Always use Africa,’ ‘Darkness’, or ‘Safari’ on your identity. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar,’ ‘Masai,’ ‘Zulu,’ ‘Zambezi,’ ‘Congo,’ ‘Nile,’ ‘Big,’ ‘Sky,’ ‘Shadow,’ ‘Drum,’ ‘Sun,’ or ‘Bygone.’ Also beneficial are words consisting of ‘Guerrilla,’ ‘Timeless,’ ‘Primordial,’ and ‘Tribal.’ Note that ‘People’ approach Africans who aren’t black, while ‘The People’ method black Africans.
Never have a picture of a nicely adjusted African on the quilt of your ebook until that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-forty-seven, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use those. If you should include an African, ensure you get one in a Masai, Zu, Lu, or Dogon dress.
In your textual content, treat Africa like it had been one of you. S. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands, big herds of animals, and tall, thin, those who are ravenous. Or it’s far hot and steamy with very brief folks that consume primates. Don’t get slowed down with specific descriptions. Africa is huge: fifty-four nations, 900 million who are too busy starving and demise and warring and emigrating to examine your ebook. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs, and many different things; however, your reader would not care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic, evocative, and unparticular.
Ensure you show how Africans have song and rhythm deep in their souls and consume matters no different humans eat. Do no longer point out rice, red meat, and wheat; monkey-brain is an African delicacy choice, alongside goat, snake, worms, grubs, and all other reproductives. Make sure you show that you can consume such food without flinching, and describe how you learned to revel in it because you care.
Taboo topics: everyday domestic scenes, love between Africans (until death is concerned), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of college-going youngsters who aren’t affected by yaws Eb, ola fever, or female genital mutilation.
Throughout the book, undertake a sotto voice, conspiracy with the reader, and an unhappy I-predicted-so-a lot tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and point out how much you like Africa andand fell in love with the region and cannot stay without her. Africa is the only continent you may love — take benefit of this. If you’re a guy, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a lady, treat Africa as a person who wears a bush jacket and disappears into the sundown. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped, or ruled. Whichever perspective you take, depart from the sturdy effect that Africa is doomed without your intervention and crucial ebook.
Your African characters can also include bare warriors, loyal servants, diviners and seers, and ancient smart guys dwelling in hermitic splendor. Or corrupt politicians, inept polygamous travel courses, and prostitutes you have slept with. The Loyal Servant always behaves like a seven-year-old and needs a company hand; he’s scared of snakes, especially with children, and always involves you in his complex home dramas. The Ancient Wise Man constantly comes from a noble tribe (no longer the money-grubbing tribes like the Gikuyu, the Igbo, or the Shona). He has rheumy eyes and is near the Earth. The Modern African is a fat man who steals and works inside the visa workplace, refusing to provide painting permits to certified Westerners who care about Africa. He is an enemy of development, continually using his authority’s task to make it hard for pragmatic and desirable-hearted ex-pats to install NGOs or Legal Conservation Areas. Or he is an Oxford-knowledgeable intellectual who grew to become a serial-killing politician in a Savile Row health. He is a cannibal who likes Cristal’s champagne, and his mom is a wealthy witch-medical doctor who runs the United States.
Among your characters, you need always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp almost bare and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her kids have flown on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must make an appearance of being utterly helpless. She can haven’t any beyond, no history; such diversions break the dramatic second. Moans are top. She has never said something about herself besides speaking of her (unspeakable) suffering. Also, include a hot and motherly girl who has a rolling laugh and is concerned about your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her youngsters are all delinquent. These characters should buzz around your fundamental hero, making his appearance appropriate. Your hero can educate, bathe, and feed them; he carries plenty of babies and has visible Death. Your hero is you (if reportage) or a lovely, tragic global superstar/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).
Bad Western characters may encompass children of Tory cabinet ministers, Afrikaners, and personnel of the World Bank. When speaking about exploitation through foreigners, point out the Chinese and Indian traders. Blame the West for Africa’s scenario. But do no longer be too precise.
Broad brushstrokes throughout are suitable. Avoid having the African characters chuckle or war to educate their kids or make do in mundane circumstances. Have them illuminate something approximately Europe or America in Africa. African names have to be colorful, uncommon, and more extensive than existence; however, an empty interior, without a speaker, no conflicts or resolutions of their memories, and no intensity or quirks to confuse the purpose.
Describe, in detail, naked breasts (younger, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or improved genitals. Or any genitals. And dead bodies. Or, higher, naked dead bodies. And particularly rotting naked, lifeless bodies. Remember, any work you post in which humans appear filthy and miserable can be called the ‘real Africa,’ and you need that on your dust jacket. Do now not sense queasy approximately this: you are trying to help them get resources from the West. The most considerable taboo in writing about Africa is to describe or display useless or struggling white humans.
Animals, however, should be treated as properly-rounded, complicated characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and feature names, targets, and goals. They also have a circle of relatives values: how do lions educate their youngsters? Elephants are caring and are right feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas. Never say whatever, poor, approximately an elephant or a gorilla. Elephants might also attack human beings’ property, destroy their vegetation, and even kill them. Always take the facet of the elephant. Big cats have public-faculty accents. Hyenas are fair recreation and have vaguely Middle Eastern accents. Any short Africans living inside the jungle or desert can be portrayed with appropriate humor (unless they are in warfare with an elephant, chimpanzee, or gorilla, in which case they’re pure evil).
After movie star activists and aid workers, conservationists are Africa’s most important humans. Do no longer offend them. You want them to invite you to their 30,000-acre recreation ranch or ‘conservation location,’ which is the best way to interview the superstar activist. Often, an ebook cover with a heroic-searching conservationist on it works magic for sales. Anybody white, tanned, and wearing khaki who once had a pet antelope or a farm is a conservationist who maintains Africa’s wealthy history. When interviewing them, please do not ask how many investments they have; do not ask how much money they make off their recreation. Never ask how much they pay their employees.
Readers could be cast off if you don’t mention the light in Africa. And sunsets, the African sundown is an ought to. It is usually large and red. There is constantly a massive sky. Wide empty areas and recreation are vital — Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces. When writing about the plight of flora and fauna, mention that Africa is overpopulated. When your predominant person is in a wasteland or jungle living with indigenous peoples (all of us quick), it’s far okay to mention that Africa has been significantly depopulated by way of Aids and War (use caps).
You’ll also want a nightclub referred to as Tropicana, in which mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans pro, statutes guerrillas, and ex-pats grasp out.
Always stop your ebook with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances because you care.
