Changes

|title=Black Chalk

|author=Christopher J Yates

|publisher=Vintage

|date=September 2014

|website=http://www.christopherjyates.com/

|video=

|summary=One occasion where the fancy structuralising of the novelist actually pays dividends in keeping the reader ever-so-slightly off-balance as to who to trust, who to believe, who (indeed) they are actually listening to. Six students start a game, which edges ever closer towards a nightmare...but then halts as they leave university to go their separate ways. Or does it? Amusing, sharply observed, and a page-turning read.

}}

I think I have finally understood why it is that over the last few years, authors have increasingly insisted on non-linear structures for their novels. It is a deliberate and possibly conscious ploy to try to make them un-filmable. The Hollywood rights are certainly lucrative, but if my theory doesn't leak like the Jumblies' boat then our complex-structure-loving writers are not just being too clever for their own good, they are trying to be true to the great works of literature that they aspire to emulate.