Writing Popular Fiction

by Dean Koontz

  Arty titles. Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Be Free, The Meaning of the Archbishop's Death, The Implications of Troy's Kidnapping, Death Scares Me Not, and other similar antiquities will never appeal to the modern reader.

  Many writers are proud of the number of drafts they do on a novel. You'll hear them say things like, "I did four complete manuscripts before I had it polished exactly as I wanted it." Indeed, the writer who won't settle for anything but the right word, who wants his prose to ring true and to read easily, is to be admired. But the writer who rewrites the same story again and again until he has it down pat is usually not so much a careful artist as he is a sloppy one. If he had trained himself to write as clean and sound a first draft as he could, he would not have needed to go over all that material again and again.

  When I sit down to begin a new novel, I type directly onto heavy bond paper, with carbon paper and second sheet attached. If a paragraph is not going well, I rip that set of papers out of the typewriter and begin the page again, but I never go on until that page is finalized and cleanly typed in finished copy.

  I waste a lot of paper.

  But I save a lot of time.

  The danger of planning to do several drafts lies in the subconscious or unconscious attitude that, If I don't get it right this time, it's okay; I can work it out in a later draft. This encourages carelessness in your original word choices, phrasing, and plotting. The more things you write with this approach in mind, the sloppier you become until, finally, your first draft is so poorly done that no number of re-workings will make it click.

  No financially successful, critically acclaimed writer I know has let himself get caught in the "fix it in a later draft" trap. Without fail, however, the hopeless amateur clings to this fallacious theory like a drowning man to the only rock in the lake.

  Disregarding this tendency for the multiple-draft writer to get careless with his work, there are other reasons why you should learn to write good first drafts and eliminate revision wherever feasible. First of all, your emotional involvement with the work can be the intangible quality that makes it exciting and marketable. If you must rework the story several times, you will lose that sense of excitement and, more often than not, create a finished piece that reflects your own ultimate boredom. Unless you have a firm grip on the structure of your story, you may begin to change things, in a rewrite, that do not need to be changed at all; reworking a story, you may begin to doubt all of it and alter it without logical reason. And, of course, a great deal of revision takes time from your new work.

  One familiar piece of advice given new writers is: "Put it aside for a couple of days or weeks and re-read it when you've cooled off." At all costs, ignore this advice. It is true that, in the clinical mood that sometimes follows the completion of a work, you can see prose faults and correct them. More often, however, you are only giving yourself time to start doubting the story. Often, when you approach it again, you're too critical, because you've lost the mood that generated it. When you've finished a piece, send it out straightaway and get to work on something new. You're a professional. You have all the confidence in the world.

  Reams have been written about the transition, and most all of that has only tended to confuse new writers to no good end. The transition is easily written; any mistakes you may be making with it can be easily corrected.

  The transition is the change from one scene to another in a dramatic narrative, moving your characters from one place to another or from one time to another. By stepping in on the end of this scene and the beginning of the next, we can see a poorly done transition:

  "Are you going to just sit there like a stone?" Lou asked her, looming over her where she sat in the big easy chair.

  She didn't answer him. She looked straight ahead, her eyes on the wall behind him, her lip trembling but her determination otherwise unbetrayed.

  "I don't have to take this, and I'm not going to," he said, turning away from her. "I can always find someone else-someone who will talk to me."

  Still, she sat, silent.

  "Damn you," he snapped, crossing the small room, slamming the big oaken door behind him.

  He went down the steps and out into the clear spring morning, walked two blocks down Elm Avenue to the bus stop, where he caught the 9:45 for town. He rode there without incident, brooding over the scene with Rita, got off at Market Street and went to his favorite bar on the square.

  Max, the bartender, wasn't as moody as Rita had been. He was willing to talk. In fact, he had some interesting news. "Selma's been in here the last couple of days, Lou. She's been asking around about you."

  The longest paragraph in the example is essentially all transition, getting Lou from one place to another. It stalls the story, because it adds nothing, and it should be pared down to the minimum. It should have been handled this way:

  Still, she sat, silent.

  "Damn you," he snapped, crossing the small room, slamming the big oaken door behind him.

  Thirty minutes later, he was in his favorite bar on the square downtown. Max, the bartender, wasn't as moody as Rita had been. He was willing to talk…

  As soon as one scene is over, you should lead your reader into the next, with no excess prose between them. The details of how the character got from here to there do absolutely nothing for the story except retard it.

  One popular way of changing scenes is with the space break, a blank space on the page between the blocks of print, which indicates when one scene has ended and another begun in a different place or time from the first. To make the best use of this the writer may want to end the first scene with a lead-in for the opening of the second. For example:

  Still, she sat, silent.

  "Damn you," he snapped, crossing the small room to the big, oaken door. "I'm going down to the bar. If you won't speak to me, at least Max will!" He left, slamming the door behind.

  Max put the beer down before him and, in that match-making tone of voice some bartenders culture, he said, "I've got some new for you. Selma has been in the last couple of days…"

  Another transition of the same sort might run like this:

  The voice on the phone said, "Have the ransom money at the museum by midnight tonight. Otherwise, your wife is dead."

  Mike swallowed hard, wiped at his mouth and said, "I'll be there, midnight on the dot."

  The museum was dark and deserted when he rounded the corner and walked towards the stone lions that flanked the steps.

  As you can see, writing good scene transitions is really a simple matter; as I said, when discussing style, brevity is the best course.

  The most successful writer, as I've said before, is the one who can sit down at his typewriter every working day and produce a certain number of words or finished pages, regardless of what he might prefer to do instead. If you can write ten pages a day, five days a week, you can complete ten solid novels in a year. I've done it; I've done even more than that, in fact. And I know of one man who, working for a literary agency during the day, commuted to the suburbs each evening and sat down and wrote ten pages, no matter what, on top of his regular job and commuter's blues!

  However, many writers find that each day, in this sort of schedule, can begin with a small writer's block, a two- or three-hour thing, before the mind is nimble enough to create. There's a cure for the mini-block. When you sit down to start, each day, begin by retyping the last page or two that you finished the day before. Not rewriting, mind, just retyping. This little trick will put you back into the mood you were in when you were working steadily the day before, and it can eliminate that mini-block for almost anyone.

  It also helps to keep your work area clean, uncluttered, and your resource notes or material easily at hand. I have read countless articles about how good it is to work at a cluttered desk, how the jumble of books and papers can give you a feeling of excitement and fertility. Bull. A writer is a professional, and he needs that sense of order that is so evident in other professions like medicine, law, an
d education. I think it's interesting that I've never read the cluttered-desk theory proposed by any truly successful author, and I know that you will find it easier to start each day if you're working in a pleasant, businesslike area.

  Occasionally, of course, there are days when nothing works, when the clean work area and the retyping of yesterday's last page, and the brisk walk around the block do nothing to get the juices flowing. When this happens, it is best to take the day off, and perhaps the next day as well-if you keep in mind that the lost wordage will have to be made up in the days following your short vacation.

  CHAPTER TEN Practicalities: Questions and Answers

  1. I want to be recognized as an artist, not just as a storyteller. When the category fiction writer must adhere to plot formulas, how can he create real art? Plot is not the only element which makes fiction great. Characterization, motivational developments, theme, mood, background, and style are equally important in the creation of prose art. Fortunately, the basic genre plot skeleton is flexible enough to allow you artistic breathing room, while at the same time relieving you of doubts about the strength of your storyline; if you know it follows an accepted formula, you can cease worrying about it and spend more time on your other story elements. Actually, you have a greater opportunity to create genuine art than the mainstream writer.

  But, what's wrong with being "just a storyteller"? Very few creative prose artists originally set out to write immortal work. They began as entertainers; their talent was innate, not cultured; their success as artists was because of, not in spite of, their storytelling abilities.

  2. I am a new writer without any sales. How many rejection slips must I accumulate before I start selling? I garnered seventy-five rejection slips before my first sale, a number I believe to be about average. John Creasey, who has sold in excess of 500 novels, collected more than 500 rejection slips before his first sale. There is no magic limit beyond which you sell all you write. Nearly every category writer continues to receive occasional rejection slips even after he has become critically and financially successful. You must be unaffected by mounting rejections; you must continue to write in the face of them.

  3. I'm an established writer in one category. How long will it take me to make sales in a new one? A few category writers find it impossible to switch from one genre to another, because their interest and talent lies solely with one kind of story or background. The majority, however, can break into a new genre within half a dozen tries-if they have carefully studied the new field and fully understand it.

  4. Should I begin writing short stories or novels? A short story requires less commitment in terms of a writer's time and energy than does a novel and is the best literary form in which to practice writing fiction. However, there are two good reasons why a modern category writer should start out writing novels. First of all, not all the genres contain an active short story market. Only two or three magazines buy Gothic-romance stories. Two magazines purchase Western short stories; three purchase mystery and suspense regularly; a number of men's magazines publish erotic fiction, but pay erratically and-with a few exceptions-not very well. Only science fiction writers enjoy six specialty magazines and dozens of original story anthologies as markets for their shorter work. And even here, the pay is inferior to what writers can make from novels. Secondly, it is virtually impossible for a category author to build a reputation writing short stories. Three or four novels will make you better known to editors and readers alike than will a hundred short stories.

  This is not to say you should avoid short stories altogether. Some ideas are best developed in 5,000 words instead of 60,000 words. But the time you give to writing short pieces should be in proportion to the part of the current market they represent.

  5. What kind of advance against royalties can I expect for the average category novel? The new writer will receive from $1,500 to $2,000, unless he is writing Westerns, in which case the advances are always somewhat lower. As his reputation increases, he can work as high as regular $4,000 advances and even, in some cases, substantially higher. Advances to the author remain rather static for long periods of time, and they do not adjust with the cost of living or reflect increased profits on the part of the publishers.

  6. If I am established in one genre, will my advances in another category go up to reflect this success elsewhere? Maybe and maybe not. More than likely, you will employ at least one new pseudonym in every category you try. In that case, the publisher cannot take advantage of your established name and reputation on the book cover and will pay you just as he would a new writer, until your pseudonym has built its own reputation.

  7. I am more concerned about art than money. Must I write for money? If you feel that money should not concern the creative artist, stop right here, go back and pick up life in your fantasy world. Money is important to the serious artist, for three excellent reasons. First of all, in the early years of your career, money may be the only way you have of telling if your work is being accepted or not. New writers seldom get reviewed and do not generate large amounts of fan mail. Nice advance checks and royalty payments are valuable indications of your popularity among readers (the only ones who count, when all is said and done), and they give you the morale necessary to continue in what must he one of the loneliest occupations a man can choose. Second, the freedom that a healthy, regular income affords you is perhaps the most important factor hearing on your productivity. With the bills all paid and savings stored up against a run of bad luck, you can devote yourself full time to your craft and dispense with the agony of finding some way to meet the latest bill when you could be writing. Finally, financial success is important because it is a good credential to bring before a publisher. If your work generates large sales and earns the top dollar in your field, your publisher is far more likely to give you free rein with what you do than he would the novelist whose works barely pay the printing costs.

  Must you write for money? No. But neither should you write in ignorance of what it can mean to the quantity and quality of your creative work.

  8. How long must I work to gain financial security? You may never gain it. If you can produce only one or two category novels a year-especially science fiction, Gothics, mysteries, and fantasies-you will never know a time when the wolves are not a stone's throw from the door-and you without a stone to throw. Unless, of course, you hit the best-seller lists or have a book made into an enormously popular movie, both of which are more easily dreamed than realized. Even if you are prolific enough to produce and sell eight or ten novels a year, your income may hold steady at $20,000 a year, which is comfortable but by no means enough to classify you as nouveau riche.

  On the other hand, with a top-flight agent (and there are very few of them), and a willingness to try other categories, to go where the money is the best and the audience the largest, you can achieve an income of $50,000 a year and up with half a dozen novels per annum. The uncertainty and the constant possibility of extravagant success are what make this profession so exciting. The nine-to-five office worker knows he will never starve-but he also knows he will never make a fortune. The full-time freelance writer can always starve-but he may also feast. The second possibility makes life interesting.

  When you begin to make more money than you are used to having, don't fall into the trap of beginning to live more lavishly, as so many writers do. Your first financial goal, as a freelancer, should not be a new car or wardrobe, but the establishment of a savings account at least sufficient to support you, in comfort, for an entire year in the event your markets dry up or you become seriously ill. I say support you "in comfort," because you may develop a writing block, out of emotional depression, if you are suddenly forced to lower your standard of living and deny yourself pleasures you've grown accustomed to. Once the savings account is set up, invest an equal amount in stocks as yet another failsafe source of funds before you begin to live at or beyond your means. A writer must learn to budget year by year, not week by week.

 
9. If I am prolific, won't I make extra money from the sale of foreign rights to my books? The category fiction writer rarely makes foreign sales in his first three years, barring a best-seller or a much-talked-about movie purchase. If you are agentless, you will not have foreign contacts at all. Even with an agent, you may amass a large body of work before you begin to receive regular checks for foreign rights, because some agents are less able to make foreign sales than others.

  Realize, too, that book advances in other countries average only one fourth or one half of what the American publisher paid and are subject to a 20% agent's commission-as opposed to the standard 10% commission on domestic sales-as well as a possible split with the original U.S. publisher. A writer can make substantial money from foreign sales only if his books make the best-seller lists and thereby demand higher foreign advances-or if he is so prolific that all those tiny checks are multiplied by fifteen or twenty books a year.

  10. What about other subsidiary rights-paperback sale of a hardcover edition, films, serialization? Most novels printed in hardcovers are picked up for paperback reprint, though a substantial minority do go without this reward. Paperback houses pay the original publisher as little as $2,000 and as much as $1,000,000 or even more for best-sellers or potential best-sellers; this paperback money, then, is split (usually fifty-fifty) between the author and the hardcover publisher. This can mean as little as an additional $1,000 for the author, or as much as $50,000 for the author in the case of A Report from Group 17 by Robert C. O'Brien, and better than $200,000 for someone like Mario Puzo and a book like The Godfather.