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

I rarely envisioned more than one way to write a sentence, or construct a scene, or fabricate a plot. Now, considerably more aware of my options, I need the time to select among them.

And yet the latest Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery, The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza, took a mere month to spring from my typewriter, much to my own surprise. And its admittedly biased author thinks it's the best of the series.

Go figure.

There are, it has been said, two kinds of people in the world?those who divide people into two categories and those who don't. Ahem. There are, I have come to believe, two kinds of writers in the world, fast writers and slow writers, and transmutation of metals is a cinch compared to turning either into the other.

Still, we often make the attempt. If we hadn't been dissatisfied with ourselves to one degree or another we very likely would not have become writers in the first place, so is it surprising that we're often dissatisfied with the kind of writer we seem to be?

Most commonly, a naturally slow and contemplative writer will try to soup up his engine out of a natural desire to get more accomplished, or to get the same amount accomplished but have the summer free, or whatever. Now and then, however, a fast writer decides to slow down.

Evan Hunter, a born speedwriter, is supposed to have made such a decision some years ago. He'd become acquainted with Stanley Ellin, whose work he understandably admired, learned that Ellin worked at a very slow and painstaking pace, and concluded that his own trouble lay in writing too fast. He resolved to change, and at their next meeting told Ellin with some jubilation, It's working! I'm down to eight pages a day! Ellin at that time thought eight pages was a healthy output for a week, so the idea of holding oneself down to that many pages a day didn't strike him as?yes, Arnold?

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Sir, is this all some elaborate build-up for the old to-thine-own-self-be-true number?

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You do provide one with the makings of a humility attack, Arnold. I suppose part of today's lesson is indeed the suggestion that you seek to be the sort of writer you truly are, which may not be that far from what Polonius was saying. But I have a few more specific thoughts as well.

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I was hoping you would, sir.

1. DON'T ASSUME TOO MUCH. Most professional writers tend to aim for a daily production quota, one or two or five or ten pages of copy a day. This quota system seems to be generally useful?I know I've always found it so?but I think it's a mistake to assume that a particular magic number will remain a constant through all the books or stories one writes or through all one's states of mind.

In long-distance running, one is advised to pace onself at the edge of one's breathing?i.e., run so that running faster would leave one short of breath. I think a writer can find his maximum safe speed in much the same fashion.

2. QUIT WHEN YOU GET TIRED. The work I do after a certain point is work that might better be left undone. When I'm tired, I'm just not at my best; if I continue to stay at the typewriter I'm either wasting my time or doing something distinctly counter-productive. Again, avoid assuming you're tired because you're always tired after X number of pages. Instead, concentrate on developing an awareness of how you actually feel.

3. AVOID CHEMICAL ASSISTANCE. There are cunning little pills available which banish fatigue, stimulate the central nervous system, and seem to sharpen creativity while extending performance. Sooner or later these magic pills rot your kidneys, calcify your liver, leach the calcium out of your bones and teeth, and lead in the fullness of time to dependency, madness, degeneration of the nervous system, and death.

There are writers who take them anyway, at their peril. I did so, at one point, and I do not do so any longer. I found that the psychic damage alone was too high a price to pay for whatever service the drugs seemed to provide.

The story is told of the college student who took a hit of speed and proceeded to write the most brilliant exam paper in the history of the department. Unfortunately, he wrote it all on one line.

Yes, Arnold?

You wouldn't happen to remember where he bought the stuff, would you, sir?

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Speed kills, Arnold.

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Oh, I know that, sir. But couldn't I take it until I need glasses? Just a joke, sir. Just my little joke.

CHAPTER 19

Washing Garbage

THERE ARE writers who enjoy rewriting. At least they say they do, and a feigned passion for revision would seem as unlikely as a pretended carnal enthusiasm for chickens, so I'm perfectly willing to believe them. These people say things like, My books aren't written; they're rewritten. Or, Once I get a first draft hammered out, then the real fun begins?the second draft. Then comes the third draft, and the fourth draft, and finally the joys of the final polish. Of course sometimes it's not really final because I just can't resist running the manuscript through the typewriter again.

Well, de gustibus non disputandum est, as the old lady said when she kissed the cow. For my part, I can't imagine too many things more resistible than running a manuscript through a typewriter for the fifth or sixth time. I'd sooner run a camel through