Techniques of the Selling Writer (48 page)

Writing is a lonely business.

In consequence, there’s always a temptation to discuss your latest story with your
friends.

Don’t.

Why not?

For two reasons:

To begin with, talking about a story—telling it, in effect—amounts to working through
it for the first time.

Result: Your emotional need to write it is reduced. You’re put in the position of
the man who strives, in reminiscence, to recapture the thrill of a first kiss. No
matter how hard you try, the sparkle’s gone.

Secondly, you can’t help but be affected by your listener’s reaction. His slightest
frown or misinterpretation may cast a pall
over the whole idea, to the point where it becomes almost impossible to write.

Double that in spades if the “listener” is an editor to whom you’ve sent an outline
or synopsis.

You’re better off to write, not talk.

Writing isn’t a logical process, thank heavens.

And consistency is the hobgoblin of petty minds.

Therefore, don’t let what “ought” to be constrict you. Impulse may prove a better
guide.

This is especially true when you’re in trouble with a story and production breaks
down.

At such moments, if something about your opus doesn’t “feel” right—ditch the something!

Similarly, if it
does
, don’t hesitate to drive ahead, regardless of any apparent violation of the rules.

Why?

Because myopia can ever so easily blind a writer. Wrapped in his task, he loses all
perspective.

Feeling operates on a different level. It sorts out the variables . . . rejects the
false . . . catches glimpses of the larger pattern. While it can be wrong, its verdict
rates strong consideration.

To free associate, you merely spill out words on paper: any words at all, without
regard to point or purpose.

Such a process cuts you loose from critical judgment. Creative impulse takes command.
Disinhibition helps restore your sense of balance.

Soon, fragments—ideas, words, phrases, sentences—begin to strike your fancy. Your
stricken ego revives.

So, try free association when you’re stuck: one hour per day for a week; no other
writing permitted.

By the eighth day, you’ll be back to production of story copy.

Certain things you know: things like the relation of motivation to reaction . . .
the pattern to which you build a scene . . .
story structure . . . character dynamics . . . a host of techniques and devices.

These things aren’t original with you. Generations of other writers worked them out
before you.

That means you can depend on them . . . write to them by the numbers, if need be,
secure in the knowledge that they’ll help pull you out of your production breakdown.

Thus, if you write down a motivating stimulus, however crudely, you know that your
next step is to find the proper character reaction.

A scene, in turn, starts with a character’s selection of and decision to attempt to
reach a given goal. Conflict develops from this effort, and finally builds to a disaster.

A story comes into being when desire collides with danger. Its climax centers on how
your focal character behaves when faced with a choice between principle and self-interest.

With the road so clearly marked, how can you go astray?

In the scene ahead, Hero needs an unobvious way to disable Villain’s car. How should
he go about it?

That’s something you haven’t yet worked out. So you sit staring at your typewriter,
frustrated and unhappy because the yarn’s bogged down.

What you
should
do is go in search of facts. Dig up a mechanic. Ask him how
he’d
cripple a ’62 Ford, in a matching situation.

Too often, too many of us boggle at research. We try to “think through” something
that really calls for information.

Then, we excuse it with talk of “writer’s block.”

I’ve mentioned boredom before, and the way it can bring you to a grinding halt when
you have to do one thing despite your yearning to do another.

Closely linked to this pattern is the fact that, in writing, your interests often
change as you go along.

Next step: You grow sick unto death of the story you’re on,
especially if it’s a long one. In consequence, your writing slows down.

Yes, there’s a remedy. It’s this:

One reason you grow tired of your story is because fresh new ideas keep pressing in.
Yet you feel you must reject them.

Well, don’t.

Accept them instead. Devise ways to incorporate them into your present copy.

Thus, maybe you find yourself intrigued by a slangy, loudmouthed, belligerent old
woman, real or imagined.

All right. Find a place for her. Substitute her for some drab, dowdy female already
in the cast.

Are you suddenly fascinated by the lore of diamonds? Then let a character be captivated
too. His preoccupation with precious stones can serve as a tag and thus add extra
interest.

The same principle holds for any other topic, from sports-car racing to ancient armor.
Use it skillfully, and you’ll find it a first-class weapon against boredom.

“If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway,” suggests mystery writer William
Campbell Gault. “You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the
fourth page you
will
have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.”

It’s good advice. Such is the power of inertia in us that we hesitate to plunge into
work. Like timid swimmers, we stand shivering beside the pool, urging ourselves to
dive yet dreading the water’s chill.

The remedy is the same both for swimmer and for writer: a quick-drawn breath, a shudder,
and a leap.

Besides, once the initial shock wears off, you may find the water is warmer than you
think!

My friend Clifton Adams is a top western writer. To what does he attribute his success?

He answers: “Writing’s the only way I know to make a living. I didn’t have any choice
but to go on.”

Actually, of course, Clif understates his case. You can always quit. But in some people
determination, dedication, commitment—staying with the cattle, in the old range phrase—are
character traits too deeply ingrained to be brushed aside easily.

These are traits every writer needs. When you bog down, your best response may be
simply to persevere.

To that end, force yourself to write, however badly. Work awhile; then take a walk
around the block, have a cup of coffee, and come back and work some more.

When the dam finally breaks, you’ll discover an interesting fact: The copy you wrote
in agony isn’t one tenth as awkward as you thought it was.

The reason?

Talent is something that you’re born with. It doesn’t evaporate or drain away.

Skill is an element you build, out of work and study and experience. It can’t vanish
in a puff of smoke.

That’s why it pays you to stay with the cattle.

Years ago I shared an office with another writer.

One day, something went wrong for him. Though more successful than most free-lances,
he decided that his copy just wasn’t good enough.

From there on, he worked through story after story up to the final scene.

Then, despair would overwhelm him. Refusing to believe his work was anything but drivel,
he tore up sometimes-brilliant yarns . . . pieces that would certainly have sold if
he’d ever given them a chance.

Completion of any story, however bad, is in its way implicit proof that you’re better
than most people who talk of writing. Not to finish, on the other hand, conditions
you to failure in advance.

Howard Browne summed up the issue for me in a letter he wrote when I was in a blue
funk of my own: “You go ahead and do me a story the way I’m telling you. Finish it—
BUT DON’T READ IT WHILE YOU’RE WRITING IT AND DON’T READ IT BEFORE YOU SEND
IT TO ME
. I’ll read the thing and if it’s no good I’ll reject it. But it’s not your job to
reject anything; who do you think you are—an editor?”

You know more than you think you do, on an unconscious level.

So, when you stall, more often than not it means that something about the story itself
is wrong.

Somehow, you sense this fact, even though you can’t nail down the trouble on a conscious
basis.

At such a time, it helps to have a private checklist . . . a compendium of your own
literary weaknesses.

Why?

Because we all tend to repeat our errors.

Thus, quite frequently, you may let your heroes grow passive, or fail to motivate
key actions, or allow a goal to remain abstract.

Each time you spot such a weakness in one of your stories, note it on a file card,
one card per weakness.

Soon, you’ll have a packet of such.

That packet can be your most helpful aid in spotting errors. When a story bogs down,
turn to it.

More often than not, what really bothers you in your current work will stand revealed.

Too much time in his workroom can develop tunnel vision in a writer.

When that happens, words come harder.

What should you do about it?

One answer is to take a break. Abandon work for a day or two or three. Get out among
people. Have fun. Go on a trip. Do some of the things you’ve planned and postponed
too long.

The virtue of this treatment lies in the fact that it changes your perspective. Under
reality’s impact, you become to a degree a different person.

Whereupon, when you go back to work, your problems may not loom so large.

When a man’s in trouble, he tends to clutch at straws, or even bottles.

In fact,
especially
bottles.

Why?

Because alcohol lowers inhibition. You forget self-doubt in a haze of bourbon fumes.

Catch is, alcohol also establishes a conditioning. Before you know it, you discover
that you can’t work
without
a drink. Or two. Or three. Or four.

Soon you may find yourself in the situation of a friend of mine. Each day when he
sat down to write, he set a fifth of whisky beside the typewriter.

Finally he reached a point where story and fifth ran out together. One fifth: one
story.

A night came when the story took two fifths instead of one. His wife found him dead
in his workroom in the morning.

Moral: Drink socially if you want to. But don’t drink while you work.

There are other crutches besides alcohol, from marijuana to LSD. All operate on the
same principle, and each offers a throughway to disaster.

The smart writer sweats out his private hell without them.

So now the fiction factory is in operation.

But here, another question rises: How do you sell the finished product?

That’s a subject dear to every writer’s heart. For a succinct guide, turn to the next
chapter.

CHAPTER 9

Selling Your Stories

This is going to be the shortest chapter on record.

To sell stories, do three things:

And that’s all there is to it.

What about agents?

An agent is a business manager for writers.

If you have a business to manage—one that makes a solid, consistent profit—an agent
can be invaluable to you. If you haven’t, why should he waste his time?