The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next 3)

'Not my job, Libris – my real home is in the Outland. I would applaud a BookWorld in which we had no need of a policing agency – but not one where we lose the Well of Lost Plots!'

There was a gasp from the crowd; seven million people all drawing breath at the same time.

'No need for plotsmiths, echolocators, imaginators, holesmiths, grammatacists and spellcheckers. No need for Generics to be trained because characters will be constructed with the minimum of description necessary to do the job. I'm talking about the wholesale destruction of everything that is intuitive in writing – to be replaced by the formulaic. The Well would be dismantled and run instead by a few technicians at TGC who will get UltraWord™ to write books with no input from any of you.'

'Then what will happen to us?' said a voice from the front.

'Replaced,' I said simply, 'replaced by a string of nouns and verbs. No hopes, no dreams, no future. No more holidays because you won't need or want one – you will all be reduced to nothing more than words on a page, lifeless as the ink and paper that you will become.'

There was silence.

'Proof!' cried Libris. 'All you have demonstrated so far is that you can spin a yarn as well as any plotsmith! Where is your proof?'

'Very well,' I said slowly. 'Mrs Bradshaw? The skylark, if you please.'

Mrs Bradshaw produced the small cage from beneath the table and handed it up to me.

'I have seen an UltraWord™ character with my own eyes and they are empty husks; if an old book is read in UltraWord™ it is very good – but if it is written in UltraWord™ it will be flat and trite, devoid of feeling, the SmileyBurger of the storytelling world. The Well may be wasteful and long winded, but every book read in the Outland was built there – even the greats.'

I took the skylark from the cage.

'This was the proof that Perkins died for.'

I placed the small songbird beneath the ImaginoTransference device and the skylark's description was transmitted to the audience.

Oh Lark so quick of wing,

Dive down from up on high,

Perch proud upon the post

Melt darkness with thy cry.

Come make my spirits soar,

Dance here and hover long,

Tempt summer with your trill,

Sweet stream of endless song.

The audience reacted favourably to the words and there was a smattering of applause, despite their nervousness.

'What's wrong with that?' insisted Libris. 'UltraWord™ takes language and uses it in ways more wonderful than you can imagine!'

The Bellman looked at me.

'Miss Next,' he demanded, 'explain yourself

'Well,' I said slowly, 'that wasn’t an UltraWord™ skylark. I picked it up from the Library this morning.'

There was an expectant hush as Mrs Bradshaw produced a second bird seemingly identical to the first and handed it up to me.

'This is the UltraWord™ version. Shall we compare?'

'That's not necessary!' said Libris quickly. 'We get the point.' He turned to the Bellman. 'Sir, we need a few more weeks to sort out a few minor kinks—'

'Go ahead, Thursday,' said the Bellman. 'Let's see how UltraWord™ compares.'