Techniques of the Selling Writer (49 page)

One agent, Paul R. Reynolds, has written a book called
The Writer and His Markets
. It covers the waterfront.

Read it.

CHAPTER 10

You and Fiction

So now you know how to write and sell a story: the tricks, the techniques, the devices,
the rules-of-thumb.

True, you still have plenty to learn. The creation of commercial fiction involves
all sorts of twists and subtleties. A writer can work at his craft for twenty years,
yet continue to discover something new each day.

But such fringe fragments are largely a matter of individual touch, and best assimilated
through experience. They’ll come with time and work.

More important, now, is a different question: Where do you go from here?

That depends on you, of course: your tastes, your talents, your ambitions; above all,
the depth of your inner need to write and sell.

And that brings us to a crucial issue: Just what
is
the nature of the need to write, precisely? Why does one man go on and on; another
not?

The answer, put briefly, is this: The writer is a man who seeks a larger world.

When he finds it, he passes it along to others.

Believe me, this can be a vital matter to you. Once you truly understand it and its
implications, your most irksome problems will be resolved.

Shall we move to the attack?

The true function of any teacher is to prepare his students to face the future and
strike out on their own.

To that end, and whether he plans it so or not, he ponders said students as much as
they ponder him.

My own chosen pondering-place is the University of Oklahoma, and the Professional
Writing program in which I teach. It provides me with student writers to observe,
and the fact of their talent is demonstrated by the success that they’ve achieved:
more than three hundred books published; literally thousands of magazine stories and
articles sold. Men and women like Neal Barrett, Jr., science-fiction specialist; Jack
M. Bickham, now with more than a dozen novels to his credit; Bob Bristow, major contributor
in the men’s field; Martha Corson, top confessioneer; Al Dewlen, whose
Twilight of Honor
was a Book of the Month Club selection and MGM film; Lawrence V. Fisher, with
Die a Little Every Day
for Random House and Mystery Guild; Fred Grove, winner of Western Writers of America
awards; Elizabeth Land Kaderli, author of assorted fact books; Harold Keith, whose
Rifles for Watie
claimed a Newbery Medal; Leonard Sanders—his latest novel is
The Wooden Horseshoe
, at Doubleday; the late Mary Agnes Thompson, one of whose short stories ended up
as an Elvis Presley movie; Mary Lyle Weeks, another leading confession writer now
moving into the hardback novel field, and Jeanne Williams, author of prize-winning
books for young people, are among those with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working
personally, at one time or another.

What do I find when I look back along the road that these writers and hundreds of
others like them have followed, as they went through courses with me and various of
my colleagues: Foster-Harris, Helen Reagan Smith (in the University’s Extension Division),
and the late Walter S. Campbell?

Typically, the beginning student (and in specialized professional courses such as
ours, “beginning student” often means a man or woman far past usual college age) is
eager to write, but has deficiencies and knows it. He can’t make words or readers
behave the way he wants them to. So, he comes to course or book to learn his craft.

The skills he needs are things that can be taught.

We teach them to him.

Very soon, however, Writer learns that tools and tricks alone just aren’t enough.

Why not?

Suppose an accident occurs at a busy intersection, in the presence of a dozen witnesses.

If the police are very lucky, they may locate one person upon whose account of the
wreck they can depend. The others catch part of the action only, or become confused,
or simply see things that didn’t happen.

Would-be writers, too, reflect a kind of private blindness. Give five of them the
self-same training and raw materials, and it may be your good fortune to have one
produce a story that’s worth the reading.

Thus, whether you deal with writer or with witness, the individual is the vital factor.

Why?

Because each person “sees” things differently.

Further, a different
type
of seeing is needed in each case.

The man the police want as an accident witness is one who sees facts: the World That
Is; what actually took place, without distortion or interpretation.

This kind of seeing constitutes a talent. To observe accurately takes experience and
training and a special kind of person.

What the writer needs, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite: the ability to
see
more
than the facts: to look beyond them; to hypothesize about them; to draw conclusions
from them.

Above all, he must use his facts as stimuli to feeling: emotionalize them; give them
a unique private life.

This, too, is a talent.

Why does one would-be writer see more than do his fellows?

Because one has it in him to
be
a writer. The others only wish they did.

And—now we’re back to where we started—this is because the true writer seeks a larger
world.

How so?

Because the World That Is can never be quite large enough to suit the writer. Hemmed
in by reality, he feels restive, no matter
how ideal his situation may appear to another eye. A rut gilded, to him, still remains
a rut.

And just as each character in a story draws motive force from his need to make up
for something that he lacks, so the writer is driven by his need to escape the limits
of a too-small world, the World That Is. It’s in his blood to range farther than life
can ever let him go. The impossible intrigues him. So do the unattainable, the forbidden,
the disastrous. Like the man who reads his stories, he wants to know what it’s like
to love, to hate, to thrill, to fear, to laugh, to cry, to soar, to grieve, to kill,
to die, from inside the skins of a hundred different people.

Nor is it enough for him just to know. He must play God too; guide the hand of fate;
somehow mold and control the forces that shape destiny.

These things can’t be. The writer realizes it.

But that only sharpens his desire and whets his craving; for his need to reach out
strikes deeper than the wildest dreams of other men.

And the writer
can
reach out, through the agency of his own imagination.

He does so.

Then, because the things he finds in the larger world that he creates so fascinate
him, he yearns to pass them on to others.

He does that too, through the medium of the written word.

Do I make this plain? The writer’s inner need is dual.

On the one hand, he’s driven by his desire to live life in a larger world.

On the other, he feels a compulsion to share that world . . . to display it for others
to admire.

Both these drives must coexist inside you, nagging and harassing, if you’re to be
a writer.

I stress this because it’s so seldom understood. Too often, the would-be writer thinks
that what he wants is fame or money or independence. He equates a taste for reading
or a knack with words for talent.

Now none of these beliefs are wholly false. But neither are they wholly true. They
evade the issue, for convenience’ sake or lack of insight or unwillingness to accept
the fact of difference, as the case may be.

Actually, what a writer seeks is a way of life, and that way constitutes its own reward.
The criterion is never art for art’s sake . . . always, it is art for self’s sake.
You write because you like to—need to, have to—write; there is no other valid reason.

Once let a writer recognize this; once let him understand his own dynamics, and uncertainty
and self-doubt fade. You learn to face the fact that if your inner need is great enough,
you’ll write. If other needs surpass it—if your drives to adventure or security or
love or recognition or family duties strike deeper—then you can turn away with no
regrets. You won’t have to kid yourself about fame or money or independence—those
are bonuses for special skill and talent; fringe benefits. Convenient and desirable
though they may be, on a basic level they’re only status symbols; society’s stamp
of approval to mark your success in your chosen field.

More important by far is your own self-satisfaction. Build larger worlds of your private
choosing; find the right readers to admire them, and you’ll live content despite an
income that would never rouse jealousy in a used-car salesman. Deny yourself your
Worlds of If, your readers, and you can be miserable even with a Rolls-Royce and a
Bel Air estate.

What is a story?

A story is so many things—

It’s experience translated into literary process.

It’s words strung onto paper.

It’s a succession of motivations and reactions.

It’s a chain of scenes and sequels.

It’s a double-barreled attack upon your readers.

It’s movement through the eternal now, from past to future.

It’s people given life on paper.

It’s the triumph of ego over fear of failure.

It’s merchandise that goes hunting for a buyer.

It’s new life, shared with readers by a writer.

A story is all these things and more. So much, much more . . .

For a story, in the last analysis, is
you
, transferred to print and paper. You: unique and individual. You, writer, who through
your talent range a larger world than others, and thus give life new meaning to all
who choose to read.

You: writer.

Attain that status, and you win fulfillment enough for any man!

APPENDIX A

Preparing Your Manuscript

Use sixteen- or twenty-pound white paper . . . black typewriter ribbon. Follow the
general style of the sample pages that follow, with one-inch margins all around and
plenty of space at the top of page one. Mail flat, first class, in a 9½×12½ or 10×13
kraft envelope. Enclose a stamped, self-addressed, 9×12 envelope for possible return.
Address simply to the magazine’s editorial department, unless you have reason to call
the script to the attention of some particular individual. No cover letter is necessary.

For market listings, consult:

Finally: