Writng Right with Dmitri: Treating Your Subject Well
Created | Updated May 11, 2014
Writing Right with Dmitri: Treating Your Subject Well
Recently, somebody on h2g2 suggested that it was important to get readers to 'think big'. I'm not sure about that, myself – a lot of my professional writing is much more dependent on being detail-oriented – but I can see the appeal. Besides, I caught an inspiration this week from a discussion I had with an editor.
Now, in the US history course I'm working on, it became necessary to explain how the North won the Civil War. Which is a pretty big-ticket item, come to think of it. In a planning discussion, my editor waxed enthusiastic about the significance of Gettysburg. I understand the appeal – after all, Gettysburg is sexy. It was a huge, three-day battle. It took place in Pennsylvania, a northern state. It involved the famous Robert E Lee. It also had Pickett's Charge, and Jeb Stuart, and thousands of extras. And after it was all done, Lincoln showed up and made a famous speech. In short, Gettysburg was a Very Big Deal.
But it wasn't why the North won the war.
As I explained, the fall of Vicksburg, which took place on 4 July, 1863, the day after the Gettysburg slugfest broke up, was more significant, in my humble historical opinion. You see, Ulysses S Grant had stubbornly refused to stop besieging that fort on the Choctaw bluffs overlooking the Mississippi. For two months, he'd fought Rebs, dug canals, and called in the US Navy, who fought steamboat battles on the mighty Mississippi. Finally, the darn fort fell – and great was the fall of it. After Vicksburg, Grant turned Sherman loose on Atlanta and points east, Lincoln got re-elected, and the good people of Vicksburg, Mississippi, refused to celebrate the Fourth of July for eighty years. That's how miffed they were. When I explained all that, my editor had one question: 'Where is Vicksburg?'
I wondered why my editor was so keen on Gettysburg, until he remarked that he'd recently 'seen the movie'. Oh, I thought. I suspect he was referring to the one that put me to sleep. The one that has Martin Sheen playing Robert E Lee. Now, Martin Sheen is a fine actor. He makes a fine President Bartlett. But Mr Sheen is too SHORT to play Robert E Lee. And he didn't even pet the chicken. So I'm not a fan of that Gettysburg movie.
But, I thought, I get the point. Gettysburg is important, because of the movie. If somebody made a blockbuster film about Vicksburg, why, it would jump right up there on the historical popularity list. Why, the Vicksburg Chamber of Commerce might even thank me. My maternal ancestors would bless me from beyond the grave. And I'd have a whopping good story. What was needed was a treatment. That's what you write when you want somebody to make a movie.
Of course, this put me in mind of the great Anthony Burgess. You may have read A Clockwork Orange. It's a brilliant book, which owes much to linguistic skill, sociological insight, and an appreciation of Orwell. Or maybe you haven't read it. Perhaps, instead, you've seen the movie. I confess that I have not. I don't want to have my Beethoven spoiled. Be that as it may, what is interesting to me about A Clockwork Orange is the sequel, The Clockwork Testament. Which I suspect you may not have read.
In The Clockwork Testament, Anthony Burgess fictionalizes the aftermath of the somewhat surprising fame resultant upon his book's being used for a hit film. To wit, Burgess, assumed – sight-unseen – to be a counterculture guru, was invited to visit the US in a professorial capacity. Where, naturally, there was disappointment on both sides. Burgess wasn't the hippie type, and, well, most of the students had never heard of Enderby. But Burgess got a laugh at their expense. He wrote The Clockwork Testament, which begins with a movie treatment. To be exact, Enderby begins the story running a bar in Morocco, where a drunken film director invites him to submit a treatment. Enderby sends him one – based on the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem 'The Wreck of the Deutschland'. To Enderby's shock, the film gets made...and banned in Boston. Something about Nazis and nuns, but you'll have to read the book to find out. I recommend you read 'The Wreck of the Deutschland' first, or you may not get the joke.
O-kayy…if Burgess can do it, so can I. Let's write a treatment about the Siege of Vicksburg.
The scene: Vicksburg, Mississippi, 19 May, 1863. The sun is shining brightly. Pemberton (Benedict Cumberbatch1) and his Confederate troops are chased into the fort by a hell-bent-leather General William Tecumseh Sherman (Tim Roth2. A two-month siege ensues, during which time we develop several subplots:
- A love triangle between Pemberton, Sherman, and a Confederate female spy in a hoop skirt3.
- A musical number involving dueling Irish ceilidh musicians, both in and out of the fort. The Irish were big in both armies. Somebody has to sing 'Paddy's Lamentation', with its telling line about 'Paddy, you must go and fight for Lincoln.'
- A thrilling Mississippi River steamboat battle between the Confederates and the US Navy, in which Union Admiral Porter (definitely Russell Crowe) yells. A lot. Somewhere in there, some Yanks fall overboard and are eaten by alligators, while some Rebs, who are more familiar with the territory, go noodling for catfish4.
The main plot breaks when Cletus Kefauver, a fugitive slave played with superb effectiveness by James Earl Jones, who is really from Mississippi5, visits General Grant with his good friend, Chief Wahtucket, played either by Graham Greene or Floyd 'Red Crow Westerman. The Chief and Cletus inform General Grant that they know how to defeat the Rebs: after all, the Choctoaw have been building on these Mississippi River bluffs for at least a thousand years. The fort falls, and Cumberbatch gets the deathless line, 'Ah ain't a-nevah goin' to celebrate thah Foath o' JEW-lah a-GIN!'. Whereupon Tim Roth kicks him off the bluff, and he is devoured by a passing alligator6.
I have given the part of General Grant a great deal of thought. He cannot possibly be played by Martin Sheen. For one thing, Sheen is too polished. For another, he's busy at Gettysburg. No, General Grant can only be played by one actor: Kenneth Branagh. Branagh has military experience dating back to the Battle of Agincourt. Besides, he's been practising his cigar-chomping in that BBC Afghanistan thing. And, of course, he's really good at accents. Ohio should present no difficulty.
Well, there you have it. With a few tweaks here and there, I'm sure Vicksburg: The Final Fort will be a massive success, earning a fortune for its producers, a modest honorarium for yours truly, and finally ensuring the Siege of Vicksburg its rightful place in the history lessons.
Mind that trench, Gen'l Grant, sir, and let me fill up your glass7…
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