Can Dracula’s son get a book deal?
What is the best way to get my life story read by someone? I am the son of Dracula.
–Nicholas
via imdb
Common sense would suggest you are in fact not Dracula’s son, but rather a nutjob who wants to see his name in print. But no matter. The vast majority of memoirs are written by vain, delusional nutjobs, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t be entitled to your six-figure advance. This is America. Not only do you have the right to be semi-famous, you have the right to milk your semi-fame with an unnecessary but hopefully entertaining best-seller.
More than truth, what a memoir really needs is a hook, and I think you’ve found a great one. Let’s start with the title. Ignore those who would urge you to pick Dracula’s Son or In Red Blood. That’s not direct enough. You want a title that is so obvious that even viewers who skip over your Today show interview know exactly who you are and what your book is about: I Am Dracula’s Son.
Now that we’ve picked a title, there’s the trifling concern of the book itself. Whether you write it yourself, or hire a ghostwriter to “put in the periods and commas,” you need to ask yourself: What story am I telling? Is it a tale of darkness and redemption, wacky family hijinks, or perhaps a long struggle to find acceptance?
To have any shot at the best-seller list, your story should include at least six of the following:
- Addiction
- Sexual abuse
- Dangerous under-parenting
- Suffocating over-parenting
- Frequent moving
- Mental illness, preferably bi-polar disorder
- Poverty
- Great wealth
- Murder
- Eating disorders
- Death of a sibling
In the case of your “life’s story,” the spotlight is clearly on the big man himself, Daddy Dracula. You might think the fact that he’s the ravaging, immortal prince of darkness would be enough. You’d be wrong.
More than just evil, he needs to be crazy. Not crazy in a let’s paint the kitchen bright red! sort of way. But crazy in a gas oven, toothpaste sandwich, I am God sort of way. (This advice comes from Augusten Burrough’s excellent Running with Scissors, which sets a deliriously high bar. I have a wee literary crush on my semi-namesake. I hope the upcoming movie does the book justice.)
As you shape your memoir, remember that no one is buying your book to learn about the real you. Real People are not interesting, no matter what Skip Stevenson Stephenson and Sarah Purcell might have led you to believe. You need to think of yourself as a character. That is, exaggerate the best and worst qualities while minimizing any sense of normalcy. In terms of plot, the question isn’t, “What happened next?” but rather “What’s the most shocking thing a reader might possibly believe?” If you’re stumped, see the list above.
Best of luck with the book, Nicholas. I look forward to reading it, just as soon as I finish Jim McGreevey’s apologia for being a closeted scumbag.
Articles
September 21st, 2006 at 11:39 am
I looked up who Sarah Purcell and Jim McGreevey are but who is Skip Stevenson? I’m not an American.
September 21st, 2006 at 11:54 am
What a waste of time. I wish I could get those few minutes of my life back.
September 21st, 2006 at 12:13 pm
…and why omit the inestimable Fran Tarkenton?
September 21st, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Seems I have confused “That’s Incredible” with “Real People.” But can you really blame me?
September 21st, 2006 at 12:27 pm
And get a new name.
Adam Sandler played Nicky (=Nicholas) in “Little Nicky”. Nicky was not the son of Dracula but the son of Satan.
September 21st, 2006 at 12:41 pm
My mother is friends with the dishwasher, and has regular conversations with our neighbors’garbage. My father went to jail because he chased car bumpers along with my dog, the same dog he later proposed to. I think I would write better memoirs.
September 21st, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Wow, how funny!! I stumbled across your blog and Josh Freidman’s and died laughing!! I actually auditioned for Ops and was very sad to see it disappear into the ether. The biz is funny that way, but onto my question…
As a writer, what is your side of the process like. Do you guys just write your project and say “Here agent, do release the hounds find us a studio & cast!” or do you start to have certain creative aspects in mind like a studio or production company does this type of film,etc, etc? Plus, how involved do you get in casting as it pertains to the same folks from every studio in the same sorts of projects? I always wanted a writer’s perspective because I usually deal with directors and THEIR take on the whole process. Have a good one man!
September 21st, 2006 at 1:06 pm
I am an American and I don’t know who any of those three people are.
(I mean John, Nicholas, or Dracula.)
September 21st, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Hilarious! I want to see more of this sarcastic fuck-you attitude in Mr. August, it tickled me pink so much, I am now purple.
September 21st, 2006 at 2:16 pm
That guy is a LIAR! I am the son of Dracula! The one and only son of Dracula! You better gimme some respect, or my daddy vill zuck yor bluuuhd!
Do you think my memoir will be spicier if I also included the fact that I am a struggling screenwriter too? Kinda like a vampire/screenwriter half-breed? Like Blade, only with a pencil? The Pencil? Can walk in the day, sucks blood, but also writes? However, since I am neither a proper vampire nor a proper writer, I don’t really write that well and the only thing I suck is…
Anyway, all joking aside, I thought there weren’t people as crazy like that guy out there. And then I remembered there was a guy on Wordplayer who pretended to be the Kraken.
And that Austrian countess who thought she swallowed a piano.
September 21st, 2006 at 5:22 pm
I am not a big fan of autobiographies. Having said that, one of the most entertaining and best books I have ever read is actor David Nivens autobiography “The Moon´s a Baloon”…..I recommend it with all my heart.
September 21st, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Stephenson, actually (I’m eternally shamed by the fact that I remember Real People enough to know how Skip spelled his last name)
September 21st, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Mr. August,
I appreciate your reply to my question, but I must confess that your response is based on a typo on my part. I didn’t mean to say I am the son of Dracula, but rather of Dr. Acula.
Dr. Frank Acula.
Maybe you’ve heard of him? He’s got a practice in Norman, Oklahoma.
-Nick Acula.
September 21st, 2006 at 9:29 pm
. Ah, the importance of punctuation. Too bad this one was too late to make it in as an honourable mention in Lynne Truss’ “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”.
September 21st, 2006 at 9:35 pm
Ahem, well there was a comment before the period that starts my last post (laughter) … I forgot the web treats characters differently …
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:09 am
This whole thing was worth the departing dart thrown at McGreevy. Truly, a bad man. Roy Cohn reincarnated. For whom does one feel worse? They gay folks McGreevy rejected? The citizens he lied to? The taxpayers he bilked? Or perhaps his poor (and stupid, honestly, STUPID) wife?
One of these days, someone is going to have to write a book about all of these gay men who are married to women. I see them all the time. I know they’re gay, because I know what gay is.
And yet, their idiot wives…oh, their stupid, stupid wives…
What IS that???
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:33 am
Craig, some chicks dig gay guys. It’s like dating prisoners or something. They know they can’t get what they ultimately want, they’re masochists.
Then again, maybe some of them are just dumb, yeah.
x
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:51 am
If that post by Nicholas Acula is real then this was the funniest thread known to man.
Ultimately, I agree that Jim McGreevy is a coward. Some people thought he was a hero because he “came out” but that’s no hero. He’s a man who got backed into a corner and admitted what was going to come to light anyway. I feel sorry for his wife.
It’s funny, I really enjoyed Brokeback Mountain but I also realized what horrible people they were.
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:27 pm
There is, of course, a long list of directors who wrote one really good film (their directorial debut) before then going on to a career in which they did very little screenwriting. It seems like sometimes a director who doesn’t love writing has to dig deep and come up with at least one good script because that’s the way he can generate and have control of a wonderful project to make his directorial debut on. And of course many directors who we think of as not being writers contribute to revisions and even uncredited drafts.
September 23rd, 2006 at 7:24 pm
this is all just really funny. Dr. Acula… Isn’t that a gag in Scrubs?
September 25th, 2006 at 1:45 am
Pretty goofy idea J.
The Son of Dracula turns to a professional scribe for advice on getting a book deal.
Got a giggle out of me.
Then it just got me depressed.
What do you suppose happened to the idea of stories about “an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances”?
It seems these days that any “ordinary man (or woman)” character first has to have its “ordinary flaws” established before the story can begin, let alone stand a chance of getting picked up.
These days it would seem that any “ordinary man” has to have a problem with alcohol or drugs, a overly needy and utterly self centered spouse, “troubled” children, an abusive boss, a dead end job, and severe financial difficulties to talk to his therapist about, LONG before you can get into placing this “ordinary man” into “extraordinary circumstances” in order to proceed with spinning a bankable tale.
Do you think there’s still a place for “the ordinary man” in storytelling any more?
Or have we reached the point where an “ordinary man” has to border on being “The Son of Dracula” before he has enough “interesting flaws” as a character to warrant placing him in “extraordinary circumstances” in order to center a story around him?
Bump.
November 16th, 2006 at 1:01 am
Because I believe that this thread deserves to cling to life, or at least undeath, I think I saw somewhere that Roger Corman somehow or other owns the name Dr. Acula. So cease and desist and so forth.
Also, Mr. August, I feel some crucial elements have been sadly overlooked by your list above:
religious mania
gender issues
infidelity
more famous and/or interesting friends, relations and lovers
the horrifying effect of violent videogames
a diet/support group/excercise regimen/spiritual advisor that fixes everything
crime and possibly prison
logrolling