Writers of the Future, Volume 28 (13 page)

“Dad
?
”

She sat bolt upright, throwing aside the blanket. For a moment, she
seemed frozen. Like if she moved, the dream would dissolve around her. Then she
broke free and ran full into our arms. No one said anything, but no one really
needed to.

After a time, I pulled myself away. Irene sobbed quietly in her
mother’s arms. Marie looked at me over her shoulder as reality continued to
settle in. Her cheeks were streaked red as she smiled at me and mouthed the
words: I love you.

I turned to the mirror door. Hairline fractures riddled the surface
of the photo like spider webbing. I had to break the infinite recursion to end
the devastation inside. I gathered up the blanket and moved to throw it over the
photo.

“Leave it,” Marie said.

“The multiverse will be destroyed,” I said.

“I know,” Marie said, stepping over and resting a hand on my arm.
“But by now, everyone’s been pulled out. The worlds are empty and should stay
that way.”

She was right. Paradise was a wonderful dream, but we didn’t know
what to do with it. The pocket worlds had been special to a lot of people, but
too many more had abused them.

So why was it so hard to leave it behind
?

Marie took my face in her hands and looked me in the eyes.

“Jonathan,” she said. “Let it go.”

I looked into her eyes, a cascading spectrum of green, like emeralds
in shifting light, and realized that nothing else mattered. I had Marie, I had
Irene and my family was whole again. I let the blanket drop and hugged my wife.
I pressed my face into her shoulder and pushed my hands into her hair and, for
the first time in two years, I cried.

Story Vitality

BY L. RON HUBBARD

Since its inception, the L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Contest has become the single most effective means for an aspiring author to break into the ranks of publishing professionals.

The Contest, of course, was created by L. Ron Hubbard, one of America’s most accomplished writers of the twentieth century. He was a bestseller as a young man, with his stories gracing the covers of the hottest pulp magazines. Ron published nearly 250 works of fiction in all the popular genres of his day, including mystery, adventure, thriller, western, romance, horror and fantasy. Ultimately, he helped to usher in Science Fiction’s Golden Age with such genre-creating stories as
Final Blackout, Fear
and
To the Stars.

His broad understanding of the field, along with his proven techniques for generating tales quickly and gracefully, made him one of the most qualified people in the world to launch the Writers of the Future.

He knew the rigors of a writer’s life and how the publishing industry worked. He also recognized the vital elements a tale needed to be publishable, from story ideas to research to that intangible known as suspense. He pondered the depths of story vitality, and addressed the importance of an author researching his topic deeply, so that he understood the intricacies of his tale.

That he published articles on these very topics in the popular writing magazines of the day—
Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Review, The Author & Journalist
—comes as no surprise. That these essays are as valuable today to the aspiring writer as they were when first written is self-evident to any professional. For this reason, his essays were chosen to form the backbone of the now-famous Writers of the Future writers’ workshop. Taught by Tim Powers and K. D. Wentworth, it is regarded by many past winners as the most valuable of the Contest’s awards.

It was Algis Budrys, editor, author and the Contest’s first Coordinating Judge, who noted, “You will almost certainly become a successful writer if you take L. Ron Hubbard’s writing precepts to heart and practice them.” He noted that when an editor picks up a story, the first things he or she looks for are (1) a clear and recognizable character (2) in a detailed setting (3) who is doing something interesting.

In “Story Vitality” L. Ron Hubbard smoothly illustrates some of the fundamental techniques of how to build a story by carefully selecting these three basic elements.

Story Vitality

I
t vaguely irritates me to hear that a pulp writer need not know anything about his scene, that he should have no preoccupation with accuracy, that a beginning action scene and plenty of fight are the only requisites.

Many moons ago I wrote a story called
The Phantom Patrol.
I wrote it with an old-timer’s remarks in mind. I said to myself, “M’boy, you’re writing tripe, why slave over it
?
Why go to all the trouble of researching the thing
?
Your readers won’t know the difference anyway.”

And so
The Phantom Patrol
cruised the markets, collected copious rejects.

When it at last came limping home, abashed and whipped, I gazed sternly at it. It would seem that it had all the things required for a good story. It had action, it had unusual situations, it had lots of thud and blunder. Why, then, didn’t it sell
?

To understand the evolution of
The Phantom Patrol
, some of the plot is necessary. It concerns a Coast Guard boat, a dope runner and piracy.

The hero is a lieutenant, chasing a cargo of heroin. He gets cast ashore in the blow, his crew is all drowned, he wakes on the beach in the morning to discover that his vessel is still serviceable. But before he can board the boat, the dope runners shoot him down and steal the ship before his eyes.

He recovers from the wound, escapes to the C.G. base only to discover that he is tagged with the name of pirate. Unknown to him, the villains have taken his boat, have stopped liners in the name of the Coast Guard and have robbed them.

He has no way of proving his innocence, so he goes to jail, escapes, returns and wipes out the dope runners.

Ah, yes, I know. That story has always been good. I felt it would sell, but I could think of no way to pep it up.

I threw it in the ashcan and rewrote it all the way through. It went out again—and came home, more battered than ever.

Certainly there was something wrong, but I didn’t have time to waste on it and I threw it in the files.

It might well have stayed there forever, had I not been faced with one of those sudden orders which leave you cold and trembling for want of a plot.

The second rewrite of
The Phantom Patrol
was ten thousand words. The order was for twenty thousand. And all I could find in the files was
The Phantom Patrol
. Something had to be done about it. I had a few days to spare and I decided that maybe the Coast Guard might be able to slip me some data which would lengthen it.

Then and there, I learned something. The scene of the yarn was laid in the Gulf and Louisiana. In my rambles I seem to have missed both places. The theme was the Coast Guard and, outside of watching some of the C.G. boats, I knew little or nothing about the outfit.

But hadn’t an old-timer said that accurate data was unnecessary
?
Why did I have to go to all this trouble
?

It happened at the moment that I was writing aviation articles for about twenty-five bucks a throw. The price of the twenty-thousand worder was to be two hundred and fifty dollars.

Thinking about that, I reasoned that maybe I ought to spend a little time on the latter, if I always spent a day on an aviation article.

With the bare thought that maybe I could get some data for stretching purposes, I hied myself down to the city and looked around. A Coast Guard tug was tied to the dock.

Summoning up my nerve, I walked up the plank and rapped on the commanding officer’s door. He was engaged in changing his uniform, but he bade me enter.

I sat down on a transom and plied him with a few questions. He informed me with some heat that lieutenants were never in charge of seventy-five-foot patrol boats. Only chief petty officers captained them.

I asked him about the Gulf and service there, but he was rather ungracious about it. A little miffed, I started to go.

As a parting broadside, he said, “I always laugh when I read stories about the Coast Guard.”

And I stamped down the gangway, vowing that this would be one story which wouldn’t make the so-and-so laugh, yea man!

Another C.G. boat was in, a slim greyhound. I decided I ought to board her and see what I could discover there. No officers were aboard. The deck watch was headed by a chief petty officer, a grizzled soul with a salt tang to his speech.

“You wanna see the old tub, do you
?
” said the C.P.O. “All right, Johnny here will take you around.”

Johnny, another C.P.O., escorted me through the vessel. He explained about engines in terms which made me squirm. He showed me everything, including how to fire a one-pounder. He told me that dope runners were bad eggs. Why, once up in Maine he had . . .

And so passed the afternoon.

I skittered homeward, mentally afire. I blessed the C.P.O. and cursed the officer in the same breath.

By God, those officers weren’t so hot. My hero was the chief petty officer, beleaguered by officers and dope runners, battered by hurricanes in the Gulf, patrolling the sea with a keen salt wind nipping at him.

The new
Phantom Patrol
began:

Crisp and brittle, the staccato torrent ripped out from the headphones, “S.O.S. . . . S.O.S.—Down in storm 20 miles south of Errol Island. Hull leaking. Starboard wing smashed . . . Cannot last two hours. . . . Transport plane New Orleans bound sinking 20 miles . . . !”

Johnny Trescott’s opinion of the matter was amply summed in the single word, “Damn!”

And there I had it. Johnny is trailing the dope runners, but because saving life comes before stopping crime, he must leave his course and rescue the transport plane.

But the runner, Georges Coquelin, hears the S.O.S. too and, as there’s wealth aboard that plane, Johnny walks straight into Coquelin when he tries to rescue the transport.

The atmosphere began to crackle in the yarn. I was still listening to that C.P.O. telling me about these trips, these escapes:

Heinie Swartz eyed the dripping foredeck of the lunging 75-footer. Green seas topped with froth were breaking. The one-pound gun was alternately swallowed and disgorged by water. The two 200 h.p. Sterling Diesels throbbed under the deck, pounding out their hearts against the blow.

I knew what made the boat tick and I could visualize it. I was suddenly so secure in my data that I felt able to tinker with the effect of situations.

The wordage went up like a skyrocket. I had so much at my command that I was hard put to hold the stuff down.

And then when Johnny came back to the base, he’s up against the officers. And are those officers a bunch of thick-witted, braid-polishing bums
?
I hope to tell you:

Lieutenant Maitland, counsel for the defense, entered with stiff, uncompromising strides. He had been appointed to the task much against his will, and the fact was clearly etched in his sunburned face. He sparkled with gold braid and distaste.

When he entered the cell, he eyed his two “clients” with disgust. Garbed as they were in prison dungarees, they were two uninteresting units which comprised a sordid case.

Johnny and Heinie stood up, in deference to his rank, but Maitland either forgot or refused to give the order, “At ease!”

In those first two stories, the patrol boat had merely been a method of conveyance. Now it began to live and snort and wallow in the trough.

The plight of Johnny, meeting up with Georges Coquelin and losing his ship, was capped by the attitude of the officers. He was in trouble and no mistake. When I started thinking about what would actually happen in such a case, I began to feel very, very sorry for my hero. He was really on the spot.

And then, I had a little personal interest in the case too. Somebody thought they’d laugh when they read the yarn, eh
?
Well, let them try to laugh now.

With a very clear picture of Coast Guard armament in my mind, I was able to give the final scenes the reality, the zip they needed. And those final scenes, when you’re tired, need something outside to give them life.

Johnny Trescott sighted the lighted hut they had first seen. A harsh streak of lightning showed that the clearing was empty. The door of the hut swung to and fro in the wind.

Johnny pulled back the loading handle of the machine gun. The belt dangled over his shoulder, drooling water from its brace studded length.

Collected data changed the plot, pepped up the writing, gave the story an undercurrent of vitality which made the yarn. The wild implausibility of the original was there because I had no actual vision of what the Coast Guard tried to do and how it did it.

The first two drafts were laughable, worthless. But my writing hadn’t changed so terribly much. Nothing had changed but the subject.

And the subject had changed because I could feel it.

The Phantom Patrol
was published in the January
Five Novels
. The illustrator made a slight error in making the pictures those of officers.

But even then the Coast Guard did not laugh. They read the story and wrote me about it and I felt that I had succeeded.

Adventure is as difficult as you want to make it. The way to make it difficult is to sail blithely along, listening to the words of wisdom dropped by the old-timers about how the knowledge of the subject is unnecessary. One should listen and then promptly forget.

Oh well, maybe when I’ve been in the game twenty-five years, I’ll go around pooh-poohing everything, especially accuracy. But if I do, I hope some young feller will take me for a buggy ride. Maybe I’ll remember then how I used to sell.