Manual For Fiction Writers, Block, Lawrence [best books to read for beginners txt] 📗

Ultimately, you may reach the point where you see rejection not as a negation of your worth as a writer, not even as condemnation of a particular story, but as what it is?an inescapable part of the process which ultimately results in acceptance. Don't be too upset, though, if it takes time before you acquire this philosophical detachment in full measure. Until then, just sum up the editor's ancestry and personal habits in a few terse sentences?and get your manuscript back in the mail.

CHAPTER 10

Bic, Scripto, Parker and Cross

SO YOU'RE a writer, they say, time and time again. That must be very interesting.

Must it? My work, such as it is, consists of sitting alone at a typewriter and tapping fitfully at its keys. It has occurred to me that the only distinction between what I do and what a stenographer does lies in my having to invent what I type.

If I say as much, it's generally assumed that I'm joshing, whereupon my questioner will very likely chuckle. Should another question seem called for, he'll ask where I get my ideas, or if I've had anything published.

Or he may ask what name I write under.

I've written under any number of things in my life. Low ceilings. Hanging plants. Threats of exposure. Duress. I have also written under a whole host of aliases at one time or another. In recent years, however, I have written solely under my own name, but if I say as much to my interlocutor I'm going to put him off-stride; he'll feel he's committed a faux pas, having assumed I use a pen name since he's so clearly unfamiliar with my own. And I'll only make things worse by obligingly trotting out some pen name I used in the past, for it surely will be equally unfamiliar to him.

Norman Mailer, I'll say. Or Erica Jong. Or both of them, if the mood strikes me. It may be my doing that any number of people are walking around today, secure in the knowledge that Norman Mailer is a pen name of Erica Jong's, and for all I know they may be right. Did you ever see those two at the same time?

But let's shift gears before all of this cuteness gets irretrievably out of control. Pen names, to judge from my mail, are a subject of at least passing concern to many of my readers. I had a letter just the other day from a woman intent upon keeping her true identity a secret not only from her readers but from her prospective publisher as well, and wanting to know how she could do all this without getting into a tangle with the tax authorities. I assume she has her reasons.

But just what are the reasons for writing under a name other than one's own? Surely the ego gratification of seeing one's name in print is a powerful motivator for most of us. Why should we pass up that satisfaction for the dubious pleasure of seeing our words attributed to Helena Troy or Justin Thyme or some other appropriately altered ego?

At the present time, I'm a fairly strong believer in writing under one's own name. It has taken me over twenty years and the occasional use of at least that many pseudonyms to arrive at that conclusion. Before I explain my position, perhaps we can examine some of the reasons why a pen name can be useful.

1. THE AUTHOR'S OWN NAME IS UNSUITABLE. A writer's name can be a liability for any of several reasons. It may be too similar to that of an established writer. Journalist Tom Wolfe is evidently willing to chance confusion with the late novelist Thomas Wolfe, and there are several John Gardners and Charles Williamses who write for a living, but why tempt fate?

A pen name may be indicated if one's own name is unpronounceable or somehow ridiculous. Remember, though, that nomenclatural absurdity is largely subjective; consider the pop singer who rose to fame after changing his own inoffensive name to Engelbert Humperdinck.

Sometimes a lackluster name clamors to be changed. Martin Smith published several mysteries under his own name, and while the books were excellent nobody could remember who he was. (The situation was compounded by the fact that his friends all call him Bill.) In the course of time, Smith's agent dubbed him Martin Cruz Smith, interposing the author's mother's maiden name, and his first book under that name, Nightwing, soared on to bestsellerdom. Perhaps it would have done so regardless, but the added Cruz certainly didn't hurt.

2. THE AUTHOR HAS A SPECIFIC REASON TO AVOID RECOGNITION. I know at least one writer who uses a pen name solely to shield his identity from his ex-wife. If she knew he was publishing novels, she'd almost certainly petition for an increase in alimony, and she'd very likely get it. By using a pen name, this author gets to keep his literary earnings.

Of course he still pays taxes on them, and lists them on his tax return. To do otherwise would be to risk a jail term for tax evasion.

3. THE AUTHOR IS WRITING DIFFERENT TYPES OF BOOKS. This is a standard argument for employing a pen name. Suppose you're writing juveniles for one publisher, shoot-'em-up thrillers for another. Won't your readers be upset to learn that the same person's writing gory stuff on one typewriter and sweet verses about