How to write your own great book of western literature.

*Note you already have to be a pretty good and imaginative writer to pull this off*

Take four of your favorite great books of western literature and read them.

When you finish each one, start from the end, go back 40 pages from the end, and from that point write your own new ending in the style of that book. Make it at least 40 pages long to take the place of the old ending. Make it consistant with the story and characters, but make it your own as well.

Take your four 40 page new endings, and change the character names to your own made up characters. Make it so these characters star in all 4 stories.

Write 2 to 10 page connecting story/chaptors to weave these 4 stories into one larger story.

Write a new 40 page ending that fully wraps up this new story and even more fully brings these seperate story threads together.

Write a 40 page begining story that builds up to your new great book hybrid/ending story. If necessary, write a short prologue establishing the zany world your characters come from.

This next step is most important to get your book noticed by the intellegencia (and therefore have it officially canonized into the pantheon of great books), HAVE A SECRET MEANING. This is easier than it seems. Have at least 2 pages that hint that the whole plot of the book is about something, y'know like it's secretly about the ugliness of mankind, or an alegory to the government or something. Squeeze in a short scene that heavy-handedly points towards something, but don't neccesarily make it clear what. Maybe have a part of the story take place on an imaginary island that symbolizes the emotional struggle of the characters. Hills are also really good for this kind of thing. After all these years, smartsy folks are still suckers for those hills. Hell, Norman Mailer used a fake island THAT HAD A BIG ASS HILL!! Guess where they talked about that book? The Learning Channel's GREAT BOOK FESTIVAL!! Not too shabby eh? Heck, set up your island/hill/island hill/war into the prologue, and wash your hands of the whole symbolism thing from then on if you want. Anyways, squeeze just the hint of a secret meaning in there. This will bump the reader's perception up into this mode of thinking and they'll find there own hidden meaning from then on. Then, when they read the book again, they'll find that meaning from the introduction and acknowledgement pages onward. Let THEM do the work. Word of mouth of how brilliant your book is will do the rest. At the very least, you should end up on Oprah's book club.

Enjoy your place in literary history, and remember to thank me in the introduction.