Bill Folman '98 has written a satirical novel called The Scandal Plan, or: How to Win the Presidency by Cheating on Your Wife, about a presidential candidate who invents an adulterous affair in an attempt to make himself more relatable. Folman participated in theater and a cappella at Brandeis and received a Master of Fine Arts in film production from Boston University. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he teaches and writes occasionally for the Huffington Post. The Justice spoke to Folman last week about his creative background, his experiences since the novel's release and what's next.JustArts: Where did the idea for this book come from?

Bill Folman: The idea came about in late 2003 when there was a whole lot of stuff that really wasn't good for the Bush administration. I was struck that their poll numbers remained very high, and that took me back to the 2000 election, when George Bush had a couple of big scandals, like the National Guard scandal and his last-minute drunk-driving scandal. The reason those scandals didn't hurt him was that they reinforced the very narrative that he was trying to sell about himself, which was that of the reformed sinner. We already knew that he had a rough youth, that he made some mistakes. The idea in The Scandal Plan was to have a candidate who was sort of in this John Kerry/Al Gore mold, who's a little bit too good for his own good, and people can't relate to him. What we're doing is we're taking a boring candidate and giving them that downturn, that thing that they can then recover from.

JA: How did you become a novelist?

BF: I basically decided, "All right, well I'm going to take some time, write a screenplay and then move to New York." And then at some point my idea for a screenplay turned into a novel, and New York turned into Los Angeles, and here I am. I came at this from a point of ignorance and perhaps arrogance. You know, "Sure, why not? I have no training in writing a novel-why not?" What I did have training in was telling a story, because I've been telling stories in so many different mediums through the years as an actor, as a filmmaker. I did long-form improv in Boston for a little while. So I have a lot of experience just with different forms of telling a story.

JA: What's the difference between writing a novel and writing a screenplay?

BF: The screenplay is much more of a skeleton, whereas the novel is more of a fully formed human being. So much with the screenplay is filled in with the way the actor reads the line, the way the director shoots it. And you don't really get to control those things. You're providing a blueprint. Whereas, with a novel, you need to play all the different parts.

JA: How did you go about writing the book?

BF: I knew I wanted a novel that was big, farcical, with a large cast of characters and a complicated plot with interweaving storylines. So I knew it was something that I needed to carefully construct before I started writing it. I did a lot of the classic screenwriting techniques of putting scenes on index cards and color-coding them with characters, just to see it visually represented in front of me. There's about 90 percent of the plot that was pretty solid before I started writing.

JA: How have your experiences been on the road?

BF: Because I'm a first-time novelist, for me the touring was going to places where people know me. I had an appearance in Los Angeles, in Boston and a couple appearances in Connecticut, where I grew up. And they've all been really nice, very well-attended, a lot of fun. It's definitely a new world for me, the publishing world, but so far it's been enjoyable.

JA: Do you plan to continue teaching?

BF: It's always a challenge with creative professions. There are very few people who make a living solely by doing that. Until we reach that place, it's always about trying to get the most money for the fewest hours. So I'm always continuing to explore that. But I spent a while doing Hollywood jobs, and I think that unless you're interested in climbing that ladder, it's not very appealing.

TJ: Are you working on anything at the moment?

BF: I've been absorbed by writing this summer. I haven't abandoned the film pursuit, but I've narrowed my focus in terms of my creative schizophrenia, and I'm mostly just focused on writing now. I'm currently working on a screenplay, and then when I'm finished with that I'm going to work on the next novel.