Hardback book publishers, in turn, seem more and more to give prime emphasis to the big literary and pseudo-literary novels, with their potential of fantastic profits from best-sellerdom, book club and movie sales.
Result: A high proportion of category material now appears under the paperback houses’ imprints.
Finally, and unfortunately, when one category rides high, chances are that others are scraping bottom. Specialize too narrowly, and you may be in for a long hard winter.
(5) Treatment.
Scan the girlie books casually, and all appear to be much alike. Check more closely, and you discover that this one likes sex with a light touch, that one prefers clinical detail, and another works largely in terms of implication.
Crime equals violence, at some houses. In others, cleverness dominates. One builds up character; another puts its emphasis on plot.
In the same way, Ace and Berkley set different standards for their westerns. Random House buys one kind of mystery, Dutton another. The story heavy with technical detail that Analog features would fall flat at Amazing.
Does all this sound like a plea for rigid slanting?
It isn’t.
To me, it seems that a writer should be intensely aware of the markets he hopes to hit. He needs to read them, study them, learn to recognize their tastes and strengths and weaknesses.
When he sits down to write a story, however, he ought to forget said markets, utterly and completely. The story itself should become his entire preoccupation. Because if that story is good enough, count on it, it surely will find a home somewhere.
That incredibly prolific fictioneer John D. MacDonald once summed up the matter, in a letter to Writer’s Digest in response to a man who declared that a book written for one publishing house often had small chance of acceptance elsewhere.
Wrote MacDonald: “I agree heartily. I would even say that a book written for one publishing house has little chance of acceptance at that publishing house. A book written for oneself—to meet one’s own standards, to gratify and satisfy and entertain the toughest one-man audience a writer can ever have—such a book has a good chance of acceptance anywhere.”
So, what about material?—That’s where we started, remember?
MacDonald’s statement still applies. You judge by personal standard.
And, personal is the key word. You can’t use someone else’s yardstick. You have to shape your own, out of an intimate amalgam both of fiction principles and of market patterns.
Preparing to write a story
Preparation boils down to two issues:
a. Getting ideas.
b. Finding facts to back them up.
What is an idea?
An idea is something that excites a writer.
Will the same idea excite two writers?
Not necessarily.
Then why is it important that the writer have an idea?
Because only insofar as he experiences excitement—a sense of mounting, goal-oriented inner tension—will the writer be able to muster the enthusiasm and energy he needs to seek for meaningful relationships in his material.
Creativity, in turn, may be defined as multiple response to single stimulus.
Most of us, when we look at a doorknob, see a doorknob. It’s a one-to-one relationship: one doorknob, one response.
But some day you may fall prey to a sadistic old writing teacher who removes that self-same doorknob from the door and commands that you list ten ways to kill somebody with it.
Now, suddenly, the doorknob is no longer just a doorknob. You find yourself dealing with it in terms of qualities and context, as well as appearance and/or function.
Whereupon, the laws of association take over.
Thus, the doorknob’s shaft is similar to a dagger . . . the knob to a billy . . . the material to an electrical conductor.
What isn’t a doorknob, by way of contrast? Well, traditionally, it isn’t supposed to function as the trigger to a booby trap, or a clue to the existence of a secret room (“Look! If you just stick the shaft through that knothole—”), or a secret container for poison or dope.
How about contiguity . . . meaning next to, as one house is next door to another? Apply it to doorknobs, and soon you find yourself thinking about locks and windows, panels and pull-cords, handles and hinges.
Before you know it, ideas begin to flow: A doorknob is round, maybe. Metal, maybe. Or glass. Or porcelain. Or hexagonal. Or octagonal. Why would anyone want a square doorknob? Maybe the knob slips on the shaft, so someone can’t escape. Take the knobs from a door, and it gives you a tiny window into the room, through which a bullet or dart or rapier might pass . . . after which, the knob could be reinserted. How about radioactive material inside the knob? Or a poisoned-needle mechanism—snake or spider poison? You could run a piano-wire noose through the hole for the shaft. Maybe gimmick the latch—substitute a spring-lock for it and, at the same time, put the regular lock out of action, so that whoever’s in the room thinks the lock is locked and he’s safe, when really anyone outside can open the door without a key. How about wiring the knob for electricity? Or piping the shaft-hole for gas? “Glass” knob made of ice melts when the room heat is turned on. Diamond might be concealed in glass knob. Metal knob might be made of gold or platinum. What if knob were a symbol of something or other, and possessing it made its possessor a target? Or, turning knob trips hidden camera. Or load knob with germs. China knob turns out to be an insulator. Knob given to villain. Or unique knob used as clue to betray hiding place of right or wrong person. Knob filled with explosives. Shaft thrust into electric socket to stop some vital device by blowing fuse. Knob dusted with fluorescent powder to reveal who’s touched it . . .
The above, please note, tends to take the form of a wild, chaotic, and often barely coherent jumble. It’s random. It’s disorganized. It’s without any pre-established plan or pattern.
It is, in a phrase, a product of focused free association—that is, free association centered upon a particular subject and/or related group of subjects.
Such focused free association is what gives you ideas.
Your prime tools, in this associative process, are a scratch-pad, a pencil, and a willingness to set down a multitude of utterly and completely impossible notions, until you find one that rings an emotional bell somewhere deep inside you. For if anything is certain in this world, it’s that only out of a host of bad ideas will emerge the occasional good one. Censor your thinking, attempt in advance to limit yourself to a superior product, and you can count on it that you’ll end up sterile, or paralyzed, or both, creatively speaking.
Whenever you need an idea, then, make a list.—Not just lists of story situations, either. Whether you’re looking for an incident, or a setting, or a character, or a bit of characterizing business, or a title—make a list! Even if you feel you’ve already worked out a proper angle, jot down half-a-dozen more, just for kicks.
And when the list is done—what then?
You put it aside; then come back later. Main strength and awkwardness mean little, in this phase of a writer’s work. You have to sneak up on ideas. To that end, you must learn to change your point of view . . . your approach . . . your routine . . . even yourself
The stimuli of daily living help to accomplish such change. Suddenly, out of nowhere, as you stand shaving in the morning, the problem is solved. Or you fall asleep brooding over it at night . . . wake up next day with precisely the answer, the idea, that you need.
In fact, a scratch-pad and pencil beside your bed prove invaluable, upon occasion. You can even learn to write in the dark, with the pad balanced on your chest. Of course, the vibration will shake the bed just enough to awaken your wife or husband; but what does conjugal felicity matter, so long as your muse smiles sweetly?
The more boring types of idleness often help to provide the incubation time in which ideas take form. So, cultivate bars and park benches and night bus rides. Dull concerts or bad movies sometimes help. So do
especially dreary sermons. There can be virtue in a Mexican radio station that alternates between marimba music and Spanish newscasts—that is, if you don’t speak Spanish.
Time spent thus “loafing” is, at the right moment, the most productive occupation in which you can engage.
It should also be pointed out that, in considerable part, successful ideation lies in the area of serendipity—the art or knack of finding desirable things not sought.
This is to say, frequently the idea you uncover will at first glance show no perceptible relationship to the thing you think you’re seeking.
The trick is to take advantage of this faculty.
Thus, you may suddenly find yourself confronted by a remarkable character . . . then later realize that introduction of said character will bring your yarn to the precise climax you’ve been struggling to achieve, even though at the moment Character seemed only a distraction or an irritation.
In view of this, it’s to your advantage not to let your thinking become too set, too rigid, in the early stages of ideation. Feel free to switch and juggle and change and reverse and reshape the fragments on your list. Would the Comanche chief have more impact if he carried a parasol and wore a woman’s flowered hat—instant visual proof that he’s already raided and killed that day? Can you combine your beetle-like alien monsters and your human villainess by giving the woman multifaceted insectile eyes? Is there more interest in someone trying to steal a million dollars, or in his trying to return it? Search always for the unanticipated twist, the fresh approach!
Establishing a process of continuing elaboration may help too. Don’t just sit and stare at your scribbled notes. Type them up, throwing in any new thoughts that come to mind as you go along. Then, later, check through the typescript, penciling in changes and additional ideas and second guesses.
Is this the only way to develop ideas?
Of course not. To explain creativity as multiple response to single stimulus is really to define it as alertness—alertness to all that takes place around you; alertness to the full potentialities of whatever comes your way.
To that end, maybe your best procedure involves floor scrubbing, or long solitary walks, or drawn shades and bubble bath and Scarlatti on the record player. Perhaps you’ll discover special insight from a private version of Twenty Questions, or Ben Jonson’s Topics of Invention, or a file of blurbs or magazine story illustrations.
The important thing, always, is not to sit idly waiting for the feathers to grow. Don’t just hope for ideas. Hunt them down! Find a springboard! Develop a plan of action! Nothing is more subjective than an idea, and no canned approach ever can work quite as well for you as your own system—even if said system is merely a matter of grope, fumble, pace the floor, stare out the window, and snarl at your wife.
Where do you find facts to back up your ideas?
You engage in research.
Research comes in two sizes: too much and too little.
Unfortunately, a considerable number of would-be writers want to probe their psyches, not the encyclopedia. They assume that fiction is one field in which adherence to fact is unimportant, and so proceed to write with no regard whatever for reality.
To a degree, perhaps, they may be right. There have been successful western novelists who used such terms as “fen” and “gorse,” and mystery writers who obviously didn’t know the difference between a revolver and an automatic pistol.
On the other side of the fence, I still recall an adventure story of twenty years ago that was spoiled for me because the author had soldiers in the Seminole War playing stud poker—a game that didn’t come into vogue until some years later.
But if too little research can render a story ridiculous, too much can stop a career before it starts. Ask any writing coach about the talented men and women who’ve postponed authorship year after year, because they never could assemble quite all the information that they thought they needed.
The trick, then, is to achieve a balance. How do you go about it?
Primarily, you limit yourself.
That is, you acquire only the information you need, insofar as possible. You don’t pile up data just for data’s sake.—After all, is it really essential to your story that you detail the exchange rates on Turkish currency in Genoa in 1540?
Hang onto that general principle.
Working from it, we find two favored ways to approach any given job of research.
One is to search out the facts you need.
The other is to use such information as you already have in your possession.
Thus, readers of westerns like authentic color.
Some writers, following System 1, spend hours without end tracking down details about specific people and places and events.
Others, devotees of System 2, insert fragments from favored source books into a story like cloves in a ham.
Obviously, these two modes of attack aren’t separate and exclusive. System-1 men don’t work out everything afresh with each new title. And System-2 writers do, upon occasion, go hunting some special bit of background.
It can’t be gainsaid, however, that System 2 saves time, when quantity production is important. A single volume like Foster-Harris’ The Look of the Old West can take the place of a small library, in skilled hands.
But approach is a matter of personal choice. Beyond it, research breaks down into three categories:
(1) Library research.
(2) Interview research.
(3) Field research.
Now, what’s involved in each?
(1) You and printed matter.
Libraries are wonderful institutions. Especially if you learn to use them properly.
To that end, I strongly recommend that you at least scan a volume called The Modern Researcher, by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff. It will help you both to find the facts you need and to organize them once they’re found. In addition, you’ll learn a host of things you should know about weighing and evaluating information.
As a fictioneer, however, you have special problems. It’s these we’ll deal with here.
A warning comes first: Beware the beguilements of the bookshelves. They fascinate. Before you know it, you may find yourself plowing through the thousand-odd pages of The Trail Drivers of Texas, when a single photo of Doan’s Store would solve your problem.
What you need, most often, is atmospheric detail.
You find such in eyewitness accounts, on-the-spot reports of events, associated records, pictures, maps, instruction books, and the like. Though dull going sometimes, they reward you with specialized data you never could obtain from secondary sources or popularizers.
Where do you find this sort of information?
Here are five likely places to check:
(a) Newspapers.
How much did steak cost in New Orleans in 1920? Which Finnish names are common in Duluth? What are typical local issues about which characters might gossip in Elko, Nevada? When do lake freighters tie up for the winter at Buffalo? Does Baltimore have a city manager? What’s the leading women’s-wear store in Waycross, Georgia?
A few minutes with the right newspaper file can supply you with such information and, in the process, save you all sorts of letter-writing. As a bonus, you pick up the atmosphere and attitudes of the community, from news columns and ads alike.
(b) Magazines.
Here, the secret is to not limit yourself to generalized publications. While Time may give you succinct coverage of a news event, or Saturday Evening Post fill you in on a personality, the pictures in National Geographic or Holiday often provide more of the color you need.
Don’t forget trade and specialty journals, either. Hardware World gives you a cross section of current products and problems and procedures among its group of retailers. Boxoffice provides you with topics for a theater manager to discuss. Farm Journal shows rural life as it is today, instead of the way you remember it from boyhood. Grit and Steel introduces you to the world of game birds and
cockfighting.
(c) Government documents.
Since bureaucracy seems determined to have its way with all of us, try to benefit from the resulting flood of printed matter. Its range is incredible: child-care guides, navigational instructions, information on the operation of all sorts of small businesses . . . even an excellent criminal-investigation handbook.
Much of this material will already be in your local library. The librarian can tell you where and how to get items not on file.
(d) “How-to” books.
Do you need a character who can lay bricks or bind books or give a facial? Don’t worry; somebody’s written a book about it, with the kind of detailed instructions that add an air of realism to your story.
(e) Ephemera.
Good libraries have files that include all sorts of brochures, leaflets, clippings, pamphlets, and assorted miscellany, from book catalogues to travel folders. There may even be collections of maps or photos or telephone books or pioneer manuscripts.
At this point, another question usually arises: How much of a personal library should you acquire?
There’s no sensible answer to this, really. Some items you’ll need and should have, simply because you use them often and they’re not easily available elsewhere.
On the other hand, it’s easy to go overboard. In my own case, things have reached that unhappy state in which I have only to come in the front door with yet another volume, and my wife cries, “But we’ve got a book!” in an appropriately anguished voice. The fact that you do a story with a Sumatran locale doesn’t necessarily warrant acquisition of half-a-dozen tomes on the East Indies. Odds are that they’ll gather dust on the shelves for twenty years before you need them again—and by then they’ll be hopelessly outdated.
Besides, space soon becomes a problem. Every big fact job I’ve ever done has brought with it fat folders of printed matter, on subjects ranging from manure-spreader operation to mental health to oil-field pumping equipment. When the file overflows, there’s no choice but to dump some out, or buy a bigger house.
Techniques of the Selling Writer Page 29
