An Email Template for collaboration with your favorite author.

(Delete this title and this sub-title before sending)

​Hello ____ I am writing to say how much I loved your last book ____ It was phenomenal. I didn’t read it, not the whole thing at least, but I didn’t have to. I’m going to be bold now and say in modern times, we don’t need to read WHOLE books anymore. Who has time for that? not the under-60 and NYC crowd. Long novels are a pre-smartphone understanding of entertainment. The greatest works of literature never tell anything to an audience, they always allude to more, and now that more never has to be written. It’s commonly understood among fans of horror films and strip clubs that the most potent source of fear is our own imagination. From the very last line your novel ____ I was hooked, I’ve read more book endings than anyone. I like to go to the bookstore and spend sunny afternoons reading the last paragraphs of hundreds of books. That is why I’m such a fan of your work, even the last typed word of ______ is perfect, like a bullet to the heart or a nail gun to the hand.

This brings me to the point of my email. I’d like to propose, a new type of book, a collaboration between us, of just endings to novels that never need to be written. What words do we pay attention to? someone’s dying words of course. This book will be like the last words of a dying poet summing up their whole life into the most important things they thought. A greatest hits album without all the filler of random songs the audience skip. If you are hesitant, just think of Morse Code or the telegram. Did sailors sit in submarines at the bottom of the ocean, to intercept and listen to the beautiful rhythmic tapping of enemy ships? was there an art to Morse code? It doesn’t matter because art has evolved and so must we.

As you are older, I’d like to let you know that a lot of young people are using YouTube to not watch films, but the most emotional clips from films. Oftentimes it’s a street kitten being rescued into a forever home or a favorite song mixed with an anime. Even more convenient are top ten lists. Anything can make us have that emotional connection we crave, like the wind through the trees, a cloudless sky or a family soup nobody remembers how to make anymore, but to do it fast, check out the top ten saddest movie scenes on YouTube. I propose the same but with literature.

​I want to create a brand-new form of writing. With your connections in publishing and my knowledge of technical innovation, I know we can.

Thank you ______

For faster communication feel free to text ______

Best
___________

Written by Alexander Hiller