My Masterpiece - John

If i had the patience to actually sit down and write something outside of the realm of schoolwork, it would definitely have to be something along the lines of a dark and twisted tale about the dirty underside of society. A good example of such would be like the novel Next by Michael Crichton. Next is about the dark underbelly of the glamorous high-tech Biotech industry, about how people go to extreme measures to make money, how dysfunctional and broken the legal system is, and about the evils of the world in general. This novel is the basis for why I'd even consider writing a book because there's no much else that's influenced me like this novel. Unlike Vonnegut, I couldn't possibly write a novel based on my personal experiences simply because my life is boring. If this novel ever came to fruition, it would an action-packed thrill ride unlike anything you've ever read.

So to start off, there would be no main characters since i feel that it's too hard to explore a huge topic with just a single character. There wouldn't be some heroic, righteous protagonist that expunges the evil from the world. This is simply because it doesn't happen. There would be a few good guys that struggle with making the right decision, a few ne'er do wells that try to make their mark on the world, and many unoriginal and uncreative stock characters. This is just my personal preference since having many characters means i could focus on many different struggles and problems with each character instead of having one main character undergo all of it. One person could be involved in an underground gambling scheme, while someone else is involved in the high-tech manufacturing industry. Having all of these qualities and diversity is too much for a single character so it is better to have a variety of different kinds of people with different personalities and traits.

The novel would take place a few years in the future, where a gene, AKR83, has been discovered to be a viable cure for cancer, due to it's ability to manipulate stem cells into a much more aggressive form of an omnipotent white blood cell that would specifically targets abnormal cells that haven't undergone apoptosis. This gene, however has been licensed by three major institutes in the United States and no further research can be done until the licensing disagreement has been sorted out. The world would be on edge due to the United States withholding what could be the most important discovery to this day over such a trivial issue as to who holds the rights to the gene when millions are dying. The great debate for the patent has led to espionage and skirmishes, until the United States can take no more and establishes an ally system with all those who want a part of the cure against those who refuse or even cannot pay the massive royalty fees that come with the cure. The world will wage war on itself and what would once have been a cure to mankind's greatest problem will lead to its ultimate downfall.

The ideas that i'd like to share revolve around society's greed. In a sense, the way that the companies wouldn't share the information is like how the world's not willing to share it wealth evenly. Our society consists of only a few rich countries, while large parts of the world struggle with getting the bare necessities. There shouldn't be anything like a third-world country at the same time as there are obesity epidemics. Events like Kevin Carter's famous Sudanese girl and vulture should not ever happen. This also applies to more than just food. School is also a luxury that not everyone in the world has, yet there are people who don't even care about a proper education. The world needs to change so that there is equality for all and those less fortune should be helped, even if they live outside of your country. Another message that needs to be shared is about patents. A patent should not passed on anything that exists naturally and yet genes, which have been around since the beginning of life, are patented and this allows the companies who own the patents to make millions of dollar for anything that requires the gene, like research. Allowing a patent for genes is like allowing a patent for gravity, which is simply ridiculous. We should not be able to own anything that is inside other people's body. Also, I absolutely detest the idea that readers need to dig to unsolve the message in books, which is why I would specifically have a section in the end where I reveal the messages because it's just simpler this way. With novels like Slaughterhouse five, sometimes the message is hidden so deep that some readers might not notice it.