Techniques of the Selling Writer (43 page)

The stimuli of daily living help to accomplish such change. Suddenly, out of nowhere,
as you stand shaving in the morning, the problem is solved. Or you fall asleep brooding
over it at night . . . wake up next day with precisely the answer, the idea, that
you need.

In fact, a scratch-pad and pencil beside your bed prove invaluable, upon occasion.
You can even learn to write in the dark, with the pad balanced on your chest. Of course,
the vibration will shake the bed just enough to awaken your wife or husband; but what
does conjugal felicity matter, so long as your muse smiles sweetly?

The more boring types of idleness often help to provide the incubation time in which
ideas take form. So, cultivate bars and park benches and night bus rides. Dull concerts
or bad movies sometimes help. So do especially dreary sermons. There can be virtue
in a Mexican radio station that alternates between marimba music and Spanish newscasts—that
is, if you don’t speak Spanish.

Time spent thus “loafing” is, at the right moment, the most productive occupation
in which you can engage.

It should also be pointed out that, in considerable part, successful ideation lies
in the area of serendipity—the art or knack of finding desirable things not sought.

This is to say, frequently the idea you uncover will at first glance show no perceptible
relationship to the thing you think you’re seeking.

The trick is to take advantage of this faculty.

Thus, you may suddenly find yourself confronted by a remarkable character . . . then
later realize that introduction of said character will bring your yarn to the precise
climax you’ve been struggling to achieve, even though at the moment Character seemed
only a distraction or an irritation.

In view of this, it’s to your advantage not to let your thinking become too set, too
rigid, in the early stages of ideation. Feel free to switch and juggle and change
and reverse and reshape the fragments on your list. Would the Comanche chief have
more impact if he carried a parasol and wore a woman’s flowered hat—instant visual
proof that he’s already raided and killed that day? Can you combine your beetle-like
alien monsters and your human villainess by giving the woman multifaceted insectile
eyes? Is there more interest in someone trying to steal a million dollars, or in his
trying to return it? Search always for the unanticipated twist, the fresh approach!

Establishing a process of continuing elaboration may help too.
Don’t just sit and stare at your scribbled notes. Type them up, throwing in any new
thoughts that come to mind as you go along. Then, later, check through the typescript,
penciling in changes and additional ideas and second guesses.

Is this the only way to develop ideas?

Of course not. To explain creativity as multiple response to single stimulus is really
to define it as alertness—alertness to all that takes place around you; alertness
to the full potentialities of whatever comes your way.

To that end, maybe
your
best procedure involves floor scrubbing, or long solitary walks, or drawn shades
and bubble bath and Scarlatti on the record player. Perhaps you’ll discover special
insight from a private version of Twenty Questions, or Ben Jonson’s Topics of Invention,
or a file of blurbs or magazine story illustrations.

The important thing, always, is not to sit idly waiting for the feathers to grow.
Don’t just hope for ideas. Hunt them down! Find a springboard! Develop a plan of action!
Nothing is more subjective than an idea, and no canned approach ever can work quite
as well for you as your own system—even if said system is merely a matter of grope,
fumble, pace the floor, stare out the window, and snarl at your wife.

Where do you find facts to back up your ideas?

You engage in research.

Research comes in two sizes: too much and too little.

Unfortunately, a considerable number of would-be writers want to probe their psyches,
not the encyclopedia. They assume that fiction is one field in which adherence to
fact is unimportant, and so proceed to write with no regard whatever for reality.

To a degree, perhaps, they may be right. There have been successful western novelists
who used such terms as “fen” and “gorse,” and mystery writers who obviously didn’t
know the difference between a revolver and an automatic pistol.

On the other side of the fence, I still recall an adventure story of twenty years
ago that was spoiled for me because the author had soldiers in the Seminole War playing
stud poker—a game that didn’t come into vogue until some years later.

But if too little research can render a story ridiculous, too much can stop a career
before it starts. Ask any writing coach about the talented men and women who’ve postponed
authorship year after year, because they never could assemble quite all the information
that they thought they needed.

The trick, then, is to achieve a balance. How do you go about it?

Primarily, you limit yourself.

That is, you acquire only the information you need, insofar as possible. You don’t
pile up data just for data’s sake.—After all, is it really essential to your story
that you detail the exchange rates on Turkish currency in Genoa in 1540?

Hang onto that general principle.

Working from it, we find two favored ways to approach any given job of research.

One is to search out the facts you need.

The other is to use such information as you already have in your possession.

Thus, readers of westerns like authentic color.

Some writers, following System 1, spend hours without end tracking down details about
specific people and places and events.

Others, devotees of System 2, insert fragments from favored source books into a story
like cloves in a ham.

Obviously, these two modes of attack aren’t separate and exclusive. System-1 men don’t
work out
everything
afresh with each new title. And System-2 writers do, upon occasion, go hunting some
special bit of background.

It can’t be gainsaid, however, that System 2 saves time, when quantity production
is important. A single volume like Foster-Harris’
The Look of the Old West
can take the place of a small library, in skilled hands.

But approach is a matter of personal choice. Beyond it, research breaks down into
three categories:

Now, what’s involved in each?

Libraries are wonderful institutions. Especially if you learn to use them properly.

To that end, I strongly recommend that you at least scan a volume called
The Modern Researcher
, by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff. It will help you both to find the facts you
need and to organize them once they’re found. In addition, you’ll learn a host of
things you should know about weighing and evaluating information.

As a fictioneer, however, you have special problems. It’s these we’ll deal with here.

A warning comes first: Beware the beguilements of the bookshelves. They fascinate.
Before you know it, you may find yourself plowing through the thousand-odd pages of
The Trail Drivers of Texas
, when a single photo of Doan’s Store would solve your problem.

What you need, most often, is atmospheric detail.

You find such in eyewitness accounts, on-the-spot reports of events, associated records,
pictures, maps, instruction books, and the like. Though dull going sometimes, they
reward you with specialized data you never could obtain from secondary sources or
popularizers.

Where do you find this sort of information?

Here are five likely places to check:

How much did steak cost in New Orleans in 1920? Which Finnish names are common in
Duluth? What are typical local issues about which characters might gossip in Elko,
Nevada? When do lake freighters tie up for the winter at Buffalo? Does Baltimore have
a city manager? What’s the leading women’s-wear store in Waycross, Georgia?

A few minutes with the right newspaper file can supply you with such information and,
in the process, save you all sorts of letter-writing. As a bonus, you pick up the
atmosphere and attitudes of the community, from news columns and ads alike.

Here, the secret is to not limit yourself to generalized publications. While
Time
may give you succinct coverage of a news event, or
Saturday Evening Post
fill you in on a personality, the pictures in
National Geographic
or
Holiday
often provide more of the color you need.

Don’t forget trade and specialty journals, either.
Hardware World
gives you a cross section of current products and problems and procedures among its
group of retailers.
Boxoffice
provides you with topics for a theater manager to discuss.
Farm Journal
shows rural life as it is today, instead of the way you remember it from boyhood.
Grit and Steel
introduces you to the world of game birds and cockfighting.

Since bureaucracy seems determined to have its way with all of us, try to benefit
from the resulting flood of printed matter. Its range is incredible: child-care guides,
navigational instructions, information on the operation of all sorts of small businesses
. . . even an excellent criminal-investigation handbook.

Much of this material will already be in your local library. The librarian can tell
you where and how to get items not on file.

Do you need a character who can lay bricks or bind books or give a facial? Don’t worry;
somebody’s written a book about it, with the kind of detailed instructions that add
an air of realism to your story.

Good libraries have files that include all sorts of brochures, leaflets, clippings,
pamphlets, and assorted miscellany, from book catalogues to travel folders. There
may even be collections of maps or photos or telephone books or pioneer manuscripts.

At this point, another question usually arises: How much of a personal library should
you acquire?

There’s no sensible answer to this, really. Some items you’ll
need and should have, simply because you use them often and they’re not easily available
elsewhere.

On the other hand, it’s easy to go overboard. In my own case, things have reached
that unhappy state in which I have only to come in the front door with yet another
volume, and my wife cries, “But we’ve got a book!” in an appropriately anguished voice.
The fact that you do a story with a Sumatran locale doesn’t necessarily warrant acquisition
of half-a-dozen tomes on the East Indies. Odds are that they’ll gather dust on the
shelves for twenty years before you need them again—and by then they’ll be hopelessly
outdated.

Besides, space soon becomes a problem. Every big fact job I’ve ever done has brought
with it fat folders of printed matter, on subjects ranging from manure-spreader operation
to mental health to oil-field pumping equipment. When the file overflows, there’s
no choice but to dump some out, or buy a bigger house.

Clippings offer an added hazard. For a clip is useless unless you can find it, and
to find it you have to file it, and to file it takes time, and what do you want to
be anyhow, a writer or a file clerk?

Well, every man to his own compromises!

Fifteen years ago I took a job writing factual films.

The scripting of each such film, I soon discovered, is expedited if you insist that
the sponsor assign a technical adviser to assist you.

The expert steps in where book research ends. He corrects your mistakes and calls
your attention to developments too new to have reached the reference-shelf stage.
Without him, you grope, flounder, and waste vast quantities of time.