FICTIONALISE ME
Written by James Ward
The other day on Twitter, Karl Webster commented that he had seventeen days to finish his novel, always happy to help, I suggested he could name a character in the novel after me. He agreed, or at least said “I don’t see why not” but was concerned that I might not like the character named after me. This doesn’t concern me, as I don’t really like myself that much anyway.
This gave me an idea. I know quite a few writers. Maybe they could all name characters after me. Maybe there would be dozens of fictional James Wards living in dozens of fictional realities. I could become the most fictional man in the world. Some people have already suggested they don’t think I’m actually a real person, even people who have been in the same room as me aren’t convinced, so I’ve already got a good start.
A couple more people agreed, and at present, I am possibly appearing in two books currently being written, another being planned, and two scripts. It’s possible that the characters will be dropped, or the scripts will never get made, but that’s not the point. It means that there will exist, in some fictional universe, a number of different James Wards.
If you are a writer of some sort, please name a character after me. If you know someone who is a writer, please get them to name a character after me.
Make me fictional.
OK, will do – I have a couple of new characters coming up just around the corner of the novel – one will now be James Ward.
Excellent – thank you!
I looked over towards Clara but she just shrugged. He turned over the final photograph.
“The third conspirator is called James Ward.” Another cold stare as he searched my face for a flicker of recognition.
“Honestly, Inspector, I’ve never heard of him, or of any of them.”
The second officer leaned towards the Inspector and mumbled something. Keeping his dead eyes on me, he nodded.
“You may have known him by another name, perhaps? Bad James? Wardoff? The Fist?”
Clara gave a soft choke, then began to sob and the Inspector turned to her. “You’ve remembered something?”
I felt a rush of alarm spread through my chest as I realised she was about to break.
“Yes, we know him…God. We know James.”
That’s the sort of thing I have in mind.
THAT’S NOT “THE SORT OF THING” THAT’S THE THING ITSELF
Yes, but ideally that, and then expanded over several hundred pages and published in a book.
What a great plan. My writing group are always looking for challenges and cool things to do, as are the writers of Nanowrimo. I’ll propose it to both, and maybe Fas (my group) could even have a James Ward session where we read screenplays and short stories all featuring fictional James Wards.
F.
PS What is the correct plural of James Ward? Jameses Wards? Jami Wards? Jims Wardes? OPTIONS!
May I suggest, “an insanity of James Wards” as a collective noun?
I would think about going after horror writers. Lots of them are bound to like the idea of James Ward as a character, especially if he’s a hero. The reason they’re likely to like the name is that it’s a clever play on words. Your character would “Ward” off evil spirits. Stephen King, for example, would probably bite your arm off, though hopefully only metaphorically. You have to watch these horror writers. They get so immersed in their work that sometimes they can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
Another market might be medical characters, although this might be a bit tiresome unless the authors programmed a key on their keyboard to automatically fill in the bit of dialogue where the patient says “Hah, don’t you think it’s a bit ironic that you’re the hospital’s duty surgeon and your name is Dr Ward”. In books where the Dr was on duty a long time and interfacing with many characters, the jokey banter could add up to more than 30% of the book based on my initial estimates, although these are quite rough and would depend on a bit more information about the plot. Battle scarred veterans are another potential category. Just some initial thoughts, anyways.
Chapter One
James Ward shifted sleepily on the large, comfortable bed, the bare skin of her shoulders sliding across the rich satin fabric beneath her. Having apparently survived her only sister’s bachelorette party in Vegas, James Ward wanted nothing more than to drift back into dreamland, and would have, if not for the fact she had a raging headache pounding at her temples, and an equally awful taste in her mouth.
She wondered what the bartender had put in the cosmopolitans he had been serving her. After all, she’d paid him extra to make sure her beverages were-unlike those for the members of her betrothed sister’s entourage-strictly nonalcoholic. This, in order to make sure she didn’t lose all inhibition and do anything foolish, as she had been known to do in the past at these types of events.
James Ward groaned and opened her eyes. Saw she had fallen asleep on top of the covers still wearing a pair of sparkly stiletto-heeled shoes she didn’t recognize, and that there was a strong male arm clamped just beneath her breasts.
Startled, James Ward blinked to clear her head, and blinked again. What…in the…world…? Had she been drinking last night? Because, honestly, that was the only way to explain any of this!
Still trying to get her bearings, James Ward pushed herself to a sitting position, stared at what she saw. Tousled walnut-brown hair, equally stunned sea-blue eyes and an incredibly handsome, oh-so-familiar face that she dreaded seeing daily, covered with a two-day stubble of beard.
***
Despite the fact that he and the groom had been friends since childhood, Rick Steele knew it had been a mistake to agree to be Aidan Whitmore’s best man. Mostly because Rick’s coworker and antagonist, James Ward, was the maid of honor. Physically, Rick and James Ward had enough sparks to light up the entire Lone Star state, but none of the natural compatibility needed to get along. Like oil and water, the two of them would never mix. Although Rick admitted privately to himself that he did enjoy getting under the pretty attorney’s skin. Had she not been so uptight… But she was. And he’d had far too many rules growing up to want to pepper his adulthood with any more. These days, he and he alone decided what was right for him, and in what manner he wanted to live.
As if to prove that point, James Ward’s delicate hand closed over his wrist-which was still clamped against her slender form.
“You!” she hissed, flinging his arm away, like some odious piece of trash. “What are you doing here?”
Good question, Rick thought, rolling over onto his back and taking a lazy look around. They were in a hotel room, all right. Together. For what had apparently been the rest of the night. The larger question was, what were they doing in such over-the-top attire-even if they were in Las Vegas. He had on a sequin-lapel white-and-black tuxedo worthy of Elvis Presley. She was wearing a plunging halter dress, with a sequined bodice and white organza skirt, hiked up around her thighs. Which were, Rick noted, more spectacularly sleek and lissome than he had ever guessed. She was also wearing some sort of rhinestone-studded tiara with a short organza veil.
“Explain to me what you are doing here!” James Ward demanded.
Trying not to get distracted by how beautiful the disheveled honey-blonde looked in the sunlight pouring in through the windows, Rick glanced at the hand she was waving indignantly in front of him. More telling than the knowledge she was a lefty, was the plain gold band encircling her ring finger.
Rick fought the sinking feeling in his gut, and a hazy memory of an emotional albeit slightly tipsy exchange with James Ward, followed by a dare, and a trip to the Las Vegas marriage bureau. Which, unfortunately for the two of them, stayed open till midnight, daily.
He dimly recalled more taunting, the purchase of a marriage license, and then with James Ward’s bossy sister trying desperately to derail the very bad idea while her groom-to-be goaded them on, a trip-with the entire wedding party-to one of the brightly lit wedding chapels on the Strip…
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” James Ward demanded, even more outraged.
Rick remembered selecting an Elvis and the Showgirl–themed wedding, never dreaming a straitlaced woman like James Ward would follow through on the wild idea-even to win a bet. And then, there were wedding vows being said, but not by Aidan and Belle, but by…oh, hell…no…
Rick tore his gaze from the color streaming into James Ward’s cheeks and looked down at his own left hand. In squaring with his fuzzy memories, there was a band there, too, identical to hers. Rather than try to explain, he lifted it for her to see. “Just this,” he commented drily, leaving her to fill in the rest just as he had.
James Ward tossed her head indignantly. “If this is a joke-” she speared him with her green eyes, apparently not recalling anything yet “-I am not laughing.”
Nor was he. His heart thundering, Rick sat up, too. He shoved both his hands through his hair, hardly able to believe he had done what he swore he never would. And actually followed in the impulsive footsteps of his oft-married, even more frequently divorced, parents.
“You do know what happened!” James Ward intimated.
“It’s beginning to come back to me,” Rick admitted gruffly. Although the memory was still fuzzy. And yet oddly romantic in a romantic comedy kind of way.
James Ward leaped from the bed. Arms folded militantly in front of her, she paced back and forth, her hips sashaying sexily beneath the full organza skirt. “I can’t wait to hear!”
Rick tore his eyes from the sumptuous breasts spilling out of the narrowly cut top of her dress, and recollected, “It was after the bachelor party, when we met up with the bachelorettes in the bar next to the casino. Talk turned to marriage and you bet I’d never say ‘I do.'”
James Ward paused, and wet her lips. Already, Rick noted, the story sounded plausible to her. Probably because she had been ragging on him about that since the two of them had first met two years before.
He shrugged and continued. “I said, ‘Sure I would. You’re the one who doesn’t have the guts to tie the knot.'”
James Ward paled, apparently recalling now, too. “And that’s when I took you up on the dare and we all went to the county clerk’s office for a license, then to the chapel on the Strip…”
Rick tensed as it all became more and more real. “I kept thinking you’d back out.”
James Ward sent him an accusing glare. “I kept thinking you would.”
Rick groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. Unfortunately, neither of them had. “So we got married to the stunned amazement of everyone else in the wedding party, and the continual railing of your sister. And had a glass or two of champagne.”
“And that’s the last thing I remember,” James Ward whispered, her hand pressed to her soft, trembling lips.
Rick only wished that were the case with him. Although not completely sober himself after an evening out carousing with the guys, he had known James Ward was tipsy from the get-go. He’d even heard the other bridesmaids giggling about tipping the bartender extra to put liquor in her drinks after all, because they all knew the ever-uptight James Ward had a tendency to say and do surprisingly unexpected and/or hilarious things when under the influence of even one drink. And they’d wanted to see if they could get her to loosen up, and liven things up.
Loosen up, she had.
Although, Rick admitted, his gaze drifting longingly over her feminine curves, not as much as he wished she would. The kiss they had shared at the conclusion of the ceremony had been close-mouthed and hopelessly chaste.
Once back at the hotel, they’d fallen exhausted onto the bed, too tired to think about the import of what they had done, and apparently fallen fast asleep. Which was a good thing, Rick noted. Otherwise he might have been tempted to consummate the marriage. Since they hadn’t…
Pale, shaking, James Ward moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
Although the know-it-all had a habit of getting under his skin as thoroughly as he got under hers, Rick abruptly felt sorry for her. He reached over and covered her small, delicate hand with his. “Look. We were out of our minds.”
James Ward stiffened and withdrew her palm. “Clearly.”
“We don’t have to get divorced. We’ll just get it annulled. You’re a lawyer. You know how to do that. Right?”
“Of course I-” The ring tone sounded on his cell. James Ward frowned as the familiar melody of “Friends in Low Places” filled the room.
Rick knew the polite thing would have been to let the call go to voice mail. And he would have, had the caller ID not flashed the name of Grady McCabe.
“Well?” James Ward said, torturous moments later, when Rick ended the call with the man who employed them both.
Rick exhaled and admitted grimly, “Grady knows. Everyone at work does.”
James Ward studied Rick, aghast. “How?”
“A tabloid reporter was tailing the bachelor party, hoping to dig up some dirt on Aidan.” Which would have been news since the bridegroom played for the Dallas NFL team. “She couldn’t find anything on him, so she wrote the story on us instead. Apparently it’s already on the Internet.”
James Ward’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “What are we going to do?”
“The only thing we can do,” Rick said flatly. “Stay married and ride out the storm.”
“It means that there will exist, in some fictional universe, a number of different James Wards.”
Fantastic!
Do you know this sort of happens in Don Quijote (the multiple character thing). It came out early 1600s and was so popular that a fake sequel was rushed out by a different author. Cervantes, the real author, was so incensed (but secretly chuffed) by this that he wrote his own sequel ten years later and included all sorts of post-modern arguments between his Quijote and the fake one. Not that you could be very post-modern in 1615… Anyway, it is worth a read although it’s a bit of a time commitment and (confession) I only read it because I was studying Spanish lit at the time. I’ll shut up now.
I think in my book you’re going to be the little boy who inadvertently fucks everything up. You scamp. I thought of making you an Italian version of yourself called Giacomo Reparto, but that was a stupid idea.
I reserve the right, of course, to cut you out entirely, or to change the little boy’s name to Stekelman, just to irritate you.
If I ever write a book again I will name a character James Ward. Now leave me alone.
It’s not as much fun as you think.
You can trust me on this
Sarah Marshall
I’ll do it, so long as you don’t mind ending up as Jack the Ripper.
It was inevitable.
Are you saying that you want to be Tricia Helfer in Battlestar Galactica?
Hi James! I actually am putting you in the proposal for a book I’m planning to write, right now. Only problem is it’s not fiction :)
Ok, so are you including the actual me in your book? What is the book about?