Techniques of the Selling Writer

by Swain, Dwight V.

  If a man’s lawyer calls and asks him to drop by, your reader assumes that something’s in the wind.

  Same when a boy winks at a girl in a bar, under the very eyes of her burly escort.

  Or if somebody hears the hoofbeats of a galloping horse, coming closer and closer down the road.

  (5) Inordinate attention to the commonplace.

  Describe a doorknob in tremendous, painstaking detail, and a reader will figure there must be a reason for giving it such unusual attention. He’ll read on to find out what that reason is.

  A grandmother’s gnarled hands, the shabbiness of a run-down house, a little girl peering out from behind her bubble gum—portray them with special care and they’ll hook readers.

  Needless to say, these aren’t the only ways to begin. Start with a still life. Describe it skillfully enough and your reader, knowing that it can’t stay still forever, will assume a change must be impending. Mirror routine activity, and he’ll conclude that something will happen soon to break the routine. Show purposeful activity, and he’ll be prepared for it to create or collide with opposition.

  In the same way, you can begin on either motivating stimulus or character reaction; on the search for a goal or on the struggle to attain it. You can start with the big picture and move to the small, in the manner of the motion picture’s familiar long-shot, medium-shot, close-up pattern. Or, you can reverse the process . . . begin with the close-up, the significant detail, and then pull back to view the broader frame of reference that is the detail’s setting.

  As a matter of fact, you have a certain amount of leeway in your first paragraph and on your first page.

  Why?

  Because your reader wants so badly to be entertained. Therefore, he assumes that sooner or later what he reads will relate to something satisfying and exciting—desire, danger, a character fighting for fulfillment and future happiness.

  The place where story openings go wrong is when a writer rides this reader assumption too hard.

  That is, Writer takes it for granted that Reader will suffer drabness and ineptitude indefinitely. So, he plods through his first page or two or three, laying groundwork and that’s all. He doesn’t work for interest. The vivid noun, the active verb, the colorful phrase, the intriguing detail, the clever twist, the deft contrast—these aren’t for him.

  Above all, he doesn’t plan his presentation to make his reader curious as to what those first few crucial lines are leading up to.

  And that’s literary suicide.

  It’s not enough, in an opening, just to set the stage or to introduce the characters or to have something happening. What hooks your reader isn’t the present, but the future. He wants to be reassured that something worth reading about is going to happen—and he wants that reassurance now.

  So, give him what he wants. Show him that your story deals with something special—something outside the framework of routine and day-to-day anticipations.

  Show him now. Right from the start. The next line, the next paragraph, the next page may be too late!

  c. What to put in.

  To begin a story, you must create a story world.

  You start with your reader’s mind a blank. Then, a step at a time, you lift him away from reality and transport him into the imaginary land you have conceived.

  To travel thus into the story world, your reader instinctively asks three questions:

  (1) Where am I?

  (2) What’s up?

  (3) Whose skin am I in?

  Your job in beginning your story is to provide answers to these questions.—Though not necessarily in any particular order.

  How do you present this information to your reader most effectively?

  You pinpoint the significant.

  What’s significant?

  That incident or detail is significant which epitomizes and/or symbolizes and/or captures the essence of whatever aspect of the story world you’re attempting to communicate. Describe a girl as a “dizzy blonde,” and you tag her far beyond mere appearance. Fairly or unfairly, her hair symbolizes her as a particular type of woman. In calling attention to it, you give it weight as a detail which holds significance, and your reader will so use it in evaluating her.

  In the same way, a “Charles Addams sort of house,” for many, conjures up a mood of the macabre. It epitomizes feeling in the image of a gloomy, decaying, mansard-roofed Victorian mansion.

  Connotations of sensitivity and taste seldom are implied when you refer to a man as “bull-necked.” A Modigliani print on the wall establishes one tone for a room; a needlepoint sampler, another. If cockroaches are crawling over greasy, egg-smeared dishes in the sink, a still different note is struck.

  This process of symbolization by significant detail isn’t unique to fiction. You find it every day in routine living also, whenever you use a picture that already hangs in someone’s mind as a sign or reference point to help label an unfamiliar object. A handy adaptation of the principle of association, it draws upon comparison, similarity, contrast, analogy, and the like. It forms the basis for the stereotyping which, while frequently unjust and/or unwarranted, is also ever so convenient.

  What if no obviously symbolic detail is immediately at hand?

  Create one.

  That is, spotlight some phenomenon—anything at all. Then, let a character react to it. The interpretation he places on it, the conclusions he draws from it, will at once endow it with “significance,” where your reader is concerned.

  Thus, bring a rain spot on the ceiling into focus as a significant detail, and it may in all seriousness be viewed as symbolic of (a) recent bad weather, (b) a leaky roof, (c) a poverty-stricken family’s pride, (d) a proud family’s deterioration, (e) a chink in the villain’s armor, (f) the heroine’s vulnerability, (g) a stain on honor, (h) aristocracy’s feet of clay, (i) proof that trouble is a common denominator which touches rich and poor alike; and so on, to and past infinity.

  In other words, you blow up any fragment in any situation to a close-up so big it fills the screen. Then, you have someone state or imply that it’s important to and indicative of a particular frame of reference. Whereupon—count on it—your readers will go along.

  And if you think this is a ridiculous exaggeration, pause for a few minutes this evening to glance over your favorite manual of Freudian dream interpretation.

  Extend this same process of creating significance by association and conditioning to a sort of running gag, an emotional doorbell, and it gives you a handy device for establishing and reestablishing mood with minimum wordage.

  Thus, let your hero note and feel as blithe, at one point, as the mockingbird’s song he overhears. Your public then will be delighted when, later, you use a sour note from the bird’s midnight serenade to reflect Hero’s conviction that life is doing him dirt. Does the heroine shut him out? The bird’s song now sounds sad. Does the villain fall in the horse trough? The bird lets go with a cadenza similar to a razzberry. And so on.

  Carried far enough and used with sufficient skill, this reiteration of emotionalized detail becomes what’s sometimes called a gimmick—one of the most useful devices for resolving your story. But more of that later. Right now, let’s consider briefly how best to help your reader answer the first of his three questions about the story world.

  (1) Where am I?

  Your reader needs to know your story’s locale: It won’t do to have him think he’s on the seacoast when he’s really in the slums. Does the action take place in a barroom, a ballroom, a bedroom, a barn? Is it midday, midnight, dusk, or dawn? He must know!

  You need to convey this information to him early—the sooner, the better. Otherwise, he may make false assumptions that throw him for a loss later.

  But no matter how important this information may be, you don’t dare indulge in long-winded explanations or descriptions. Such take up too much space and bore your readers.

  So, what do you do?

  You use the significant detail, of cour
se. Which is to say, you pluck a symbolic fragment or two or three from the setting. By describing them in such terms as to provide an implicit or explicit interpretation, you give your reader the impression you want him to have. Are the grounds neat? Then say that the flower beds appear to have been aligned with a micrometer and the grass mown both ways before a trimming with manicure scissors. It will draw a sharper picture than several paragraphs of more generalized detail. Sawdust on the floor of a bar says more about it than any cataloguing of the bottles on the shelf. Squalor can occupy pages of description, or you may just observe that the shanty’s walls had cracks so wide you could throw a cat through them.

  There’s more to establishing locale than this, of course. But it’s a start, and the fine points will wait a few pages, till we can take time out to discuss the technique of exposition.

  For now, let’s move on to Question Number 2:

  (2) What’s up?

  As pointed out above, your beginning must establish time and place; a locale.

  It also must set forth a situation—an existing state of affairs; the way things stand as your story starts.

  Situation breaks down into two components:

  (a) What’s going on?

  (b) Who’s involved?

  Let’s begin with . . .

  (a) What’s going on?

  One of the hardest things a writer has to learn is that “What’s going on?” means precisely that—“What’s happening right now?”—Not, “What has gone on?” or “What’s the background and/or past history of the present action?”

  How do you thus communicate present action?

  You show what happens.

  You show it as it happens, moment by moment, in strict chronological order.

  The sense of this at once becomes apparent if you stop to realize that the present is the only thing you can show. The past is already gone. Your only link to it is memory. The future waits in the wings, not yet on stage. It may be set forth only as conjecture or imaginings.

  Here’s a sentence:

  “The ancient wagon had been wallowing heavily across the prairie all day now.”

  O.K.?

  No. “Had been” instantly tells us that we’re dealing with past action. And while the past certainly has a place in many stories, that place isn’t in the beginning.

  How better to handle it?

  “Sagging under its load, the ancient wagon wallowed heavily across the prairie.”

  Present action. A word picture of the here-and-now.

  If there’s sound, let’s hear it:

  “. . . rattling and creaking and groaning.”

  Is odor a factor?

  “The air, despite the dust, held also a paradoxical steaminess of wilting vegetation.”

  Heat?

  “Even the tough, low-growing buffalo grass seemed to shrink from the blazing rays of the morning sun, high now and climbing higher.”

  How about a change in the situation?

  “Ahead, far in the distance, smoke rose—a slender, wispy plume.”

  What happens when we put all these together?

  Sagging under its load, the ancient wagon wallowed heavily across the prairie, rattling and creaking and groaning. The air, despite the dust, held also a paradoxical steaminess of wilting vegetation. Even the tough, low-growing buffalo grass seemed to shrink from the blazing rays of the morning sun, high now and climbing higher.

  Ahead, far in the distance, smoke rose—a slender, wispy plume.

  And so it goes. With manipulation of language and selection of detail, you capture a state of affairs on paper. No matter what fragment you need to introduce, you call it to your reader’s attention as an immediate stimulus, a present action.

  Won’t you ever deviate?

  Of course you will, a thousand times. But when you do go into past or future at the beginning of a story, it should be a matter of conscious and intentional technique, designed to create a predetermined effect and to solve a specific, clearly thought out problem. It should not represent mere clumsiness and lack of insight.

  Most of the time, you’ll get best results if you make it a habit to stick with the here-and-now approach.

  Beyond “What’s going on?” lie other implicit questions: “What should be going on?” “What else do you need to establish a proper story world?”

  Answer: Conflict. Desire plus danger.

  How do you establish conflict?

  You face somebody with opposition.

  —At which point, 999 would-be writers cry out, “But how can you establish conflict without telling past history? How can you have a fight without a background?”

  Our answer here goes back to our original point: Show what happens as it happens, moment by moment, in strict chronological order. You don’t have to know what’s gone before in order to see somebody slug somebody else. Explanations can come later. All you need is a man or woman with a goal—a he or a she or an it going someplace.

  Then, bump this being into opposition, and you’re in business.

  Obviously, such a clash should have some bearing on or relationship to the central issue of your story. But all that takes is a bit of planning. The important thing is to find a striking, self-explanatory scene, so that you can establish the element of struggle and, through it, hook your readers early.

  In this connection, what’s sometimes termed a bone of contention or weenie may help you to demonstrate that something’s at issue, even though for the moment your reader doesn’t understand how come.

  Thus:

  The paper clip lay on the desk between them. It was an old clip—discolored, somewhat bent, with a couple of small rust spots visible upon it.

  Idly, Olivas reached for it.

  In a voice dangerously gentle, Sheehan said, “Touch it, you son of a bitch, and I’ll cut your throat.”

  Olivas’ hand stopped.

  You see? Itself unimportant, perhaps, the paper clip is a symbol of the relationship between these men. Their reaction to it and to each other bring a host of elements into focus—the state of mind of each; their caliber and potential; all sorts of things.

  So, whether the paper clip itself is intrinsically of worth or consequence or not—and it quite possibly may be—it serves here primarily as a bone of contention between these two. Objectifying an issue, it creates conflict in a striking, self-explanatory scene. And your story gets under way.

  (b) Who’s involved?

  Ever and always, your story deals with people. The beginning is the place where you introduce them to your reader.

  To introduce any given character effectively, you must first of all bring him on in character.

  That is, the character must behave like the kind of person he is. Otherwise, how can your reader know what to expect of him? That’s why, in a less sophisticated period, the villain so often kicked a dog in Chapter 1, or the hero saved a child from a bully.

  Today, we smile at such obviousness. But the principle is still sound, when used with even a modicum of taste and judgment.

  To bring a character on in character demands three things:

  /1/ The character must have character.

  To say that someone “has character” means that you know where he stands. He’s for or against something. He exhibits desire, direction.

  The same idea applies to your story people. A successful character is more than just warm meat. He’s a living, breathing human being, with all the drives and ambitions and attitudes and prejudices of such. A drab nonentity who blends into the woodwork simply isn’t strong enough.

  To interest your reader in a character, therefore; to make him care about someone, pro or con, you must give him some definite something to which to react. The character must exhibit traits designed to arouse emotion. He must be for or against things, in word or deed, about which your reader too feels strongly. You may not like a man who drinks too much, or beats his wife, or picks his teeth in public. But at least he gives you cause for your attitude.
/>
  So, too, do you judge the man who gambles his life on his faith that he can climb a dangerous mountain . . . or who refuses to lie despite his employer’s threats . . . or who stays with his wife—or a woman not his wife—in the face of community scorn and condemnation.

  /2/ The first time he appears, the character must perform some act that characterizes him.

  Character can’t be demonstrated save in action. What others say about you may be merely reputation. Your own self-description can range from delusion to plain-out lie. But when you act—ah, then the cards are down and we see the stuff you’re really made of!

  For this reason, you as a writer should devise incidents that will force your story people to reveal early—or at least hint at—their true natures, in action. Each must display, and thus establish, that aspect of himself which is of top importance to the story. Is your man a thief? Show him stealing. A scholar? Let him abandon the party for the library. Ambitious? Have him maneuver a chance to impress someone who can help him.

  Note, please, how this implies that one trait, one aspect of personality, stands dominant in each character.

  Play it precisely that way. Human patterns are infinitely complex, granted. But a story focuses on a crisis in someone’s life. Under crisis conditions, a single trait frequently does dominate. If you don’t think so, try sometime to persuade a teen-age girl to break away from the behavior patterns of her group, or a fat-and-fiftyish male to stick with a diet.

  Thus, while each of us possesses a host of attitudes and traits, not all get equal emphasis at a given moment. Today, passion may drive me to the exclusion of all else. Tomorrow, it may turn to disgust; or, under the pressure of a change of circumstance, be moderated or overshadowed by a desire for security or fame or intellectual achievement.

  For the duration of your story, then, let one trait stay dominant in each character. Keep Tom honest, Dick cruel, Harry stupid.

  —Which is not to say that you shouldn’t modify the picture upon occasion. Perhaps Tom is greedy as well as upright. Cruel Dick, on the side, is a doting father. And though Harry can’t count past ten with his shoes on, he’s a wizard where motors are concerned.