Reflections on The Club From Hell by Aubrey Waddy September 30, 2015
Some memories of the writing process . . .
The Club From Hell, Chapter 3
In Chapter 3 of The Club From Hell I set out to develop the two
parallel tales that had been started by Steve Cubbins and Mick Joint.
Steve and then Mick had nicely established scenes in different squash
clubs and had introduced a number of characters. Several separate
tensions had been initiated, and an 'event from hell' had already taken
place at one of the clubs. My object was to develop the characters,
develop the event from hell and to make matters worse, create a second
problem with potentially awful consequences. To provide further hooks
for following authors, I introduced several personal relationship
issues that I hoped would develop into further problems and provide
further tension. Finally, for fun, assuming that most of the readers
would be from the squash world, I mixed up famous squash names for the
several characters I introduced.
Chapter 20
I found it difficult to follow the serpentine progress of the story as
subsequent chapters emerged, but with the responsibility of writing the
penultimate chapter, I had to keep up. I HAD thought that squash
players were a dull and unimaginative bunch of automata, prosaic
performers of a simple game involving a small court and an unglamorous
black ball. No way! As soon as I’d left it, the story leapt Bob
Beamon-like, way beyond any of the hooks I’d created. In the middle
chapters it came back (we needed more female contributors). It took on
flavours of Ian Fleming and Lawrence of Arabia, of the Brothers
Karamazov and the Mahabharata. If it had been a restaurant it would
have been one of those Michelin-starred fusion places. Anyway, like, I
think, Alan Thatcher, I created a sort of spreadsheet of names and
roles and relationships to give me some chance, in my second effort, of
being true to the story and not totally dislocating the plot. The notes
ran to thirteen pages. Peter Heywood, who did chapter 19, skilfully
knitted a lot of the threads together, and in a message to me before he
mailed this vital instalment to Ted Gross, he wrote “still lots of
threads”!
Still lots of thread, aarrgghhh. In chapter 20 I endeavoured to follow
Peter’s direction and focus everyone and everything on the plausible
destination of Philadelphia. Alan Thatcher, accomplished journalist
that he is, brilliantly conceived and executed the story’s coup de
grace!
