Thread by @MattCarr55

So here's what happened with my next novel pitch. I said to my editor, it's a dystopian sci fi political thriller: The story of how a midranking country with serious but not insurmountable social & economic problems is fatally undermined by hubris.

Editor: Interesting...

Me: So what happens is this: The PM of the ruling party agrees to have a referendum on whether or not to stay in the EU. It's a party management strategy...

Ed: Boring. You lose me you'll lose the reader

Me: Wait! So the PM assumes he'll win of course, but then...

...things don't go the way he plans. You have this toxic combination of charlatans, nationalist extremists from within his own party, dodgy data mining campaigns, some of them funded by a foreign power that wants this country - let's call it Brexitannia - to leave the EU

And this lot - let's call them a gang, a cabal, a conspiracy - they convince millions of people that the EU - a trade bloc and transnational political arrangement that Brexitannia voluntarily joined - is in fact like a dictatorship.

Ed: Haha. This has comic potential...

Me: Yeah, but it's not really funny haha, but funny peculiar, because why would a sensible and rational country believe something so ridiculous, right?

Ed: Why indeed?

Me: Because the cabal - let's call them 'Leave' - tell the population all kinds of stuff

Ed: Such as?

Such as there are too many foreigners here who don't speak our language & take advantage of us because of the EU. Foreigners are stealing our fish because of the EU. We don't have manufacturing industries because of the EU.

Ed: A lots of negatives, aren't there?

Me: I know!

But the Leave cabal - let's call them liars - also says that we (you've probably guessed which country I'm talking about, ed!) will have loads of money when we leave. We'll sort every problem we have. We'll be a great country again - let's call it Great Brexitannia...

So they tell us day after day, it'll be great. We'll be great. We'll have something called 'sovereignty'. There won't be so many foreigners. We'll rule the waves - like Sir Francis Drake! It's all be so easy, they tell us. Because greatness is just like riding a bike...

...and once you've done it, you just back on. Because you hold the cards, while you're riding your bike, and sailing the waves and -

Ed: Stop.

Me: Ok, so there is another side to this. Let's call them 'Remainers'. And they point out that there are huge risks involved...

They warn again and again that what 'Leave' is promising is not going to happen, and that there are a whole range of downsides in leaving that haven't been anticipated. So the Leavers call this #ProjectFear, which is my title btw

Ed: Catchy

Me: Thanks!

So anyway, what happens is that Leave win the referendum! Shock horror! The country is plunged into turmoil! And still Remainers keep on with the warnings, and so Leave start to get nasty, and say that Remain is 'the elite' and it's ignoring 'the will of the people'...

And it goes on like this for 4 years, day in day out, and it becomes clear that there really are serious downsides to leaving the EU that Leavers had deliberately ignored and never seriously prepared for...

Ed: Intriguing. So is this satire or a morality tale?

Me: Satire always has a moral message. So anyway, the country goes absolutely tits up, it becomes the laughing stock of the whole world, but then Leave keep getting elected and they get this massive majority so they don't care & they don't change course...

Ed: You're aware that satire has to have some basis in reality, right?

Me: Stay with me. So this government - let's call the PM 'Johnson' -

Ed: Silly name

Me: So the government cracks on, even when reality is turning out to be totally different to what it said it would be

And then they say that they never said it would that great after all! And they tell the people who voted for them 'we always said there would be winners and losers' even though they didn't!

Ed: Nice twist

Me: Thanks. And meanwhile, the gov is engaging in massive nepotism

...It's launching a fullon attack on governmental insitutions and imposing a hardright revolution led by a man known only as 'Dom'.

Ed: Dom?

Me: Never mind. And all this is happening in the midst of a pandemic!

Ed: A what???

Me: Like I said -

Ed: I know what you said, but

Me: I know it sounds weird. But there's a pandemic, killing more than 40,000 people. It wrecks Brexitannia's economy, threatens to put millions out of work. But still the hardright revolution cracks on

Ed: And what's the response to this?

Me: There isn't any

Ed: None?

Me: None. Even when the government fails to ask for an extension, the opposition is mute. There's no outcry.

Ed: And what happens then?

Me: The country collapses into chaos! Breaks all agreements it has signed. Sinks into irrelevance, ruin, and bitter acrimony

...except that Leave blame Remain for all this and say that it's actually their fault. And meanwhile the Russian ambassador boasts that 'We crushed the Brexitannians and they'll never rise again' and...

Ed: Stop. I've got to stop you there.

Me: But -

Ed: Look at our list

...We don't publish fantasy.

Me: But -

Ed: Go home. Think again. Try to come up with plotlines that are rooted in reality. Please don't come to me with anything like #ProjectFear ever again.

Me: Damn!

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