day of what seems to, finally, be spring.

Perhaps it’s time for a bit of perspective, and to take a few lessons on how my neighbours see the world around them.

Have Yourself A Merry New Religion

So we’re getting to that time of year where the world is bombarded by Christmas carols and Capetonians are bombarded with upcountry cousins.

How many of them, Capetonians or their guests, will pass a thought on Christmas Day as to how the holiday actually came about?

A lot fewer, I imagine, than would tear open presents ostensibly delivered by some guy in a red snow-suit before beginning to set the table. Then it will be lunch with lots of wine, cracker-pulling, turkey and stodgy pudding, followed by a recovery nap under an umbrella somewhere.

I wonder how long it will be until the myth that has stolen Christmas swells to the status of fully-fledged religion.

It’s happened before, you know.

Exhibit One: Easter. Occurs roughly at the time of the northern hemisphere’s vernal equinox, ages ago celebrated by people waving rabbits, eggs and chickens about to celebrate the coming time of fertility before painting themselves blue. We may eschew – some of us – the blue paint these days, but we still teach our kids about the Easter Bunny, and then allow them to gorge themselves green on chocolate eggs and chickens.

Back then, the pagans were probably blown away by stories not of birth and new growth, but of a man who came back to life from the dead. Put that in your fertility pipe and smoke it. And then dare not convert, especially if there were swords and pointy sticks involved.

Exhibit Two: Christmas. Occurs roughly the time of the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice. Major symbol: an evergreen tree, which even halfway through winter retained its greenery and, hung with the remnants of dried fruit and other vaguely edible foodstuffs, promised our pagan forefathers that the season of ice and snow would soon be over. Telling these poor misdirected souls that your champion is the Son of God, born by immaculate conception, signposted by a star, must have been even more astonishing than Miley Cyrus twerking on YouTube is today.

In both examples, the stroke of genius lies not so much in the imposition of the new myth but in the commandeering of the dates. It’s said that the way to boil a frog is to do it by turning up the heat in small increments, so it surely could have taken no longer than a few years to infiltrate the older festivals and to increase the presence of the new religion a little more each time. The locals didn’t even have to choose to become Christian – they unwittingly slid across the line because over time they simply forgot how to be pagan.

I haven’t read a page of the Bible since I was eleven, when the local Catholic priest told me that my ailing dog would not go to heaven because animals didn’t have a soul. But to the best of my memory, I don’t recollect fir trees or glass baubles featuring in the Gospels, or Mary Magdalene planning a jolly Sunday Easter egg hunt on Good Friday.

Things change, and with them people’s mythologies and belief structures. I’m sure the pagans stole symbols and dates from whomever preceded them, just as the Romans stole gods and architecture from the Greeks and China manufacturing capacity from the USA.

I’m suggesting that, in time, Christianity as it was will be appropriated by the Next Big Thing, this time featuring a fat flying fellow in Coca-Cola colours with an indulgent view of gluttony and a flat-out endorsement of greed. Its Bible equivalent will, no doubt, consist of bound discount catalogues, its greatest prophets will be Dolce and Gabanna, and its most revered poets will include Bing Crosby and Boney M.