Techniques of the Selling Writer (19 page)

How do you go about that?

You start with one simple statement: A story is the record of how somebody deals with
danger.

Isn’t that definition?

Of course. But it’s more rule-of-thumb and statement of what happens than it is an
all-inclusive formulation. I’ll admit in advance that it won’t satisfy every critic,
every reader.

It applies more often than not, though, on a practical level. And it’s flexible. Once
you get hold of how to use it, you’ll find you can adapt it to almost any taste, or
type of story.

Even more important, it’s the best possible place to start if you want to learn. . . .

Why your reader reads

Your reader reads fiction because it creates a pleasurable state of tension in him,
line by line and page by page.

But don’t analysts say that the thing that makes a story good is structure?

They’re only half right. For as the late Raymond Chandler once observed, “The ideal
mystery [is] one you would read if the end was missing.”

Why would anyone read such a mystery?

Because it holds your attention as it unfolds. The climax is important, true; but
not to the exclusion of that which goes before. Though the over-all pattern of a story
may be ever so sound, the reader won’t ever know it if he tosses the book or magazine
aside in the middle of first page or first chapter.

This is the reason why a writer’s approach to his story must be double-barreled. His
reader must be captured and held by what’s offered him
at this moment:
not the whole; not the ultimate pattern, but the present experience. Immediate and
continuing involvement is what counts. Reader attention must be seized
right now.

What seizes attention?

Tension. All attention is based on it.

Tension, to reiterate a few points made in
Chapter 3
, is a physiological phenomenon:
“tension
. . . Act of stretching, or tensing; state or degree of being strained to stiffness.
Hence:
a
Mental strain; intensity of striving.
b
Nervous anxiety, with attendant muscular tenseness.” (
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
, Fifth Edition.)

When your muscles contract, you have tension.

Some tension is voluntary. More is involuntary.

The thing that creates involuntary tension, most often, is fear.

That is, you experience an unpleasant emotional reaction at the prospect that something
will or won’t happen: Your wife will say unkind things if you lose your job. Your
friends will laugh at you if you freeze up in the middle of your high-school speech.
You’ll feel intensely alone and unhappy if your mother dies. Objectively, the issue
may be ever so slight. No mad murderer threatening you with an ax is needed. It’s
your feeling
alone that counts. For when you feel fear, it makes your muscles tighten up, and
plunges you into a state of tension, mild or extreme or in between.

What creates fear?

Danger.

What is danger?

Change. When any given situation is altered, the result is a different situation.
This new state of affairs may demand adjustment on your part. Such adjustment may
be beyond your capacity, and thus may endanger your survival or happiness. Anything
endangering survival or happiness creates fear.

Two factors are involved in this process:

Perception
means merely that you must be aware a change is taking place.

Experience
warns you that this particular change may expose you to injury, loss, pain, or other
evil.

Must both exist, in order for you to experience fear and its concomitant, tension?

Yes. It’s like the stories the newspapers carry every once in
a while about a child caught blithely playing with a cobra, or the like. The child
perceives
the snake, but he lacks the
experience
to know that it is dangerous. Hence, the child feels no fear, no tension.

Or,
experience
tells you that guns are dangerous. But if you don’t
perceive
that one is pointed at your head, your degree of tension remains unaltered.

But suppose both perception and experience exist?

Consider a party. You’re introduced to several new people.

This is change. New elements have been brought into your sphere of awareness. But
if the situation doesn’t go any further, your tension increase will be relatively
limited.

Suppose, however, that one of the strangers is a tall, dark, handsome man.

Now, enter experience: Your wife is a woman particularly susceptible to such men.

At once, your tension level rises. For whether you acknowledge it or not, fear has
entered your life. Specifically, you’re afraid that she’ll involve herself in an affair
with this particular man.

Or again: One of the strangers is a man you intensely desire to impress, in order
to win a much-needed promotion. Result: a marked rise in your inner tension. It’s
based on your fear that somehow you’ll fail to create as favorable an image as you
wish to.

Or again: One of the girls makes a flip, somewhat slighting remark about your taste
in ties. Embarrassment—fear that your taste is indeed inadequate—sends tension soaring
in you, out of all proportion to the motivation you’ve received.

How does all this apply to story?

“We go to the theatre to worry,” remarks the late Kenneth Macgowan in his
A Primer of Playwriting
. “Whether we see a tragedy, a serious drama, or a comedy, we enjoy it fully only
if we are made to worry about the outcome of individual scenes and of the play as
a whole.”

That’s why a story must deal with danger. No danger, no worry.

Why should we want to worry?

Because tension is vital to the survival of any species. It represents
awareness, alertness, preparedness for action. It’s readiness for fight or flight;
the automatic reaction of each and every organism in the face of peril. Prod a tiger;
he attacks. Prod a rabbit; he runs. Both leap from springboards of instinctive tension.

Take away that ability to react to threat with tension, and a hostile world overwhelms
the victim.

Because tension has this survival value, mankind as a species has learned to enjoy
it, in controlled amounts. So, to varying degrees, and in accordance with our individual
tastes and metabolisms, we involve ourselves in situations which create tension in
us. We play handball. We hunt big game. We get in fights. We seduce our neighbors’
wives.

And, we read. Especially fiction.

Why fiction?

Experienced directly, tension-inducing situations can prove dangerous.
Physically
dangerous . . . dangerous on the level of reality. A handball game may rupture an
aging heart. The hunted animal may turn hunter. A killing blow may end the fight.
The neighbor may resort to firearms or a messy lawsuit.

So?

So, for most of us, tension achieved secondhand proves less hazardous and therefore
more satisfactory than actual experience. That’s why we go to football games and prize
fights . . . listen by radio to astronauts’ reports . . . gossip and follow disasters
on TV newscasts and peruse the true-crime magazines and the confessions. We’re ever
avid in our search for other people’s troubles. Sharing their peril gives us a kick.

Fiction, in turn, creates an especially vivid vicarious tension for us. It brings
a character face to face with danger, so that he feels, or should feel, fear.

And then?

Fear is contagious. When you live through a properly written story with a character,
his experiences and tensions become yours.

Your job as a writer is to control and manipulate this tension. To that end, and using
your central character as a vehicle, you create it, intensify it, focus it needle-sharp,
and then release it.

Through the character, your reader empathizes matching emotions, matching tensions.

A plot is merely your plan of action for thus manipulating tension. And the simplest
formula is still that set down by old H. Bedford-Jones, king of the pulps, more than
thirty years ago: “Get your hero in danger—and keep him in danger!”

In essence, the habitual reader is a tension addict. Tension is what he hopes to buy
when he tosses down his quarter or half-dollar at the corner newsstand.

This is the reason that he spends his time and money on your story. This is why he
reads.

The source of story satisfaction

What, specifically, is the source of story satisfaction?

A most intriguing question—even though you have to approach it just a bit obliquely
in order to get a properly comprehensive answer.

Let’s go:

A story is the record of how somebody deals with danger.

But in a story, danger isn’t just danger in the abstract. It’s a definite and immediate
menace to a particular person.

Specifically, it’s a threat to your focal character.

It’s this fact which gives your story its form.

Exhibit A: Your focal character, blithely going about his business.

Enter danger.

Reacting, your focal character fights this peril until, eventually, he wins or loses.

The duration of the danger defines the limits of your story. Roughly speaking, we
can say that the story begins when the situation plunges Character into jeopardy.
It ends when he emerges from the shadow of said hazard.

Plot-wise, the
beginning
of your story
creates
tension.

The
middle
builds up and
intensifies
it.

The
end
, in turn, breaks down into two segments:
climax
, and
resolution.

In
climax
, the tension you’ve created is
focused sharply
.

And, finally,
resolution
sees the tension
released
, in character and in reader.

Which brings us back to our original question: What, specifically, is the source of
story satisfaction?

Answer:
Release
of tension.

All through the beginning and middle and climax of your story, the excitement of danger
keeps your reader tense and eager, line by line and page by page.

But excitement doesn’t constitute satisfaction. Maintain tension too long, or carry
it too far, and it becomes as unpleasant as extended tickling. You begin to ache for
it to end. You want to let go, give up . . . relax and rest awhile.

To trigger such release is the whole and total function of your story’s resolution.
It
pays off
your reader . . . rewards him with a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment for the
strain of undergoing tension.

In other words,
the way your story turns out
is your reader’s key source of satisfaction. A story is a fight. Danger is the focal
character’s opponent. So, Friend Reader wants to know what happens to your imperiled
hero . . . who wins the battle, and how. Leave him hanging in suspense about it, and
you throw him into the state of frustration of an avid ball fan dragged bodily from
the park in the ninth inning, with the score tied, the bases loaded, and the world
series hanging in the balance.

If the end of a story is “right,” your reader’s tension is released. He sinks back
satisfied, relaxed, fulfilled.

If it isn’t, he’s left raw-nerved and jittery; on edge. At best, he feels let down
and disappointed.

To make a story end “right,” ask yourself one simple question: How does your hero
defeat his danger?

The answer is always the same:
He demonstrates that he deserves to win.

So much for the broad outlines. Now, let’s look at the factors involved in a bit more
detail.

Release of tension, it was noted above, is what gives your reader satisfaction.

So, what releases tension?

Fear creates tension. Dissipation of fear releases it. If you’re afraid the boss plans
to fire you, a raise or a promotion may improve
your outlook. If you’re dubious about your chances with a girl and she smiles at the
right moment, that smile may change your mind. If the issue is ulcers, a few X rays
might calm your nerves.

Do all dissipations of fear give the same degree of release; the same satisfaction?

No. Fear is a complex thing, and a matter of degree. You never can eliminate it completely.
The promotion may create doubts in you as to your adequacy to the new job. The girl’s
encouragement may make you wonder, later, whether she encourages others also. The
X rays can set you searching for another ailment to account for the pains you feel.

It’s the same in story. Not all dissipations of fear give your reader the thing he
seeks.

What does he seek?

He seeks security.

What constitutes security?

Safety. Freedom from danger or fear of danger.