Techniques of the Selling Writer (27 page)

In fact, whenever a given yarn bogs down, it might be worth your while to ask yourself
three questions:

It
does
have a goal, doesn’t it?

In what respect might this situation be different? Could day be night? Could apartment
be office? Could Character A be present or absent? Could the money be found instead
of lost?

Will it please him? Upset him? Force him to change his plans or attitudes?

Remember: The difference between the end of your story and its beginning lies in the
fact that reader and hero have gained information in the course of events recounted.

Information is the fruit of change.

So, incorporate appropriate change into every unit.

You the writer need some sort of yardstick to help you decide what to put into your
story and what to leave out.

Where middle is concerned, this yardstick is the story question
. . . the issue, whether desire will defeat danger: Will your focal character attain
his goal, or won’t he?

Back to Aristotle: “. . . a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible difference
is not an organic part of the whole.”

Anything that helps or hinders your focal character’s efforts should go into your
story. Anything that doesn’t, shouldn’t.

That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? So where do the problems arise?

They grow out of the fact that, in order to achieve his story goal, your character
must first attain a whole series of scene goals.

Thus, Montmorency’s objective in your story may be to win election as state senator.
But to do this he must, en route, gain support of key people in precinct, county,
and state organizations . . . raise campaign funds . . . overcome his wife’s fears
and the antagonism of his employer . . . defeat a host of other would-be candidates
for the office, at all levels.

Short of a novel, you obviously can’t cover all this ground. But you
will
develop certain selected bits—the ones which you consider most important—as scenes.

Now the situation set forth in each scene must be sufficiently different from the
rest that your reader’s interest is held firm. To go over and over the same ground
isn’t unity; it’s disaster.

Precisely at this point, trouble gallops across the horizon. For as you lay out individual
scenes, repeatedly you’ll find yourself tempted to write in characters and locales
and actions that pop out of nowhere to intrigue you. Like, here’s this gorgeous gal—or
this glamorous ski resort—or this wild wisecrack—or this wonderful ironic thing where
the honeymooners’ plane crashes right there on the runway—

The only difficulty is, these items have little or no bearing on your focal character’s
goal and efforts, and the story question.

When that’s the case—leave it out! No matter how superficially appealing an incident
may be, forget it unless it ties tight to the story question. Or, if it’s so overwhelming
that you can’t leave it alone—then pace the floor till you find a way to forge some
sort of bond between it and the crucial issues.

As a corollary to the above, certain scenes
must
be included, even though you have no yen to write them. Again, it’s because
they have a vital bearing on the story question. If your hero’s whole future depends
upon his freeing himself from a given girl, and then you play the bit offstage, covering
with his casual remark that he “got rid of her, all right,” your reader’s thwarted
anticipations very well may flame into open anger.

So there’s the heart of this particular
do:
Include whatever influences the outcome of the story question. Leave out those things
that don’t.

Not to do so will destroy the unity of your story.

In practical terms, “build to a climax” means “increase pressure on your focal character.”

Which is to say, “increase tension and excitement for your reader.”

To that end, see to it that the changes you introduce constitute complications.

What is a complication?

A complication is a new development that makes your focal character’s situation worse.

What makes your character’s situation worse?

Anything that endangers his chances of attaining his story goal.

The way this works out, ordinarily, is that your focal character picks an immediate
goal which, he believes, will move him a step closer to his story goal. Then, he takes
action to attain that immediate goal.

These efforts bring him up against opposition. Conflict follows, complete with assorted
strainings and strivings and maneuverings.

Finally, the fight comes to a climax. And then—

Disaster.

What I’m describing is, obviously, a scene.

It’s also a complication.

Why?

Because your focal character hasn’t just failed to win. Rather, his efforts have thrown
him farther than ever behind the eight-ball. The new external development we label
as disaster pulls the rug out from under him totally. In effect, he now must adjust
to a whole new situation . . . one worse than the one he confronted at the scene’s
beginning.

Thus, determined to keep mysterious prowlers away from his home, your hero supplements
the six-foot chain-link fence with a particularly savage dog.

This upsets his wife. Her idea is to move.

While they’re still arguing the point, there’s an animal scream of anguish outside.
Hero rushes into the yard.

There’s the dog—chopped in half with a machete.

Note how this affects your hero’s situation. Before, he stood infuriated and adamant.
Now, he sees living—pardon me, dead—proof that neither fence nor dog can protect him
and his family from their hidden foe.

Further, said foe assumes new dimensions of the hideous. If this menace can somehow
get inside the fence and kill a dog and then vanish—well, how can anyone be safe,
and how far may foe go?

Or, here’s a girl eager to impress—and thus arouse personal interest on the part of—her
handsome junior-executive boss. To this end, she demonstrates super-efficiency and
gives all sorts of little extra services.

Whereupon, fat old senior-executive lecher orders her transferred to
his
office—and she knows that if she refuses to accept the assignment, she’ll have to
leave the company and so lose all contact with her chosen guy.

Or, widowed mother tries to tie teen-age son to her with the traditional silver cord
. . . talks him out of taking a job in another town because, she claims, she so desperately
needs the financial help that comes of his living at home.

At which point, he signs to go to Saudi Arabia with an oil company, so that he can
provide her with more cash.

Do you see how this system works? All you have to do is string together a series of
such episodes,
each ending with your focal character in hotter water than before
. Result: a continuing rise in tension, until eventually you reach the climactic peak
you seek.

Herewith, a few useful tools to help you in your efforts thus to create complications,
intensify tension, and build to a climax:

A character in a scene is a character in conflict, and conflict breeds tension.

A boy waits for a girl. She doesn’t show up. Finally, phoning, he learns that she
thought he was going to drop by her home to get her. Though disgruntled, he drives
on over for her, and they start on their date nearly two hours late.

A detective seeks to locate a missing witness. The man has moved. After considerable
legwork, the detective at last finds him.

Fishing, a fat, middle-aged farm wife snags her hook . . . falls in the creek as she
attempts to free it. By the time she gets herself and her tackle ashore, she’s in
somewhat less than a gay mood. It takes her the better part of an hour to dry her
clothes and drop her baited hook back in the water.

Now such incidents are common and useful in fiction. But don’t call them complications.

Why not?

Because they merely delay the action. They don’t make the character’s situation worse.
Consequently, they don’t increase your reader’s tension.

A rule-of-thumb of complication might very well be, “Out of the frying pan, into the
fire.”

In other words, if your character doesn’t get burned, you don’t have a complication.

Can such bits be developed into complications?

Of course. If Boy, waiting for Girl, were picked up as a robbery suspect, or fell
in with a gold-digging floozy, or lost a chance for a promotion because he and Girl
didn’t make it to the boss’s party, the situation would be dynamic instead of static.

That is, the delay would have plunged him into trouble . . . created new problems
for him to cope with . . . shaped and influenced his future.

And that’s complication.

Same way if a dangerous criminal had been freed because the detective couldn’t find
the witness in time for the trial.

Result: The detective is placed on suspension. A complication.

Or suppose a gossipy neighbor had spread a rumor that the farm wife was having an
affair, because he glimpsed her naked on the creek bank while she was drying her clothes.
Isn’t her plight then made more difficult?

Which isn’t to say that delay,
as
delay, can’t be most useful. But delay in and of itself is a subordinate element,
not at all on a level with or fit to substitute for complication.

It’s hard to build tension if your reader is continually wondering why the central
character doesn’t ride out of the story to greener pastures. After all, how much sense
does it make for the marshal to stand and be shot at, or the heroine to accept her
jealous lover’s violence and abuse, or the teacher to go on teaching despite poor
pay, pupil disdain, and community ingratitude?

For this reason, you need to train yourself, at every juncture, to chant one ritualistic
question: “Why doesn’t he quit?”

No answer is acceptable that doesn’t offer a mighty solid reason for your guy’s continued
presence.

Reasons for a character’s not quitting fall into two categories: physical situation,
and emotional involvement. A high proportion of story people have both.

Physical situation may range from the financial (your hero will lose his shirt unless
he fights out the story issue) to the geographic (Joe’s got to come in out of the
desert and face the baddies who hold the spring or he’ll die of thirst).

Emotional involvement covers everything from a mother’s refusal to abandon her child
to a soldier’s stubborn pride in his dedication to duty.

How do you acquire such situations and involvements for your story?

You devise them.

Which is to say, you use the brains and imagination God gave you to think them up.

Put a high-school football team on the field against the Green Bay Packers, and it’s
no contest.

Same for a little old lady in a wheelchair, confronted with a two-hundred-pound homicidal
maniac.

Or a convent girl delivered into the hands of a professional pimp.

To build to a climax, you need well-matched opponents. Neither side should have such
markedly superior strength as to make the outcome a foregone conclusion.

This is
not
to say that you can’t do wonders with David and Goliath. When you’re tempted to try
it, however, remember one thing: David had a sling. That was his ace in the hole,
the derringer up his sleeve.

Assailed by overwhelming odds, your character, too, needs an equalizer—some trick,
some angle, some trait of character that gives him at least a remote fighting chance.

Maybe the high-school team has a science-fiction-type kid quarterback who can control
passes by mental radio. Maybe the little old lady is a retired psychology professor
who considers the maniac a challenge. Maybe the convent girl holds such sublime and
innocent faith in the goodness of all men that she shakes even the pimp.

And so it goes. Both forces in your story, hero and villain alike, must have the strength
or cleverness or perseverance or what have you that’s needed to make their struggle
a fight in fact as well as name. They must be foemen worthy of each other’s steel.

If I have $1.12 total in my pocket and a holdup man sticks a gun in my ribs, it won’t
be too surprising if I don’t put up a fight.

But will I surrender as easily if the sum is $9000 and it represents my aged parents’
life savings?

Or, if I’m messenger for a hoodlum and know he’ll fit me with a concrete overcoat
if I lose the money?