It's probably just the way I look at things, but I've thought for some time that several lolcows have literary fiction potential. Slightly dramatized versions of their lives and perspectives would be the kind of easy-to-sell "holy shit, you hate this character, but you're just fascinated by them!" characterization that makes agents and publishers pounce.
Some lolcows are just too bizarre to make a worthwhile book, or their entire lives are devoted to such "inside baseball" issues that they're not really broadly interesting (some of the trans comic creators like Matt Perez and Guillame Labelle are like this, as is Kyl(i)e Brooks). Some are just grating assholes with no real sense that their life is anything but one long, boring grift of one kind or another (Nora Reed, Becky Gerber, Cecily Kellogg). Some are just too gross to write about without changing too much of what makes the cow cow-like (Zachary Antolak). It takes the right combination of pathos and an almost Jungian or Campbellian archetypalness. The cow has to be the very most of whatever they are for it to seem like a worthwhile endeavor.
The cow I've been thinking about this most clearly with is Jake Alley, whose persona is like Ignatius Reilly with worse aesthetics and without any raw intellect. It's so delicious that he's pretending to be a shy young girl online while his beard grows grayer and longer. His utter unawareness of how he comes off to other people, or why they avoid him and loathe him, makes for a level of dramatic irony that is hard to write, but if done well, can come off as really clever.
Alison Rapp's life lends itself way more to romance fiction.
The Schofields are a particular horror show, with the narration made easier because Susan's actually tried her hand at creative writing about her "schizo" kids. Hers is more of a slow-burn horror piece.
And then, of course, you can make interesting amalgams of lolcow lives and characterizations. What do you get when you combine Dave Muscato with Katie Charm?
And who can forget our gruesome twosome, Greta and Nina?
With that, would-be writers of the K-farms, I ask: which lolcow (fictionalized to whatever degree you'd like while retaining the core of what makes them funny here) would make the most [interesting/literary/profitable/whatever, take your pick] novel?
Some lolcows are just too bizarre to make a worthwhile book, or their entire lives are devoted to such "inside baseball" issues that they're not really broadly interesting (some of the trans comic creators like Matt Perez and Guillame Labelle are like this, as is Kyl(i)e Brooks). Some are just grating assholes with no real sense that their life is anything but one long, boring grift of one kind or another (Nora Reed, Becky Gerber, Cecily Kellogg). Some are just too gross to write about without changing too much of what makes the cow cow-like (Zachary Antolak). It takes the right combination of pathos and an almost Jungian or Campbellian archetypalness. The cow has to be the very most of whatever they are for it to seem like a worthwhile endeavor.
The cow I've been thinking about this most clearly with is Jake Alley, whose persona is like Ignatius Reilly with worse aesthetics and without any raw intellect. It's so delicious that he's pretending to be a shy young girl online while his beard grows grayer and longer. His utter unawareness of how he comes off to other people, or why they avoid him and loathe him, makes for a level of dramatic irony that is hard to write, but if done well, can come off as really clever.
Alison Rapp's life lends itself way more to romance fiction.
You start it off about now: our plucky heroine, once full of life and spirit, is coming back to her Midwestern home to live with her parents after a failed, short-lived young marriage to her college sweetheart and a quick rise-and-fall in the gaming industry. There were rumors spread - terrible ones, and she knows her name and face are all over the internet, if you look in the right places - and she doesn't even know if Minnesota's far enough to run away to escape them. She's gotten a job as a barista, just something simple to get her back in the habit of getting up for something every day, when she meets an extremely handsome man in a business suit who makes his order very gruffly.
He ends up being a billionaire (she doesn't find this out until the very end of Act I, when they've been talking to one another for a while and her friend realizes who the guy is), their courtship is back-and-forth and then her dark secret past is revealed. Long dark night of the soul leads to raw, bare-hearted confrontation leads to hot sex in a massive billionaire setpiece with the billionaire's massive setpiece, and then the billionaire gets the board taken down, which should make her happy but instead gives her second thoughts: this is a guy who can disappear stuff from online and is making vague insinuations that he's "disappeared" some of the people responsible for the website, is that what she wants in a relationship? She ends up giving back his expensive gifts and applying for a promotion to manager at the coffee shop, because she wants to do things right this time, no shortcuts (this is actually a setup for the sequel).
He ends up being a billionaire (she doesn't find this out until the very end of Act I, when they've been talking to one another for a while and her friend realizes who the guy is), their courtship is back-and-forth and then her dark secret past is revealed. Long dark night of the soul leads to raw, bare-hearted confrontation leads to hot sex in a massive billionaire setpiece with the billionaire's massive setpiece, and then the billionaire gets the board taken down, which should make her happy but instead gives her second thoughts: this is a guy who can disappear stuff from online and is making vague insinuations that he's "disappeared" some of the people responsible for the website, is that what she wants in a relationship? She ends up giving back his expensive gifts and applying for a promotion to manager at the coffee shop, because she wants to do things right this time, no shortcuts (this is actually a setup for the sequel).
The Schofields are a particular horror show, with the narration made easier because Susan's actually tried her hand at creative writing about her "schizo" kids. Hers is more of a slow-burn horror piece.
The way to write this one is like that book by Emma Donoghue, "Room." "Room" is told from the point of view of a five-year-old boy who, we gradually realize through his simple, childlike descriptions, has never left a single small space, where he lives with his mother and the man who kidnapped her and fathered him. The real heart-grab of "Room" is that to a child exposed to nothing else, everything is ordinary, it's just what is.
That's got to be what life is like for the kids. They're drugged, but they don't know that they're being given massive Benadryl overdoses in the form of smoothies and milkshakes. They don't have any idea what's happening to them as they float into and out of consciousness, experience hallucinations, and lose control of their bodies in embarrassing and terrifying ways. We slowly start to realize that they are not crazy children, but rather children who are being drugged, even poisoned, and who have no frame of reference to understand the situation or even that what their parents are doing is wrong.
The trick here is how to end it. Do the Jani and Bodhi characters get wise to what's happening, there's a final confrontation, and they kill their abusers? Does the Susan character realize they're planning something beforehand and stop them, then administers a lethal overdose? Lots of directions this could go, I'm sure there's some perfect, gorgeous gutpunch of an ending I'm missing here.
That's got to be what life is like for the kids. They're drugged, but they don't know that they're being given massive Benadryl overdoses in the form of smoothies and milkshakes. They don't have any idea what's happening to them as they float into and out of consciousness, experience hallucinations, and lose control of their bodies in embarrassing and terrifying ways. We slowly start to realize that they are not crazy children, but rather children who are being drugged, even poisoned, and who have no frame of reference to understand the situation or even that what their parents are doing is wrong.
The trick here is how to end it. Do the Jani and Bodhi characters get wise to what's happening, there's a final confrontation, and they kill their abusers? Does the Susan character realize they're planning something beforehand and stop them, then administers a lethal overdose? Lots of directions this could go, I'm sure there's some perfect, gorgeous gutpunch of an ending I'm missing here.
And then, of course, you can make interesting amalgams of lolcow lives and characterizations. What do you get when you combine Dave Muscato with Katie Charm?
You get the 21st century The Great Gatsby, a novel about a homeless pseudo-"activist" who was in the nonprofit industry until he trooned out, who at his lowest point invests a small amount (which he used crowdfunded funds for) in a cryptocurrency that blows up and yields huge profits. He is an instant multi-millionaire who creates a lavish lifestyle beyond his means, spending it on ridiculous outfits, lots of crazy lifestyle stuff, tons of surgery, and lots of lavish narcissistic stunts like buying out a Las Vegas theater and making himself the star of the show.
He doesn't realize that the "friends" he's making are using him for his money and would happily stab him in the back if someone richer came along. He doesn't realize that the guests at his parties are laughing at him in his elaborate spangled gowns and enough FFS to make his face look like a mask. And he's always been a bachelor, except that one tragic and traumatic love affair in his past, but one night, at one of his parties, he thinks he's found love...it ends, of course, in death and drama.
He doesn't realize that the "friends" he's making are using him for his money and would happily stab him in the back if someone richer came along. He doesn't realize that the guests at his parties are laughing at him in his elaborate spangled gowns and enough FFS to make his face look like a mask. And he's always been a bachelor, except that one tragic and traumatic love affair in his past, but one night, at one of his parties, he thinks he's found love...it ends, of course, in death and drama.
And who can forget our gruesome twosome, Greta and Nina?
All our dreams of Troon Waco coming to fruition have been dashed by the Trans Lifeline wising up and firing the scammers, but that's not to say that it wouldn't make an incredible novel, like Les Miserables but the pointless (and easily overwhelmed by the forces of the state) cause is troonery and the right to be exactly who you want to be.
It might look a little bit like Sometimes a Great Notion (if you haven't seen the film adaptation of this book, go do that right now before you even finish reading this), where Greta and Nina's constant refusal to compromise a set of rigid, even nonsensical ideals leads gradually but inexorably to them losing everyone and everything they've ever cared about.
It might look a little bit like Sometimes a Great Notion (if you haven't seen the film adaptation of this book, go do that right now before you even finish reading this), where Greta and Nina's constant refusal to compromise a set of rigid, even nonsensical ideals leads gradually but inexorably to them losing everyone and everything they've ever cared about.
With that, would-be writers of the K-farms, I ask: which lolcow (fictionalized to whatever degree you'd like while retaining the core of what makes them funny here) would make the most [interesting/literary/profitable/whatever, take your pick] novel?
