We live in a dangerous moment. We run the risk, for example, of catching covid-19, the disease that has half the world locked up at home. Or to suffer economic and labor losses and to suffer hardships because of the pandemic. We know, however, that one fine day this will pass. And many people, then, will want to tell their experiences of the general trauma, or at least see them reflected in the stories of others. For this reason, I propose here to my fellow writers three infallible novel arguments, with the covid-19 as the underlying theme, which I am sure will win them prizes and succulent checks for audiovisual adaptations. In fact, I can bet that these arguments, which occurred to me in five minutes, are already being worked out right now. So if you are not a writer, at least take note that this may be what is on the news tables and on your home screen in a few months.
First argument: The Centuries . The character is a very boring but very eloquent writer. At the beginning of the novel, the guy locks himself up in his apartment to spend the quarantine and there, the back cover will say, “to avoid the tedium, he decides to order his library of nine thousand two hundred and eleven volumes and, in this way, makes a review of all western and eastern history, philosophy and art, starting with the Lascaux caves, and advancing step by step, until reaching postmodernity ”. A great resource: the narrator's health is reflected in the historical period he addresses. When you remember the cave paintings, for example, you feel vital and wild and you remember the wild relationship you had with a poet twenty-two years earlier. But by the time he reaches contemporary art, he's already infected and about to take the last gasp and only says apocalyptic and discouraging things. And, well, if you want the novel to be “advanced”, all you have to do is mess up the historical periods and put the character to make some very ugly drawings (which are mixed up in the text) and to say that he doesn't believe in linearity, because that would be equivalent to defending "expired hegemonies". Secure award.
Second argument: Days to keep . The character is a writer. It may be boring, but it must be ethically impeccable. At the beginning of the novel, the character locks himself up in his apartment to quarantine with his one-year-old son. It explains the painful process of caring for someone and knowing that they are responsible for a fragile being while being fragile. Then her ex-husband (who is not the boy's father), who suffers from a disability, arrives at the apartment. Our character has to take care of him. He explains the painful process again ... There is a knock on the door. They are the elderly who live next door: they no longer have food or strength. Our character becomes her caregiver. He explains what he explained to us again, with less and less patience. The narrator falls ill the day the quarantine is lifted. The boy's father appears and takes him away. No one cares for the exhausted protagonist. We intuit that he will die. Secure award.
Third argument: Final quarantine . The character is a skeptical writer, divorced, but deep down he has a heart of gold (halfway through the novel we will know that he was a volunteer rescue worker in the quake of '85 and the horrors he saw then hardened him). Live in an apartment building; all the neighbors have been locked up for quarantine. One night screams are heard. The guy from department three comes out into a hallway, badly injured, and rolls down the stairs. Go dead. The doorman and the only security camera, which is at the entrance, indicate that nobody entered or left the building before the episode. Police, overwhelmed by the global emergency, say it will take eighteen hours to arrive. But no one trusts the police, and the neighbors are certain that their chance to learn the truth is to take matters into their own hands. So our character proposes, through WhatsApp messages, that the inhabitants of the building (doorman included) join an investigation to clarify the crime. Everything for the back cover to say: "Taking advantage of new technologies, it is investigated in a race against the clock." The neighbors investigate track to track, all by messages, they argue among themselves, they falsely accuse each other and they are discarded. In the end, our character not only solves the crime (the neighbor of the five, an insensitive rich man, is the murderer; when he is discovered, the guy jumps from his balcony) but he also links to the beautiful girl of six, who is a tough girl but with a heart of gold (she was a volunteer rescue worker in the earthquakes of 2017 and what she saw then hardened her). It will not win prizes but will be adapted for a movie or miniseries. Sure success.
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