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#3 Newsletter
Why Carla was my first (fictional) love?
Today’s third “Tresidential” newsletter is about how to find the right “person” and the right “staff” for a thriller. I have purposely written “finding a person” instead of “creating a character”, because, in my view, an author lives with the staff of his story. Sometimes for very long-time. Though Trump seems to be more fiction than reality, I must find the right individuals, who, for example, sit next to Mr. Tresident in the Trump Administration and reflect the surreal reality in my fictional plot.
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A comment on this surreal reality, since the last newsletter: The AI generated video posted last week showing what “the Gaza Strip” might look like, if Trump would make it the new “Riviera” with a “Trump Gaza” is nothing short of being disgusting. Money, Musk and Netanyahu and, of course, “The King” himself, as the White House has dubbed him. Could you really imagine such an idiotic reality? What would King Charles or even Elvis think about it?
From time to time, reality is “better” than fiction, but in this case it is much worse! Since the inauguration five weeks ago, we have been receiving more and more crazy news from Washington. Or what do you to think of Trump's latest idea of making cryptocurrencies a reserve currency? Alongside the US dollar! At first, he forgets Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two “cornerstones” of cryptocurrencies and then – after these two forgotten ones tumbled – he adds them to his list.
So, I try to have eyes and ears open everywhere for my plot, to combine current reality with fiction. Bitcoin & Co. alongside Trump & Co. is one such combination, but what does it ultimately mean?
Perhaps Carla Bell can give us an answer: She is an investigative journalist, one of the brightest minds in financial journalism and the most important fictional character in my previous economic thrillers Bad Banker and Dark Banker. She is also known as the ‘Young Lady of Fleet Street’, in reference to the Bank of England's nickname, ‘The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’.
Out of curious interest, I typed the description of Carla Bell from the first two books into an AI image generator and was amazed at the result. I couldn't have drawn it better myself and like to share it with you!
Carla Bell in her mid-twenties as an investigative journalist
Carla Bell 10 years later as Editor-in-Chief of the CityView
🎧 Listen to my original character description of Carla from 2008 & 2018 as an audio sample, here.
But back to “finding the right person” and Carla Bell: In retrospect, she was my first love, fictional of course. When I drafted my first thriller, Bad Banker, in 2008, I created Carla as a young woman in her mid-twenties who had just started her career as an investigative journalist at CityView in London, my fictional FT-Lex-column-like media company in London. At the time, I had no idea, how long I would hold on to this character, how she would accompany me and evolve in my fiction for years to come. It's as if I had created a literary confidant for myself.
Although it is a fictional creation, over time I had come to "respect" her as an honest person and independent journalist, who could not be taken for a ride or being fobbed. It remains fiction, of course, but I needed Carla to have someone and somewhat to comment on the real financial crisis, the Bad Banks and Banker. “Cityviews” instead of “News from the City”. So, I have hold on to her for quite a long-time already and developed her character. In the Dark Banker, Carla is the Editor-in-Chief and well respected in the City of London, fictionally eye-to-eye with the real editorial staff of the Financial Times 😉.
So, in the next months, I must find these right individuals for the right places in for my new thriller: Who could be my eyes and ears in the Oval Office? A smart young man or woman, who works for Elon Musk’s DOGE or as a financial expert for the National Security Council or perhaps as someone close to Vice President J.D. Vance. The latter is, in my view, one of the most underestimated real characters in the Trumpian piece. Anyone who had followed the recent escalation between Trump and Zelenskyy, could have seen that it was the Vice President of the United States of America, who had set and escalated the tone.
Besides a character from Trump's entourage, I am planning at least one more main “person”: the ultimate Cryptonian who controls and directs everything from a secret bunker? This will become clearer for me in the next issues of this newsletter.
But in two weeks, I will tell you, how I find my places and where the story happens. The White House is set, but the rest? The Federal Reserve? Where will be the bunker? In China? Or better in “safe haven Switzerland”? Stay tuned!
All the best,
Markus A. Will