Crossword

I have this idea for a novel in my head called "Crossword." It's actually a collection of short stories, but each one intersects with the one previous and following at a single point, connecting the whole thread. I think Faulkner did something similar from one novel to another, but my idea is different because it's within the same book. And it doesn't require me to write more than one.

For example, in one story, maybe a woman in a big SUV guns it to get around a group of about 6 cyclists on a weeknight training ride, only to end up at a closed train crossing doing 40 mph. Unable to stop, she crashes through the crossing gate and comes to a stop on the tracks. The oncoming train collides with her. Her story is developed either before or after the accident. In the next story, a train is held up on the tracks for 4 hours as a result of a "medical emergency" in the train ahead (which of course is the collision). A woman on this delayed train notices a man's smooth, muscular gams and strikes up a conversation. They eventually fall in love, launch into a torrid affair (probably not on the train), maybe leave one or more spouses and begin their lives together. Oh, and the woman talking to the guy bike racer on the train is a freelance reporter who just got a job covering cyclocross in Belgium. And she's hot.

OK, the stories wouldn't really be about bike racers. I just substituted them in for regular people so you'd keep reading. Cheap trick, I know.

Anyway, I came across a couple of blog posts last night that made me think of the unfinished (unstarted) future candidate for the literary canon "Crossword."

Plain Jane, meet Kyle.
Kyle, Plain Jane.

You two should work together next Wednesday - either on the race, or on a single race report. No point in duplicating efforts. 

Comments

[Ryan]

Read the U.S.A. trilogy by John Dos Passos (The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and the Big Money) -- it's similar to what you describe. It's basically a single book, but broken into three so even skinny-armed bike racers can still carry it.

There's also a Simpsons episode like that, but that wouldn't make me sound as intellectual.

[John P.]

I happened across both of the blog posts you mentioned, and found it cool how the two points of view described the same race unfolding.

Very cool.

[Kyle]

Mike, I think you are trying to get everyone to see me in my wifes jersey. Me so sexy.

[Beth]

...no, that wasn't an SUV gunning it around bikers, it was one woman in an SUV (who was a bike racer), rear-ending another woman (in a nice enviro-friendly car) - also a bike racer - screwing up Bike Jam plans for both of them....

[Mark Lew]

At least one movie has been made using this concept (Crash). I'm not sure if it was an original screenplay or adapated from a previous work.

[burt.hoovis]

more about Fuentes and Harley is here:

http://doucheblogcycling.blogspot.com/

thanks,
burt