INT. DEN, FORTRESS MAMEA -- AFTERNOON
THE LOVELY WIFE, a slab of “Owner Builder” MAGAZINES on her lap, glances up at her PET WRITER’s reading: a NOVEL by [a very famous New Zild writer].
THE LOVELY WIFE
How’s it going?
PET WRITER
... Ehh. I’m fifty pages in and it’s all been introductions of a whole bunch of characters, all experiencing the same traumatic event, each introduction from their own point of view BUT WITH NO GODDAMNED PROGRESSION OF STORY.
THE LOVELY WIFE
What’d you expect?
PET WRITER
Well, with Stephen King’s “The Stand” --
THE LOVELY WIFE
Whoa, there, tiger: they’re two very different things.
PET WRITER
They’re both about a small number of people surviving some terrible incident --
THE LOVELY WIFE
Yes, sure, but “The Stand” is a fantasy novel while that --
(re. novel in Pet Writer’s hand)
-- is literature.
PET WRITER
“Literature“?
He looks anew at the book in his hand:
PET WRITER
HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN?
The Lovely Wife sighs and resumes her magazine reading.
